Delivery of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund 2.1 (SHDF) is in full swing. Initial plans are being tested by the real world as retrofit coordinators develop the MTIPs required by PAS2035.

And initial plans don’t always meet that test.

That’s no criticism. The bid window was tight and landlords had to develop bids on the basis of data available. Our Portfolio service helped clients price in the risk of uncertain data. But changes are always likely and our service helps users adapt to new information.

How to quickly update retrofit improvement plans (MTIPs)?

The answer lies in Portfolio’s Labs functionality, or in Surveyor Pro Labs for individual plans, where users can:

• add data relating to occupancy and airtightness to improve the accuracy of calculations
• customise measures, for example specify the performance of heat pumps or the u-value of a specific insulation measure
• apply the pricing they can achieve in their local market
• export MTIPs to Excel and editable Word templates, to brief installers or engage tenants

The advantage of this approach is that retrofit coordinators can tailor plans to the individual home and its residents, and in response to emerging issues. It may be useful where tenants refuse certain measures, or the retrofit coordinator wants to take new costs such as scaffolding into account.

The retrofit coordinator can start with a blank piece of paper, or they can start with a plan generated using Portfolio’s stock modelling service.

Under SHDF retrofit coordinators will be working with data from retrofit assessments. They can upload that data into Surveyor Pro and will be presented with measures relevant to that home. As they add measures to the plan, the software will automatically calculate the individual cost and benefit of the measure, and its impact on the MTIP as a whole. Not least to assess whether the plan will deliver the programme’s targets in terms of SAP and heat demand.

Importantly it will also identify where measures are incompatible, with each other or the property.

How to plan and budget for retrofit over time

And why stop at Medium Term Improvement Plans, when Labs can plan for phased work. Any plan to meet immediate programme targets, should work in the context of longer-term goals. For example, our users are looking beyond SHDF to the decarbonisation of heat, or higher fabric targets to bring down the costs of bills. Set phases in Labs and Retrofit Coordinators can create a staged plan that ensures measures in MTIPs work towards those long-term goals.

This Labs functionality is available to our Portfolio users and to other Retrofit Coordinators through our Surveyor Pro software. Contact us if you want to find out more.