The Big Retrofit

Our journey transitioning a home for net zero

Two story house on Regent Road in Skipton

Retrofitting is the process of renovating a property to make it more energy efficient, warmer in winter and less reliant on fossil fuels for power and heat. It is going to be a major talking point for homeowners in the next few years. As part of the government’s 2050 net zero target, an estimated 14.3 million* UK properties need upgrading to be more energy efficient and less reliant on fuels.

To help our members better understand what it involves, we’ve undertaken a retrofit of our own. And we want to share our experiences with you.

We own a home opposite our Skipton Building Society head office that we were able to retrofit over Autumn 2024. It’s a mid-size, 1930s detached property. It has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a separate dining room, kitchen, and lounge.

Working with other Skipton Group organisations and industry experts, we transformed the property. By doing so, the home’s energy performance certificate (EPC) rating went from a ‘D’ to a ‘B’.

The measures we installed included:

  • 12 solar panels with battery storage.
  • Topped up loft insulation.
  • An air source heat pump to replace the combi gas boiler.
  • Triple glazed windows and doors.
  • Cavity wall insulation.
  • Underfloor insulation (ground floor only).
  • New ventilation measures to maintain good air quality.

Continue scrolling for more information about these measures – including the costs and what we learned from trying them out.

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Experience a virtual tour of The Big Retrofit to see what we’ve done, how it looks, the costs and the impact it made.

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regent-road-house

What we did

To help you consider what you could do to retrofit your home, you can find out more about the measures we tried. We’ve also included information on the costs. 

1. Ventilation [PDF]

2. Cavity wall insulation [PDF]

3. Under floor and loft insulation [PDF]

4. Triple-glazing [PDF]

5. Solar and battery [PDF]

6. Air Source Heat Pump [PDF]

What we learned

Trying a retrofit for ourselves taught us so much. You can find out full details of our key learnings in our dedicated Big Retrofit Report [PDF].

  • For most homes, retrofitting requires a sequenced plan of work.
  • Without changes to electricity price premiums, retrofitting can't guarantee lower bills but can deliver lower energy consumption, improved comfort and air quality.
  • Getting the basics right first is a crucial part of retrofitting (working with experts can help you with this).
  • Investigate grants, discounts and VAT exemptions to potentially save money.

It is possible to make older homes warm, comfortable and future-proof. In total, we saw a 54% reduction^ in overall heat loss to the property, as measured by experts at the Leeds Sustainability Institute.

“Now is absolutely the time for action. That’s why my hope is that The Big Retrofit can make a meaningful difference to our members – and to the wider UK – in transitioning homes for net zero.”

Stuart Haire

Group Chief Executive

The story of The Big Retrofit

See how our retrofit came to life – the results, what the experts think, and the key learnings we’ve taken from trying it for ourselves. 

Policy recommendations

Going through a retrofit journey taught us a lot about the benefits of getting homes ‘transition ready’. But it also highlighted just how challenging it’s likely to prove for the millions of homeowners who need to consider it over the next few years.

That’s why, using our learnings from this project, we’ve set out some policy recommendations to the UK government. You can read about these in our Policy Recommendations Report [PDF].

Finding out where your home currently stands

Over half of Society members we surveyed don’t know their home’s EPC rating. Eligible members, can arrange a free EPC Plus report from Vibrant to find out.

  • It’s completely free for you to get your own, personalised report.
  • A member of the Vibrant team will visit your property and carry out a thorough review.
  • You’ll receive a detailed report on how energy efficient your property is.
  • You’ll also get tailored recommendations that could improve its energy efficiency and carbon footprint.
  • You can ask for detailed quotes for the cost of work if you were to act on the recommendations.
  • You don’t need a Skipton mortgage to arrange a free report – it’s available to all home-owning members.
  • You can get a free report on up to 10 properties.
  • The offer is not available on properties constructed within the last 10 years. Full Terms and Conditions [PDF] apply, which you should read carefully before applying. 
  • The EPC Plus offer may be withdrawn without notice if demand exceeds supply. Notification of the offer withdrawal will be posted on skipton.co.uk. In the event of the scheme being withdrawn, we will continue to honour applications for EPC Plus made before our notice of withdrawal.

