The news over this past week about the troubles facing the UK energy market has made it abundantly clear that, despite the rhetoric, electrification is not necessarily equivalent to decarbonisation. With a grid that is currently 60.5% fed by fossil fuels as I type this, any attempt at net-zero retrofits…

Yesterday, my friends over at Nesta Scotland released an initial study on what it would take to decarbonise heat in Scottish Homes. Of many areas this report covered, the resounding sentiment throughout was that all the technology was dependant on the fabric of the building. It’s often exciting to jump…

One of the main 3 strands of our retrofit is a microgeneration system to produce our own energy, and late last Monday we finally had our system commissioned and generating power, and I’m please to say that after one week we have netted 23.6kwh. I want to share with you…

It’s been a busy 6 weeks for our retrofit as we’ve started ticking off some of the big jobs like changing out hot water system and installing solar panels, car charger, and a smart energy management system. While there is loads to share, and lots of data coming in on…

Decarbonising of heat is one of the biggest issues facing the UK in the next few years as there is already legislation in place that prevents gas connections to new properties in the UK from 2025 and recommendations published this month to extend that to the sale of all gas…

In this week’s instalment, I’m going to focus on how we came up with a plan (even if it does keep evolving). If you missed the first two parts of this story, you can check them out here. In many ways, this part of the story is both very exciting…

In the last blog, I shared a bit of why we were setting out on the journey of doing an eco retrofit (link here if you missed it). In this chapter, I hope to unpack a bit of why we chose this specific house. Having tried our hand at renovations…

Over the next 10 years, the world will change dramatically. Not because of the residue of COVID on society, but due to effects climate change is already having on our lives forcing our hand into action. My family and I have been exploring what this means in our lives and…

Yesterday I was reflecting with some of the Firstport and FirstImpact team on the last 12 months and it’s safe to say that 2020 didn’t exactly go as planned. But I’m super proud of the team for their hard work, perseverance, and resilience over the year. Here are a…