SHDF Wave 1 – Solar PV, North East

Measured across our retrofit programmes

  • 2,493homes with a post-works EPC
  • +11average SAP points gained
  • D → Caverage band movement
  • 99.6%finish at band C or better

Crawford & Co assessed and coordinated these homes. Figures cover every programme where works are complete and a post-works EPC has been lodged, September 2026, and are not specific to this project.

Overview

The North East — Crawford & Co Surveyors provided the retrofit assessments and PAS 2035 coordination behind this SHDF Wave 1 programme for the landlord. The measure set covered solar PV.

Crawford & Co Surveyors delivered retrofit assessment, retrofit coordination and PAS 2030/PAS 2035 consultancy under Wave 1 of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund — low-cost, fabric-first measures taking occupied homes towards EPC band C and a space-heating demand of 90 kWh/m² per year.

Assessment carried the programme. Our assessors captured the fabric, services and condition of each property in a single visit, keeping disturbance to residents down while giving coordinators and designers data solid enough to design from. Across Wave 1 our team ran at around 100 assessments a week against an install rate of roughly 80 retrofits a week.

Our assessors and coordinators are directly employed rather than subcontracted, and work to an in-house assessment and coordination system built above the PAS 2035 requirements across more than 25 schemes. Coordination runs on our own system with no per-property software fee, so scheme funding stays in the homes rather than in licences.

Coloured Photo Of Staff Member
Ashley Crawford
Project Manager

Strategy

Fabric

Wave 1 stock was predominantly system-built and cavity construction. Pre-existing defects are the rule rather than the exception on this kind of stock: dampness, condensation and mould, cavity wall tie failure, roof slumping and spread, timber decay and lintel failure. Every one of those has to be resolved before insulation goes on. Identifying them at assessment is what makes enabling works a planned item rather than a mid-programme surprise. Fabric measures were then specified per property — loft, room-in-roof and flat-roof insulation, cavity or external wall insulation, underfloor insulation, and replacement windows and doors — rather than issued as a standard package.

Service

Ventilation is designed alongside airtightness, not after it. Sealing a home without addressing how it breathes moves a moisture problem rather than solving it, so extract ventilation forms part of the same specification as the fabric work. Heating and hot water measures are matched to the demand the fabric measures leave behind, so that plant is sized for the improved home rather than the original one.

Renewables

Where a property suits it, solar PV is added after the fabric measures, so that generation offsets a demand already reduced rather than masking one that has not been. Roof orientation, structural capacity and the condition of the existing covering all decide suitability, and the assessment records that rather than assuming it.

Vital Statistics

Wave 1’s targets were EPC band C and a space-heating demand of 90 kWh/m² per year. Each assessment records the property’s construction and its modelled performance before and after the proposed measures — space-heating demand in kWh/m² per year, carbon in kg per year, and estimated energy cost. Figures are held per property rather than averaged across the programme, so the client can see which homes moved furthest and where demand remains. Full per-property data is available to the client.

Detailing

The main technical risk on Wave 1 was installer familiarity with PAS 2030. An experienced coordination team is what catches paperwork discrepancies early and feeds them back before they become compliance problems at lodgement. Our retrofit condition report was developed in house and approved by both the scheme provider and TrustMark. The work behind it contributed to our managing director’s appointment to the BS 40104 steering group — the British Standard for retrofit assessment. Where PAS 2035 leaves a technical question genuinely open, we take it up with the standard’s authors rather than guess.

Further Data

Standards

PAS 2035 / PAS 2030

Comfort

The measure of this work is a home that is warmer, drier and more affordable to run, and that stays that way. Lower heat demand is only part of it — even temperatures, humidity that stays under control and plant that runs quietly all decide whether a resident actually feels the difference. Residents live in these homes throughout. Capturing everything needed in a single assessment visit exists for exactly that reason.

Monitoring

Coordinators quality-check every assessment before it reaches design, and the scheme runs with a live view shared between client, designer and installers so that discrepancies surface in days rather than at handover. Regular review meetings with client, designer and installers run for its duration. Post-completion documentation is prepared for TrustMark lodgement through secure data sharing.

Social Value

Eddy, Crawford & Co SurveyorsEddySocial value leadDuring this project Eddy was on a Building Surveying degree, funded directly from this contract.

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