Find out more about our EPC Plus offer

EPC Plus is provided by Vibrant Energy Matters Ltd. Vibrant are owned by Connells Limited, part of the Skipton Group. EPC Plus is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Are you looking to fund retrofit home improvements?

Find out about our Green Additional Borrowing, which could support you if you’re a Skipton mortgage customer and you’re looking to reduce your carbon footprint.

Additional borrowing

 

Are you a Buy to Let landlord?

Around one in three of our surveyed landlord members aren’t aware of the proposed rule changes on minimum energy efficiency standards. The UK Government is currently holding a consultation.

The new rules are set to potentially come into effect from 2028 for new tenancies – and from 2030 for all tenancies. If you’re a landlord and aren’t sure how it might impact you, we recommend you read more about the UK Government's plans.

Further support

Factoring retrofitting into your home-owning journey now could prove hugely beneficial over the long-term. But where to begin? 

See what experts say

You can download a copy of the Regent Road Retrofit Final Report. This research report was commissioned by the Society and independently completed by Leeds Beckett University and University of Leeds. 

We asked our research partners to carry out the following research on the home:

  • Find out how much heat the building lost before and after the retrofit.
  • Check the air tightness of the house before and after the retrofit.
  • Use thermal photography to identify hot and cold spots in the property.
  • Interview people in the retrofit journey to understand what key decisions were made and document the overall experience of completing the work.

Read the Regent Road Retrofit Final Report [PDF].

Consider these key retrofit questions

It’s worth developing a long-term plan for retrofitting in stages. That way it could better suit your priorities and your lifestyle.

To help you build that plan, it’s worth asking yourself:

For example, you might want to make your home more comfortable temperature to live in, or you might want to reduce your carbon footprint. It might be to save money or boost the potential resale value of your home (although there are no guarantees retrofitting will achieve this). Or maybe you want to take action to reduce your home’s carbon footprint.

Being clear about your aims will help you when assessing options.

If an expert has already assessed your home and provided you with an EPC rating, they will be able to provide tailored recommendations that could make a difference if taken up. It’s worth checking their report to review these recommendations.

It’s definitely worth looking into available grants before you commit to any retrofit work. They could provide significant cost savings.

Grants are subject to eligibility and terms and conditions. Your personal circumstances could influence what you’re eligible for.

If you’re living in the property at the same time as retrofit work goes on, the fact parts of your house might be inaccessible could be very inconvenient. It might be best to focus on doing a small bit at a time, room by room, so the house remains liveable.

If you have other, general home improvement plans in the future, it’s a good idea to factor this in too. It might help to combine these plans to reduce overall disruption.

There are plenty of retrofit specialists available. It’s always a good idea to research them first, and potentially ask a few suppliers to provide you with a quote for comparison.

As with other trades, also look out for evidence of relevant training and professional accreditations and association memberships.

If you do, it’s worth picking their brains to learn about their experiences – what went well, and what caused headaches. That way, you might avoid any pitfalls that impacted them, and feel more confident you’re doing the right thing.

“It’s very tempting to look at retrofitting as something that’s too big and too far off to worry about. But this challenge isn’t going to go away and will become even more prevalent over the next few years. That’s why factoring retrofitting into your home-owning journey now could prove hugely beneficial over the long-term.”

Annie Heaton

Group Sustainability Homes Senior Lead, Skipton Building Society

Frequently asked questions

Retrofitting is all about updating and improving properties to make them more energy efficient. It offers all sorts of benefits. This includes the potential to lower energy bills and boost the comfort of your home.

As a nation, the UK government has targeted we reach net zero emissions by 2050. So the importance of making plans for your home is likely to grow over the next few decades.

