What does ‘retrofit’ mean for your home?

We explore how retrofitting can make your home more comfortable and eco-friendly.

Thinking about making your home more energy efficient? When we talk about retrofit, we're talking about making an existing home easier and more affordable to heat, more comfortable to live in, and kinder to the planet by lowering carbon emissions. 

What is retrofit?

To ‘retrofit’ is to add something new to an existing structure that wasn’t originally part of it. When it comes to homes, ‘energy efficient retrofit’ (or just ‘retrofit’) refers to the process of upgrading an older home to bring it up to today’s energy standards. It’s a way of making homes warmer, more efficient and environmentally friendly by adding modern eco features and improvements. 

How is retrofit different from energy efficiency?  

While retrofit and energy efficiency essentially mean the same thing, retrofit generally refers to bigger upgrades that create more substantial energy savings. Think of it as a complete toolkit for improving your home’s energy performance. Retrofitting can include adding solid wall or loft insulation, installing new windows or doors, incorporating low carbon heating systems, draught-proofing, or integrating solar panels and new ventilation systems.  

In the UK many homes are quite old, which leads to wasted energy – around 40% of our carbon emissions come from buildings. Retrofitting these homes is therefore essential not just for the fight against climate change, but also for making homes affordable to heat, especially in a future where rising energy prices are likely to be the norm. 

This is why at Bath & West Community Energy, we’ve developed the Home Energy service – it's designed to help homeowners make meaningful energy improvements. You can see even more benefits of retrofitting our homes, explored in our first blog.  

Why take a ‘whole house’ approach? 

When planning a home retrofit, whether you tackle it all at once or in stages, we believe it’s important to think about the whole house. Each improvement – such as adding insulation or a new heating system – will affect other parts of your home. For example, with improved insulation, you may able to downsize your heating system, saving you money. But without careful planning, some upgrades can cause unintended consequences, like moisture buildup in walls and ceilings, which can be challenging and costly to fix later on. 

So, considering the range of measures you might implement and looking over the longer term – taking a whole house approach – can help save you money and deliver a better outcome. Even if you only want to go ahead with one or two upgrades right now. 

That’s why we offer a range of retrofit plans. They each provide you with an overview of various different measures you could take, and how they could be phased over time to best complement each other.   

Where can I learn more? 

Our partners Retrofit West have plenty of useful resources on what retrofit involves, including their guide ‘How can I retrofit my home?’ and this video that showcases real homeowners who have already started their home retrofit journey. 

In our next blog, we’ll be diving into what’s involved with getting a retrofit plan. For now, feel free to explore our range of home energy surveys and retrofit plans on our Get a Survey page.