My Cleanest Greenest Home

My Cleanest Greenest Home is the retrofit renovation of my own home — a real-life test case to show that a healthier, happier, more sustainable home is possible for everyone.

what’s the difference between renovating and retrofitting?

A renovation refreshes how a home looks and functions — updating layouts, replacing fittings, a new kitchen, redecorating. A retrofit, on the other hand, improves how a building performs — reducing energy waste, cutting bills, and improving comfort. It’s about insulation, airtightness, ventilation, and clean energy systems like heat pumps.

Why does this matter? Because the UK has some of the oldest and leakiest housing stock in Europe. Over half of our homes were built before 1965, when energy efficiency wasn’t even a consideration. The result: nearly 9.6 million households live in cold, poorly insulated homes, driving up bills, harming health, and costing the NHS an estimated £540 million every year. Add to that the 62 million tonnes of construction waste we generate annually — much of it from knocking down buildings that could be remade — and it’s clear that retrofitting must become our default, not demolition.

This project is about showing how. I’ll be learning as I go — from lime plaster to heat pumps — and sharing my research and recommendations, the pitfalls and the progress, transparently and practically. What works, what doesn’t, what’s worth the investment.

Because we’re often told that the answer is more: more space, more new homes, more stuff. But that mindset is financially out of reach, environmentally unsustainable, and emotionally exhausting. Instead, My Cleanest Greenest Home aims to prove that real progress comes from making the most of what we already have. Follow along as I turn my home into a living laboratory for happier, healthier, greener living — one decision, one room, one retrofit at a time.

Step ONE: What’s the BIG PICTURE?

Cleanest Greenest Home