Skipton Building Society heads up the Skipton Group. The Skipton Group is made up of organisations with shared goals. Collectively, the Skipton Group helps nearly 1 in 10 people who buy and sell houses. We are one of the largest players in the UK housing market. This puts us in a strong position to support people in making their homes more energy efficient.

We are keen to explore new ways to offer practical guidance and demystify what it means to retrofit your home. That’s why The Big Retrofit was launched.

As part of the government’s target of the UK reaching net zero by 2050, it needs as many homes as possible to have a minimum Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of C by 2035. To reach this target, the government estimates 14.3 million* UK properties need upgrades. We wanted to understand exactly what a retrofit involved by going through one. That way, our members could benefit from our experience.

The short answer is – everything we could. Retrofitting homes is a relatively new concept. And there are many perfectly good reasons why you might be put off considering taking steps with your own home. We wanted to learn about the blockers, challenges, costs, benefits, and realities of retrofitting. And we wanted to pass on what we find out.

  • How much does retrofitting really cost?
  • Does retrofitting your home lead to lower energy bills?
  • How exactly do the retrofitting measures benefit the environment?

Our main goal was helping our members. But we wanted to dig a bit deeper into the retrofitting industry as a whole. This included understanding the experiences of those who deliver retrofitting services. From contractors to assessors to architects. We were keen to give the professionals a voice too, so we could build up a more rounded picture.

We will use the findings to help inform how we could support our members with decarbonising their homes. We're sharing our findings and recommendations with bodies, the UK Government and policy makers.

We were proud to have partnered with Leeds Beckett University and Leeds University. Their experts performed tests on the property before and after the retrofit, and also interviewed key stakeholders throughout the retrofit process to glean key learnings. They measured the heat loss and air tightness of the property (known as “fabric tests”), to see what difference the retrofit measures made.

We also worked with trusted experts, both within the Skipton Group and around the industry. This included Vibrant, which is owned by Connells Limited, part of the Skipton Group. Vibrant completed a before and after EPC Plus Report on the property. We worked with contractors to carry out the retrofit work.

Work began in November 2023. This is when the first fabric tests were completed. Over the first half of 2024, we worked with designers and specialists to create a retrofit design proposal.

The retrofit work itself took place over the second half of 2024. When it was finished, researchers returned to perform post-retrofit fabric tests, and they provided a final report of their findings in early 2025.

Yes. When selecting contractors to deliver the retrofit, we strived to use local businesses where we could. For example, we worked with a Preston-based architect. Leeds Beckett University and Leeds University lead the research. We also worked with a Keighley-based building contractors to deliver the retrofit works.

An architect might need to be involved if you are choosing to retrofit your home at the same time as other renovation or extension activity, but it isn’t the only option. It very much depends on whether you know where to start, how much time you have available, and how confident you feel.

There are new businesses starting that help people cut through the noise when it comes to retrofits. In our case, we've been working closely with Retrogreen by Digital Buildings Limited.

Retrogreen provides you with a 'With You All The Way' home retrofit service. They handhold you right from the start of the journey to completion.

  • You can understand what measures are right for you and your property, plus the benefits and costs.
  • They then visit your home and assess your property and prepare all the documents required to obtain competitive quotes.
  • They introduce you to pre-qualified TrustMark registered contractors who can undertake all of the work and then check afterwards it has been done properly.

Equally, it is possible to manage a retrofit yourself – there are plenty of companies that can help with specific measures like cavity wall, loft insulation installation and solar panels. The work can be staggered and undertaken at your own pace.

At Skipton we did a whole home retrofit, so installed lots of different measures at the same time. We also did the work within a short time frame, which could be quite disruptive for a typical homeowner. For these reasons we  also worked with a specialist energy efficiency architecture firm (Energy Conscious Designs) who kept it running smoothly.

    How we got started?

    *Department for Energy Security & Net Zero and Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (2022) Reducing emissions across the economy. Available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/net-zero-strategy/3-reducing-emissions-across-the-economy (Accessed June 2025).

    ^Heat loss reduction results from testing performed by the Leeds Beckett University. Full results available are available within Regent Road Retrofit Final Report [PDF].