My RHA
An interesting journey
10th December 2021 | posted in News
One of the biggest challenges facing housing associations today is decarbonisation.
The Local Government Chronicle described retrofitting housing in our sector as the “most daunting projects” and when you consider the age of many of my Association’s properties (remembering we have been going for over 100 years), it’s not something to be taken lightly.
The recent UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow brought the importance of protecting the environment firmly into the spotlight, although minimising our own carbon footprint is something we have been acutely aware of for a while.
It’s why we engage consultants to review our entire housing stock to give us a baseline position and as I write this, the report is due back very shortly.
It will set out how much work we need to do between now and 2030 to reach zero carbon status, although we haven’t just been waiting for this report, in fact we’re already hard at work improving the external wall insulation at some of our homes, as well as carrying out an external cladding programme.
Another thing we are looking at is renewable heating technologies, such as air source heat pumps. We are no longer going to be fitting gas boilers when we build new homes but the big question at the moment is what we are going to replace them with.
Air source heat pumps, for example, are obviously good for the environment, but due to their size there will be space issues at some of our flats and sheltered housing schemes. Another thing we will need to take into careful consideration is the age of many of our residents. Air source heat pumps produce an ambient temperature throughout the day, which may not be warm enough for some people, so this is not something we can ignore.
The main thing is that as we continue our own decarbonisation journey, we will be bringing our residents with us. They will be consulted throughout and any decisions we make will be done so with their best interests in mind.
One thing is for sure, it will be an interesting journey!
