I saw the scale of the work involved retrofitting a standard cottage-type interwar semi-detached property this week. Having to repeat the process for every single property of its type in the city and more, is utterly daunting
Cambridge Carbon Footprint has been leading on attempts to encourage people to retrofit their homes to reduce their environmental impact in Cambridge for many years. I went to visit their exemplar property in South Cambridge – a standard interwar semi-detached house (such as the ones along Perne Road, Cambridge) with pitched roofs, small front, and larger back garden.
The main purpose was to learn about rainwater harvesting – learning that as soon as the water hits the ground legally it belongs to whichever water company is responsible for drainage. Which reminded me of the Only Fools and Horses episode of Del and Rodney selling Peckham Spring Water which was around the time shops started selling bottled water after a health scare about lead pipes in the late 1980s. That’s what my late grandparents told me at the time anyway!
The latest regulatory position statement from the Government is from 2021,
The principles however, are longstanding
“The key principle that the regulations promote and uphold is the total isolation of non-potable water from all drinking water supplies. Therefore they run in parallel with guidelines on how the mains water supply should be connected to a household or building, and what basic plumbing features must be adhered to.
“Essentially, rainwater (or any other non-potable water) must be kept totally separate from mains water by means of an ‘air gap’.“
Above – from Rainwaterharvesting.co.uk
The site also says that with an historically wet climate, UK housing design did not prioritise efficient water use in ways that are essential in very dry climates in other countries. Hence our industrial base does not have the expertise that other countries have when it comes to designing, installing, and running rainwater harvesting systems. Furthermore, the disruption caused by retrofitting can be significant if done in a piecemeal manner.
“How does it work?”
The most straightforward diagram I can find is the one below from CheckATrade
Instead of the rainwater flowing off roofs straight into the public drains, the water is redirected via gutter and pipes into a filter before being stored in a main tank. That filtered water can then be used for non-drinking purposes. If the rainfall is very heavy, the overflow pipes go via an overflow pipe into a separate well to percolate into the ground water, or can be piped into the public sewers. Either way, the process reduces the surface water runoff. The more homes that get such systems fitted, the greater the mitigation will be on sewer systems being overwhelmed by the ever more frequent storms resulting from climate change.
Above – the top of the fitted reservoir in the Cambridge exemplar house which in this case is a 1,000 litre tank if I recall correctly, with the filter on top of it. The plastic top is designed to enable inspection.
The exemplar house is also having a host of other improvements being done to it.
Above – new metalwork being installed both for structural improvements and either ventilation or heat pumps. (You can tell I’m not a surveyor or construction specialist by profession!)
How an entire generation was de-skilled and left ill-prepared for the huge collective retrofitting challenge that we now face
For me it speaks volumes that the part time courses on construction run in the evenings by Cambridge Regional College are some of the first to fill up – and have been extremely popular for years. Hence back in 2022 I asked:
What would “Retrofitting your town/city” courses and workshops be like in practice?
I’ve not seen anything from the Combined Authority (and through them, ministers) that provides a comprehensive response despite repeated statements about skills shortages in the construction industry.
In the blogpost above, I listed a number of things needed to be in place for a mass retrofitting programme to be brought in – mindful of the existing shortages in lots of things that we currently have. (See here, scroll down – I’m sure you can add to that list).
The complacent approach to a catastrophe long in the making?
The unusually hot weather we’re having is getting some media coverage, but the sense of urgency in responding to it seems to be completely absent. At the Cambridge Museum of Technology’s River Day earlier, the concern over the lack of urgency from ministers and the lack of visible co-ordinated responses at scale is alarming.
Have we been here before?
Yes
“What has been revealed is so shocking in its implications of deficient preparations for an emergency that Mr. Chamberlain’s complacent outlook evokes the gravest doubts throughout the Empire of the Government’s capacity to put the necessary drive into the war effort“
Herbert Morrison MP to the House of Commons, 08 May 1940
“People are saying that those mainly responsible for the conduct of affairs are men who have had an almost uninterrupted career of failure. Norway follows Czecho-Slovakia and Poland. Everywhere the story is “Too late.” The Prime Minister talked about missing buses. What about all the buses which he and his associates have missed since 1931?”
I fear that the scale of the response to the climate emergency will need to be similar to what Ernest Bevin delivered as a powerful Minister for Labour and National Service, then one of the most powerful ministries in the government. (Andrew Adonis’s biography of Bevin who he describes as ‘Labour’s Churchill’, is worth reading on this.)
The draconian powers that Parliament granted the Minister for Labour were incredible.
“The Minister of Labour will be given power to direct any person to perform any services required of him. That does not necessarily mean services in munitions or factories. It does not apply only to workmen. It applies to everybody. No one can tell what these days may bring forth, or who may be required to dig defences or do anything else, but everybody alike must be under this control. The Minister will be able to prescribe the terms of remuneration, the hours of labour, and conditions of service.”
It was enacted as the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1940, although its impact is debated by historians to this day.
My question is: What actions do ministers need to take in order to upskill enough of the workforce not only to make sufficient preparations now, but also for when we change our lifestyles at scale – whether voluntarily or when the climate emergency forces us to?
Because in the midst of a catastrophe is hardly the best time to start putting people through essential training and re-training/upskilling programmes needed to create the workforce needed to deal with said catastrophe.
Food for thought?
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