Net-Zero Energy Retrofit MMC Solution

Constructing Excellence

This project, the third phase of the ground-breaking Nottingham City Council 2050 Homes scheme, comprises 82 1960s built William Moss style concrete cross wall homes, with a mixture of 3 storey houses, bungalows, and low-rise flats. The existing building fabric provides very poor thermal insulation and therefore the homes were cold and difficult to heat. The form of construction of these non-traditional homes does not provide a suitable substrate for the use of standard external wall insulation systems and requires a different approach.

An essential client requirement was that the homes must remain in occupation, so, a key objective was to minimise the impact to residents and neighbours throughout the works.

Demolition and rebuild of the properties, or the removal and replacement of the existing lightweight external walls, was not a viable option. An independent structural wall system using offsite manufacture was determined as the most appropriate solution to address this challenge. Due to the complexity of using offsite manufactured panels to wrap around an existing property, this project is the first, and to our knowledge the only, in the UK to use CAT2 MMC large format structural panels to deliver a net zero housing retrofit.

Three Winning Facts:
  1. The first time MMC Cat2 offsite manufactured structural wall panels and roof cassettes have been used in the UK for housing retrofit. With 9.3 million UK Homes suitable for offsite manufactured net-zero energy retrofit solutions, we have just made a start.
  2. 76% Pre-Manufactured Value
  3. Manufactured wall panels delivered to site complete with cladding and windows fitted are installed in less than 30 minutes with 24panels completed in a single day on site.