Jamie Keats, Co-Founder of retrofit specialists wrapt homes, discusses how low energy homes can help tackle tenant hardship and cut costs for those who need it.
As energy bills continue to stretch household budgets across the UK, many tenants remain stuck in homes that are cold, damp and costly to heat. A new report from Leeds Beckett University, published in October 2024 as part of the Domestic Energy Efficiency Project (DEEP), reveals the transformative impact of retrofitting – not just in cutting costs, but in improving health, housing quality and long-term sustainability for both tenants and landlords.
The Tenant Reality: Cold Homes and High Bills
For millions of renters, especially those in older or poorly maintained properties, the winter months bring real hardship. Inadequate insulation and inefficient heating systems result in energy bills that are difficult – sometimes impossible – to afford. As a result, many tenants live in homes that are uncomfortably cold or suffer from persistent damp and mould, with serious consequences for their health and wellbeing.
Children, older adults, and those with chronic conditions are especially vulnerable. Fuel poverty not only affects financial stability—it impacts education, employment and long-term health outcomes. Research by Public Health England shows that children living in cold homes are twice as likely to suffer from respiratory problems such as asthma and bronchitis. With little control over the structural condition of their homes, tenants are often forced to choose between high heating costs and living in discomfort.
Retrofitting: A Proven Path to Comfort
The DEEP report offers encouraging data. Retrofitting homes – especially insulating solid walls – can cut annual energy bills by up to 30%. For a typical household, this represents hundreds of pounds in annual savings. But more than that, retrofitting creates warm, healthy homes where tenants can thrive.
Solid wall insulation was identified in the report as the most effective single intervention for older homes, which make up a large proportion of the UK’s rental stock. Combined with modern heating systems and improved ventilation, these measures make homes easier to heat and more comfortable year-round.
Despite the clear benefits, the uptake of landlords upgrading their homes is slow. This is predominantly as incentives are low: from a financial perspective the upfront costs typically won’t equate to an increase in income, and they will usually not directly enjoy the benefits of lower bills.
wrapt has been part of a team looking for a solution to these problems. Let Zero is a consortium of charities, AI experts and product developers backed by Innovate UK to develop a service in South Yorkshire to support tenants and landlords in retrofitting their homes. The one stop shop will help tenants and landlords who are looking to make their home more energy efficient access everything from grants to advice to trusted tradespeople to carry out the work.
According to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), only 10% of solid-walled homes in the UK are adequately insulated. As a result, too many tenants remain in energy-inefficient homes while the sector fails to meet national climate and housing standards.
Whilst there are a number of grants available, the upcoming Warm Homes Local Authority Grant is generating interest across the housing sector. Launched in April this year, this government-funded initiative is set to provide targeted financial support for landlords and local authorities to carry out retrofit works – particularly on properties that have traditionally fallen through the cracks of earlier grant schemes.
For landlords, this grant scheme offers the potential to access tens of thousands of pounds per property, depending on the level of retrofit required. While exact funding per home will vary by region and scheme, previous government programmes (such as the Home Upgrade Grant) have covered up to 100% of the cost for qualifying energy efficiency improvements, particularly for properties occupied by tenants on means-tested benefits or in the lowest income deciles.
Making Retrofitting Work – for Everyone
Housing currently accounts for around 17% of the UK’s total carbon emissions and retrofit will need to play a significant role in the UK meeting the its net zero carbon emissions target by 2050. Low-energy homes must become the norm, not the exception. Retrofitting – particularly in the hard-to-treat private rented sector – offers one of the most immediate and impactful routes to decarbonising our built environment. But it also delivers co-benefits that extend far beyond carbon: improved health, financial resilience, reduced pressure on the NHS, and more stable tenancies.
wrapt has worked with My Landlord Cares, an organisation working closely with tenants and landlords to create healthy and comfortable homes which in turn deliver long-term tenancies for landlords.
Mahara Haque, Founder of My Landlord Cares, says: “Most of the landlords we work with want to do the right thing. They want to improve the standards of their properties but with lack of clarity and awareness of financial commitments it is a hard choice to make. If this can be sorted and a campaign launched then this would certainly help on-board more landlords”.
Whilst innovative projects will play a part of the solution, big shifts in attitude will be needed to make the transition at the scale needed, including political will, coordinated local delivery and the active engagement of landlords across the country.
Making homes warmer, healthier and more affordable isn’t just good climate policy – it’s good social policy and an integral part of building a housing system that’s equitable and fit for the future.