Smarter Strategies for the Retrofit Revolution

With 30 million UK homes and thousands of commercial buildings needing upgrades before 2050, retrofit is now a race against time. At the 2025 CIBSE Technical Symposium, four peer-reviewed papers revealed practical frameworks that can turbo-charge delivery. Below we unpack each study showing how  VEXO’s own products slot neatly into the picture.

Prioritising By Archetype: Whole-House Wins

Dr May Zune’s team modelled fourteen South-Yorkshire house types and compared fabric-only, systems-only and combined packages. They found that: 

  • Whole-house “fabric-first, systems-second” retrofits yield the deepest long-term carbon cuts. 
  • Retrofitting older, larger Victorian & Georgian homes first gives the biggest stock-level pay-off, even if deployment rates stay modest. 
  • Stock-level planning must link archetype maps with socio-economic data to direct funding to fuel-poor streets. 

Take-away for estates teams: segment your portfolio by size, age and form-factor, then sequence projects on carbon return-on-investment, not just EPC ratings. 

Bar chart comparing existing and residual annual energy demands for heating across 14 housing archetypes, including Ofgem benchmarks by household size
"Baseline" vs "Fabric + Systems" Retrofit

Hospitals & Multi-Criteria Decision-Making

Kubra Doguc et al. tackled some of the UK’s most energy-hungry buildings: deep-plan tower hospitals (DPTHs). Using an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) with NHS stakeholders plus simulation-based optimisation, they produced retrofit bundles that balance: 

  • Energy & carbon reduction 
  • Life-cycle cost 
  • Clinical disruption risk 

Stakeholder input sharpened results and delivered robust, reality-checked solutions for HVAC, façade and lighting upgrades. 

Action point: involve end-users early; their weightings can swing the optimal package by double-digit percentages. 

Graphs showing refurbishment priorities, energy usage by building systems, and building element upgrade focus, including cost and disruption considerations
Analytical Hierarchy Process - AHP Results

Moisture-Risk Management for Suspended Timber Floors 

Millions of pre-1919 homes still have uninsulated suspended timber floors (STFs). Apostolos Evangelopoulos presented the MRAM framework—a combined Risk-Map + 3-D Risk-Matrix that assigns a Key Risk Indicator (KRI) to every moisture pathway before insulation is installed. 

  • KRI = Likelihood × Severity × Detection. 
  • Empirical data continually refines rankings, turning MRAM into a dynamic decision tool. 
  • Floors deemed “safe” can then be robot-spray-insulated, unlocking large embodied-carbon savings. 

Specifier tip: add MRAM to your PAS 2035 risk-register to avoid post-retrofit damp claims. 

Diagram of moisture ingress and relative humidity effects in a building, highlighting issues such as blocked gutters, poor ventilation, and water table influence
Mosture risk in residential buildings

Retrofit Vision 2050: A Digital “North Star” for Portfolios 

Commercial landlords can feel paralysed by clashing targets. The Mace team built a single-source-of-truth platform that layers CRREM carbon pathways, asset data and CAPEX/OPEX forecasting into a live dashboard. Results so far: 

  • 500,000 t CO₂e of identified client savings. 
  • A four-stage Discover–Design–Develop–Deliver workflow aligned to PAS 2038. 
  • Quick-win optimisations (“easy wins”) secure early buy-in while deeper projects queue up. 

Portfolio insight: mapping stranding risk visually helps boardrooms unlock funding three times faster. 

North Star performance framework visual with concentric circles showing data sources, standards (PAS2038, PAS2080), and key stakeholders like CRREM and SBTI
MACE - North Star

How VEXO accelerates every strategy 

Product comparison table showing features and benefits of VEXO X-POT, Y-MAG, and S-BMS for filtration, magnetic removal, and building management systems

Ready to design a smarter retrofit? 

Whether you’re planning an archetype-led housing scheme, upgrading an NHS estate, tackling moisture-risk floors, or steering a multi-asset net-zero roadmap – VEXO can help. 

Contact our technical team or book a product demo of X-POT, Y-MAG and S-BMS.

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