Ethan Wadsworth,
”The Big Retrofit Challenge validates what we've been proving on the ground. The barriers to heat pump adoption in Britain's existing homes aren't technical, they're about having the right solution at the right price point.
We're already deploying in typical UK family housing with many housing providers including the MoD, and the evidence shows it works. Being part of this programme means we can share that learning with housing providers facing the same challenge across millions of similar properties. This is how we decarbonise heat at scale- not with prototypes, but with proven, replicable solutions.
DiscreteHeat
DiscreteHeat Ltd is a UK manufacturer of ThermaSkirt – a skirting board heating system that replaces both conventional radiators and skirting boards. Designed specifically for compatibility with heat pumps, ThermaSkirt is proven at scale across defence, healthcare, social housing, and new-build sectors. The company is currently deploying as part of the Ministry of Defence’s Defence Housing Strategy and holds TRL 9 status with installations across thousands of properties nationwide.
The innovation: ThermaSkirt
ThermaSkirt removes one of the fundamental barriers to heat pump retrofit in existing UK homes: the need for oversized radiators. By distributing heat at low level around the perimeter of every room — hidden inside what looks like standard skirting board — it delivers the large emitter surface area that heat pumps need, without the disruption, cost, or aesthetic compromise of conventional retrofit approaches. Independently tested by BSRIA, it’s already specified for large-scale deployment across typical post-war British housing stock.
