The Green Deal Communities programme was a government initiative begun in 2013 to improve domestic energy efficiency. Twenty-four local authorities were offered a share of £88m from the Government to deliver street-by-street energy efficiency improvements with a particular focus on solid wall insulation.
At CSE, we were interested to find out how these solid wall insulation schemes were designed, and in particular how they were applied to traditional and heritage buildings (e.g. those pre-1919 terraced streets) which can be damaged if the process is applied poorly.
We conducted an email-based survey of the 24 local authorities that had received Green Deal Communities funding, asking about the overall business model for the insulation programme, whether the systems adopted were designed with older properties in mind, whether specific planning allowances were made for heritage properties, and concerns about visual impacts, cold-bridging and appropriate detailing around roof eaves, windows, decorative brickwork etc.
One of the authors was Dan Stone who said. "Whilst it's difficult to draw meaningful conclusions about the effectiveness of the different approaches taken by the local authorities from such a small sample size, the results nevertheless provide an interesting insight into different councils have approached their schemes and what areas have been of concern to them."
