On Wednesday 19th of April we gathered at Todmorden College for the third workshop in this series to talk about the relationship between retrofit and making our homes more able to withstand and recover from flooding events.
Our colleague Helen took the group of attendees through the various building-level impacts of flooding, in particular the waste and energy implications of reinstatement work. She also shared research on how best to recover from flooding events and withstand them more robustly. A lot of this learning came from work Helen did for Cumbria Action for Sustainability (CAfS) following the major flood events in 2015/2016.
Helen helped us make the connection between the benefit of retrofit in terms of improved energy efficiency in our homes, with the benefit that can also be experienced in terms of making our homes more resilient and resistant to flooding events – whether from surface water ( a risk even during short but intense bursts of rain) – or from river, groundwater and other sources.
“Loved the combination of retrofit and flooding measures: win-win!”
– workshop participant
Thanks to the rich and varied questions and conversations with the participants, we learnt about particular typologies of homes in Todmorden and how they were built to work with the topography, and also with the natural presence and flow of water. But also how the changing climate, even when not experiencing extreme flooding events, is impacting thinking around retrofit and general home improvements.
Helen showed us the varied measures that exist to help create resilient homes that also offer good retrofit approaches and vice versa, as well as specific solutions for domestic flood resilience strategies.
We finished the workshop looking at GIS generated maps that helped analyse the flooding context – current, future as well as historical – of Todmorden.
The two hours flew by, thanks to the participants who joined us. We were glad to read such positive feedback on the session and we look forward to meeting householders again at our last workshop in this series on May the 20th when we will be discussing what Home Energy Assessments are, how they can help us learn more about our homes and their energy efficiency (or lack of) and how they can guide us in planning our domestic retrofit.
To sign up for the final workshop for a free place please visit our Eventbrite link here.