RISE Round Up, 2024 - sharing experiences from across the sector

Podcasts 

All RISE's podcasts can be found here - there's over 50 episodes to dive into, covering all aspects of the retrofit project planning and delivery journey.

Here's just a few of the most popular "peer-led" episodes from 2024:

Air Quality and retrofit with Simon Jones, air quality consultant

In this episode, our podcast host Jordane Shaw is joined by Simon Jones, Air Quality Consultant and podcast host for Air Quality Matters. Together, they discuss the broad subject of air quality. How important it is that housing providers consider their residents’ ‘indoor’ air quality, the impacts of issues like damp, mould and ventilation, and how a well-considered retrofit project can make significant improvements to a properties air quality, as well as helping a scheme to comply with standards such as PAS 2035. The discussion also explores how a provider can monitor air quality within a home (beyond the mandatory CO2 alarms), how investing in improving resident understanding of these issues can help ensure successful schemes.

The value of PAS2035 with Parity Projects and Orbit Group

PAS 2035 is the quality standard for the energy efficiency sector, and a requirement for all government-funded retrofit work. And although it can be a lengthy and complicated process, it can also help to manage the significant technical risks associated with retrofit, ensuring housing providers implement a compliant and well-scoped project. n In this episode of the podcast, host Sarah Daly is joined by Russell Smith from Parity Projects and Fallon Warren from Orbit Group.  Listen as the three outline the basics of PAS 2035, how to embrace the key principles of the standard, and why compliance shouldn’t hold you back from applying for future funding.

Retrofit revisit: 10 case studies

This episode focuses on the research and findings of the "Retrofit Revisit: 10 Case Studies" report. Host Sarah Daly is joined by co-authors; Julie Godefroy, Head of Net Zero Policy, Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) and Marion Baeli, Principal, Sustainability Transformation at 10 Design.

The report looked at the building performance evaluation of 10 retrofitted homes, carried out approximately 10 years after the original retrofit works. During the podcast they cover the energy performance of the homes, the housing archetypes and the key take aways for future retrofit projects. The Retrofit revisit: 10 case studies report can be downloaded ⁠here.

Heat Pumps: tackling the problem of over and under specification

This latest episode of the RISE podcast focuses on monitoring and evaluation techniques for heat pumps, with Dr Richard Jack, Technical Director at Build Test Solutions. Together with our podcast host Sarah Daly, we explore the issue of over or under specification of heat pumps, why around 70% of heat pumps fitted in homes today may not be delivering as effectively as they could because of this issue, and how it can be avoided.

Masterclasses

We have a full playlist of all 2024's peer-led Masterclasses on the RISE YouTube channel. Explore the selection of videos here.