Planning a Major Renovation? We Handle Design to Completion with Energy Efficiency Built In

22 Oct 2025

You're planning a £100k extension and you've just realised the architect, the heating engineer, and the insulation specialist are all giving you conflicting advice about what order to do things in.

The architect's drawn beautiful plans but keeps saying "sort the heating later." The heating engineer says he can't size the system until you've done the insulation. The insulation installer says they need to know about the heating before they can quote properly. And you're stuck in the middle trying to coordinate everyone whilst your project sits at a standstill.

Here's the thing nobody tells you about major renovations: getting the design right is the easy bit. Getting everyone coordinated so it actually happens in the right order - that's where it all falls apart.

We do it differently. We design your extension or renovation and handle all the energy efficiency work from the start - one team, one plan, everything coordinated properly through to completion.

Why the Traditional Approach Creates Problems

Most people plan renovations like this:

Hire an architect. Get lovely drawings. Submit for planning permission. Then start ringing round for quotes on insulation, heating, ventilation. Quickly discover that nobody's really thought about how it all fits together.

Here's what actually goes wrong:

The architect designs the extension assuming your existing heating system will cope. Six months in, the heating engineer tells you it won't and you need a complete system upgrade you hadn't budgeted for.

You plan to insulate the whole house whilst the extension's happening - makes sense, scaffolding's already up. But the insulation installer, the builder, and the roofer all have different schedules and nobody's coordinating them. You end up paying for scaffolding twice.

The plans show where the heat pump goes but nobody checked if planning permission allows it there. Or whether there's space for the hot water cylinder. Or how the pipework routes through the house.

You're quoted £8k for a heating system sized for the house as it is now. Then you insulate everything and discover you've just paid for a system that's now oversized and running inefficiently.

It's not that anyone's incompetent - it's that energy efficiency isn't architects' core expertise, and most installers work on individual upgrades, not whole-house renovations. So you end up being the one trying to coordinate everything, spending hours on phone calls, and making decisions about things you don't fully understand.

What Actually Needs Coordinating

Here's what needs planning together from the start, not figured out afterwards:

The heating system sizing needs to account for the house after you've insulated everything - not before. Size it wrong and you've wasted thousands on an inefficient system.

The scaffolding schedule needs to work for both the building work and the insulation work. Get this wrong and you're paying for it twice.

The ventilation strategy needs designing before walls are closed up. Try to add it later and you're either ripping things open again or compromising on where vents go.

The phasing needs to make sense - insulate before you size the heating, get external work done whilst scaffolding's up, coordinate trades so you're not waiting weeks between each stage.

When one team handles the design, the energy strategy, and the project coordination, this all just... happens. In the right order. Without you having to figure it out yourself.

How We Actually Do This

We handle everything from understanding what you've got now through to managing the build - with energy efficiency and architectural design coordinated throughout.

Understanding What You're Working With

First, we need to understand what you're actually working with - not just the space you want to create, but how your whole house currently works. Building condition, insulation levels, heating system, ventilation, structural considerations.

Then we understand what you're trying to achieve. More space obviously, but also - warmer house? Lower bills? Specific room requirements? Planning to stay long-term or sell in a few years?

This gives us what we need to design something that actually works for your property and your situation, not generic plans that ignore what you're starting with.

Designing the Extension and the Energy Strategy Together

We design your extension, renovation, or conversion with energy efficiency built into the plans from the start. Not as an afterthought, but designed together so everything works as a system.

We have a network of experts we bring in where needed - structural engineers, heating specialists, renewables experts. But we coordinate everyone, so you're not managing multiple professionals yourself or trying to translate between them.

Specifying Exactly How It All Works

While designing the space, we're working out exactly how the energy improvements work - insulation types and thicknesses, heating system sizing, ventilation strategy, airtightness details. Not vague "we'll sort that later" - specific, costed, ready to build.

This means your renovation addresses both the new space and the existing home - so you can extend your house and cut your overall energy use at the same time. Not just bigger, but actually cheaper to run than before.

Sorting the Paperwork

Planning applications where needed, building control submissions, all the documentation required. We know what building control want to see for energy efficiency compliance and design it in from the start rather than scrambling to meet requirements later.

Getting Quotes That Actually Compare

Once designs are approved, we create detailed specifications and get quotes from our vetted installer network. We manage the tender process, review quotes properly, and help you select installers who actually understand what they're installing.

You're not ringing round trying to explain complex requirements to builders who've never dealt with air source heat pumps or whole-house ventilation systems.

Managing Everything Through to Completion

We coordinate the entire build - keeping schedules on track, making sure trades turn up when they're supposed to, quality checking throughout, handling issues that come up. You get regular updates and have a dedicated point of contact.

The architectural work, energy improvements, and general building work all happen as one coordinated project. Not three separate things you're trying to manage simultaneously whilst still working full-time and living your life.

What Makes This Different

Traditional approach: You hire an architect to design the extension. Energy efficiency isn't their core consideration. You get plans approved, then try to figure out the energy improvements. You're coordinating the architect, energy specialist, builder, and heating engineer yourself. Nothing's properly phased. Things happen in the wrong order and you pay for mistakes.

Our approach: We handle the design and the energy strategy together. One team coordinating all the specialists. Single point of contact throughout. Everything happens in the right order because it was planned that way from the start.

The result: a home that works as a complete system, delivered by one team who takes responsibility for the whole thing, not a collection of separate improvements you had to coordinate yourself.

When This Makes Sense

This approach works brilliantly if:

You're planning major work - extensions, whole-house renovations, loft conversions, significant structural changes. Projects where you're spending £50k+ and want to get everything right.

Energy efficiency and climate matter to you - you want a comfortable, efficient home that reduces your carbon footprint, not just more space. You're planning to stay long enough to benefit from lower bills and better comfort.

You want it coordinated properly - managing architects, energy specialists, builders, and heating engineers yourself sounds exhausting. You'd rather have one team handling it all.

You're starting from scratch with design - you haven't already got fully approved architectural plans you're committed to. You want the design and energy strategy developed together.

This approach probably doesn't make sense if you've already got fully approved architectural plans and just need the energy improvements added to an existing project - though we can help with that too.

What It Actually Costs

Every project is different - a single-storey extension with energy improvements costs less than a whole-house renovation with loft conversion.

Our fees are around 15% of the total build cost. This covers the architectural design, energy specifications, tender management, and full project coordination.

Total project costs for most renovations we work on are £50k-£200k including our fees and all installation work. The largest whole-house renovations can of course be more.

We give you detailed cost estimates after the initial survey so you know what you're looking at before committing to design work.

What You Actually Get

When we handle your major renovation:

Architectural design that accounts for energy efficiency from the start
Detailed energy specifications - not vague "we'll sort it later"
Network of specialists (structural engineers, heating experts, renewables) all coordinated by us
All planning and building control submissions handled
Vetted installers who understand what they're building
Full project management - you're not coordinating trades yourself
Regular updates and a dedicated point of contact
Quality checks throughout to ensure it's done properly

Most importantly: a home that works as a complete system, designed and built to be comfortable and efficient. Not a beautiful extension bolted onto an inefficient house because nobody coordinated the energy work properly.