Issues and opportunities

Housing repairs and maintenance may offer some opportunities for improving the resilience of individual properties and the housing stock to climate changes, although these are likely to be limited by budgets and resources.

Issues that could be considered:

• Are there any simple, cost-effective measures that could lessen flood risks or their impacts? For instance, it may be possible to fit basic seals and thresholds to doorways, or to reposition electrical outlets to reduce damage from minor flood events.
• Are there any simple, cost-effective measures that could lessen the impacts of extreme temperatures? For instance, fitting of blinds or shutters to reduce solar gain, or security measures to allow ground floor windows to be open at night.
• There may be opportunities to improve water use by replacing cisterns, taps or showers with more efficient models as part of repair and maintenance programmes.
• There may be opportunities to improve resilience to high winds when maintaining and repairing housing

In order to take account of these opportunities it may be worth considering changing the specification of materials and procedures used for your maintenance and repair work.

Sources of advice

• Your Home in a Changing Climate: Retrofitting existing homes for climate change impact, Three Regions Climate Change Group, is a good source of advice on retrofitting adaptation measures.
• A more comprehensive list of sources of advice on adapting housing to climate change is available on the New housing page. Some of this may also be relevant for the repair and maintenance of existing housing stock.

Examples

The Three Regions Climate Change Group site provides some simple example case studies.