Retrofitting

Make Your Home Warmer, Greener and Cheaper to Run

Retrofitting your home is one of the most effective ways to reduce energy bills, cut carbon emissions and improve comfort all year round. Maidstone Borough Council is supporting residents to upgrade their homes by signposting to grants, funding programmes and trusted guidance that help make energy‑saving improvements more affordable.

Across the UK, new national programmes such as the Warm Homes: Local Grant and the Warm Homes Plan have begun making it easier for households to install measures like insulation, solar panels and low‑carbon heating systems including air‑source heat pumps. These schemes aim to improve millions of homes, reduce energy bills and support the transition to cleaner heating technologies.

Why Retrofit Your Home?

Upgrading your home with modern, energy‑efficient technologies can deliver a wide range of benefits:

• Lower energy bills through reduced heat loss and more efficient heating
• A warmer, healthier home, especially during the winter months
• Reduced carbon emissions, supporting local and national climate goals
• Improved property value and higher EPC rating
• Access to grant-funded improvements can significantly reduce installation costs when available

Low‑Carbon Heating: A Better Way to Heat Your Home

Low‑carbon heating systems—such as air‑source heat pumps—use renewable energy to heat your home efficiently. These technologies can lower running costs, reduce emissions and help future‑proof your home as traditional fossil‑fuel heating is phased out nationally.

Available Grants and Support

Warm Homes: Local Grant (WH:LG)

Eligible households in England may be able to access fully funded energy‑saving improvements, including insulation, heat pumps, solar PV and smart controls. This scheme supports low‑income homes and properties with EPC ratings of D–G. Find more information here https://www.gov.uk/apply-warm-homes-local-grant

Climate Vulnerable Retrofit Scheme

A new scheme launched in December 2025 supporting residents in Maidstone offers free of charge home retrofitting items and installation to the most vulnerable households and residents. £50,000 in basic home retrofit items has been provisioned for Maidstone residents, delivered in partnership with Involve Kent. Referrals to Involve Kent for residents struggling from excess cold or excess heat will be assessed for suitability. Items include thermal curtains, draft exclusion kits for windows and doors, LED light bulbs and reflective radiator foil.

Warm Homes Local Plan

The Government’s wider plan aims to upgrade five million homes lower energy bills and accelerate the UK’s shift to clean energy by 2030. It supports improving home insulation and installing low‑carbon heating systems across the country. As new grants and schemes become available to support this, we will promote these to our residents.

• Draught proofing- draught proofing is an easy and cheap way to insulate your home. Block up unwanted gaps that let cold air in and warm air out, for example around doors, windows, chimneys, gaps around electrical fittings, loft hatches and where pipe work leads outside. Be sure not to block necessary vents in windows and walls while draught-proofing.
• Windows and doors- energy efficient glazing covers both double and triple glazing. These are windows with two or more glass panes in a sealed unit. Cheaper options to improve the energy efficiency of your home include installing secondary glazing, using heavy curtains or installing sealed shutters on your windows.  A properly fitted new external door should include an effective draught-proofing system. Existing doors can be improved by fitting draught-proofing strips around the seals and the letterbox.
• Roof and loft insulation- a quarter of heat is lost through the roof in an uninsulated home. Insulating your loft, attic or flat roof is an effective way to reduce heat loss and reduce your heating bills. Installed correctly, loft insulation should pay for itself many times over in its 40-year lifetime.
• Floor insulation- insulating your ground floor is a great way to keep your property warm. Generally speaking, you only need to insulate the ground floor. If you’re on an upper floor, you don’t usually need to insulate your floor space.
• Cavity wall insulation- if your house was built after the 1920s, it is likely to have cavity walls. A cavity wall is made up of two walls with a gap in between, known as the cavity; the outer leaf is usually made of brick, and the inner layer of brick or concrete block. Many cavity walls can be insulated by injecting insulation material into the cavity from the outside.
• Solid wall insulation- pre-1920 older houses are more likely to have solid walls. A solid wall has no cavity; each wall is a single solid wall, usually made of brick or stone. Solid walls can be insulated, either from the inside or the outside, however this will cost more than insulating a standard cavity wall, but the savings on your heating bills will be bigger too.
• Pipe, tank and radiator insulation- lagging water tanks and pipes and insulating behind radiators reduces the amount of heat lost, so you spend less money heating water up, and hot water stays hotter for longer. Topping up your hot water tank insulation from 25mm to 80mm thick, using a British Standard jacket, could save you around £70 a year, which is more than the cost of the jacket.

Visit the Energy Saving Trust to learn more about insulating your home and find out which insulation type is right for your home.