Services for householders

Our independent not-for-profit service offers householders impartial advice on domestic retrofit from our base in Manchester*. Our role is to help you understand the options and risks so you can be confident in your decision making at each stage of your retrofit journey.

Understanding your project aims is crucial to helping you make good decisions. If we think we may be able to help you, our retrofit advisors will support you to develop a retrofit project brief in a short phone call. This will help you decide how to tackle your project and be clear about what’s important to you, as well as understanding how our service could help you.

Our expert surveyors use our Home Retrofit Planner process and tool to help you plan with confidence. We include a detailed home survey visit to understand your home’s context, ‘retrofit readiness’, and potential for improvement. We tailor our recommendations to suit your circumstances, aims, and budget. We test a range of scenarios so you can understand the impact of the options available and we can support you to decide on a firm plan. A sample of the scenarios report we produce is here.

Prices start at £900 (incl VAT) but may be higher depending on your home’s size and complexity.

You may choose to take your project plan forward yourself, but we can also offer a range of services to support you. We will consider your aims, budget, timescales and project complexity in advising on our services. If we are unable to help, we may signpost you to alternative support through our network of retrofit specialists.

Retrofit specification support - We can provide standard specifications to help ensure quality in your project and minimise risks. This is only available where we have helped you develop your retrofit plan. This is so we are familiar with your home and can be sure the advice we give is appropriate. Detailed specifications describe the preparation, materials, method and maintenance guidance required for a retrofit measure. For example, for loft and floor insulation, new windows and other works that can be similar in many homes. Our specifications are regularly reviewed and updated. We may also be able to support you to identify suitable contractors, or signpost to relevant training. We may be able to offer a follow-up site inspection if requested (see below). From £200 plus VAT per measure.

Retrofit design review – We can review drawings and specifications to provide insights on retrofit opportunities and risks. This can be valuable if you're working with a building professional who is new to retrofit. It can also be useful if you're planning an extension or other building alterations and wish to incorporate retrofit elements. This service includes an information review, a short meeting (online or in person), and follow up notes with key comments. Priced at £400 plus VAT.

Full retrofit design service**: This provides bespoke technical design information for your retrofit project. This clarifies requirements and enables coordination of construction work. It can provide greater certainty when obtaining quotes. We usually recommend this where there are greater risks due to the complexity or scope of the project***. It includes support with planning applications and building control. The full design service is priced according to complexity and scope of the work. From £2,500+VAT.

On site and handover support: This is only offered on projects where People Powered Retrofit have provided design work. We can support tendering and procurement to get your project started, helping you identify potential contractors and installers. During construction we offer site inspection to support quality control and specific technical advice. We can also support with handover guidance and documentation when construction work is complete****.

We are currently developing our post completion services in collaboration with Carbon Co-op. We’ll share more here as this part of our service evolves.

Notes:

*We cover Greater Manchester, Cheshire, Merseyside, South Lancashire, the western Peak District and south west Pennines. If you’re outside our area of operations we may direct you towards one of our partner organisations.

** Please note that we are only able to offer a full design service to a limited number of clients per year. This is to ensure that we continue to offer a high quality service as we grow our capacity.

*** This service is suitable for projects where multiple retrofit measures are planned or the existing house is fairly complex. We don’t usually take very large or complicated projects into our full design service - for example houses over 300sqm and/or with a large extension and/or significant alterations and/or aiming for EnerPHIT or a Passive House Certification. We may instead signpost you towards a specialist designer and/or construction manager. Our Retrofit Design Review service is still available in these cases.

****We cannot provide contract administration or project management services during construction. We may be able to signpost you to others able to provide this service if you and your contractors are not able to manage this aspect of the work.