Design and contracting is the third stage in retrofitting your home.
If you use our Home Retrofit Planner and the Bespoke Retrofit Plan services in stage 2, these are designed to help you decide on the best-fit retrofit choices for your property. After that, the design and contracting stage transforms your retrofit plans into a clear set of requirements. You can then procure contractors, and CAfS can also help you with that.
There are three aspects to the design and contracting phase:
- Pre-design advice
- Design stage advice
- Contracting stage consultation and report
1. Pre-design advice (preparation)
If you already have your Home Retrofit Planner and Bespoke Retrofit Plan (formerly Scope of Works) reports, you may be wondering where to start with the unglamorous but important stage of preliminary investigation.
Sometimes it is really critical to get independent advice. For example, will an insulation company give you the best advice about whether your home is suitable for cavity wall insulation? Or might an independent surveyor give a more accurate answer because they aren’t in the business of selling insulation?
This can be really important and it will inform any retrofit design work to follow. It is all about reducing your exposure to risk and getting the best end-result from your retrofit project.
What does pre-design advice mean?
Your Bespoke Retrofit Plan report is likely to have identified preparatory work that you’ll need to do. Examples could be getting structural advice, planning permission, building control and party wall arrangements.
At the same time, CAfS can help you to understand what elements of your retrofit project will need designer input and why, and the level and type of input required. We can help you to identify any detailed technical design work needed to specify the work you’d like to do.
For example, you may need an architect to specify materials and draw construction details to help reduce moisture and thermal bridging risks. You might need an architect or specifier who specialises in traditional building methods and the relevant materials. Or maybe you need an independent engineer to design and size a heat pump. Or you want to understand your options for getting an MVHR system correctly designed (and later commissioned).
CAfS can help you with this.
How does it work?
We provide a questionnaire for you to tell us which parts you need help with. We’ll then give you a quotation for the work involved, and you can decide if you wish to go ahead. If you do, we’ll use your answers to produce a report that includes:
- Specific answers to your questions and related general advice
- Common pitfalls at this stage and how to avoid them
- A list of some of the relevant specialists known to us in and around your area, indicating whether we have prior experience of their work or not.
The service includes the chance to have a follow-up call with the CAfS assessor who prepared the report for you, and any clarifications are added to the report.
Cost:
The cost of this service depends on the amount of work involved. When you return your questionnaire and we know what you need help with, we provide a quote. The fee for this service starts at £150 plus 20% VAT* Currently for eligible householders, this service is free (Summer 2023)
2. Design stage advice
Once any necessary surveys, planning applications or preparatory investigations etc are complete, the retrofit design work can begin.
What is our design stage advice?
At CAfS we do not have in house architects and specifiers, but we can signpost you to local designers as part of our Pre-Design service. We have also teamed up with our partners, People Powered Retrofit, in Manchester, and can direct those with suitable projects to them for retrofit design and specification work.
Although CAfS does not provide any design work, our current project funded by Energy Redress allows us to subsidise a limited amount of retrofit design work by People Powered Retrofit’s specialist team (for eligible householders). Please enquire if interested.
Once you have a set of design details or specifications, this will inform a schedule of work that contractors can price up with confidence, so you can compare quotes.
The cost of design work depends on the amount of work involved and quotes will be based on the amount of design input that your project requires.
3. Contracting stage consultation and report
The subsequent services are in development or undergoing pilot testing by clients who already have their Home Retrofit Planner report and Scope of Works report.
The on-site support and evaluating and handover advice stages are to be developed and tested in 2023.
* All costs are subject to change and we reserve the right to update our prices.
If you have any questions or to to discuss our design and planning services, please contact us.
Email us or call 01768 216500