Clarion Housing Group was Highly Commended in the Innovation category of the Housing Technology Awards 2026.
Clarion has partnered with IoT Solutions Group (IoTSG) to validate its real-world retrofit performance across more than 850 homes in Bromley. The programme uses environmental and heating system monitoring to turn retrofit investments into measurable, property-level outcomes, helping the housing provider to improve warmth, efficiency and residents’ wellbeing.
Retrofitting existing homes is no longer just a delivery challenge, it’s an evidence challenge. Housing providers are being asked to prove that retrofit investments deliver safer, warmer and healthier homes while also meeting rising expectations around compliance, transparency and resident outcomes.
That’s the context behind our major retrofit project in Bromley, a large-scale deployment delivered by IoTSG alongside installation partner Total Support Group. The programme is using Cosie Homes and Cosie Homes Pro sensors across 853 homes to turn retrofit performance into measurable, property-level KPIs and enhance resident wellbeing, rather than being based on assumptions, spot checks or post-works snapshots without measurable improvement for tenants.
Why measurement matters now
Even well-designed retrofit programmes can underperform in real life. Fabric condition varies, ventilation differs street by street and residents’ behaviour influences internal moisture and heating patterns. Traditional post-works inspections often struggle to separate ‘design intent’ from actual performance and that gap becomes a problem when you’re trying to:
- Demonstrate compliance with PAS 2030 / PAS 2035;
- Evidence outcomes for funding and future investment decisions;
- Manage damp and mould risk in the direction of travel set by Awaab’s Law;
- Enhance residents’ comfort and trust by ensuring interventions deliver safe, warm and healthy homes.
This project is positioned as a practical answer: embed continuous monitoring into the retrofit programme so that outcomes can be validated before, after and sustained over time.
IoT deployment
The project combines two complementary data streams:
- Cosie Homes sensors capture internal environmental conditions, including temperature, humidity and dew point, to surface moisture risk and ventilation adequacy at an individual dwelling level.
- Cosie Homes Pro adds heating-system telemetry (including boiler flow and return temperatures) to create a clearer picture of heating efficiency and how energy is being delivered in practice.
This matters because the common modes of retrofit failures are often systemic: tighter building envelopes can increase condensation risk if ventilation and resident heating patterns don’t keep pace. Continuous monitoring helps identify ‘under-heated’ or ‘over-sealed’ homes early, before minor moisture patterns become expensive cases of mould.
Turning data into retrofit KPIs
A common critique of IoT pilots is that they generate data without decisions. Our approach in this instance is explicitly KPI-driven:
- Thermal-comfort flags identify under-heated homes (e.g. below 18°C for more than 12 hours/day) and overheating risk (>30°C), enabling targeted support for fuel-poor or vulnerable residents.
- Moisture analytics use relative humidity and dew point to accurately identify condensation- and damp-risk trends.
- For retrofit validation, the programme uses measured heat transfer coefficient (HTC) and kWh/°C-style metrics to evidence real thermal performance rather than modelled estimates.
Critically, these are framed as operational signals for asset, sustainability and compliance teams, the kind of metrics that can drive prioritisation, sequencing and resident interventions.
Integration and scale
For housing IT teams, scaling is rarely about sensors; it’s about integration, security and disruption.
The deployment uses NB-IoT / LTE-M connectivity and provides secure APIs so that insights can feed existing data ecosystems rather than creating another standalone system. The ambition is to make performance evidence usable where decisions are already being made (asset management, BI environments & risk workflows).
The resident impact
Residents receive clear communications on why the sensors matter and how the data helps create healthier, warmer homes, thereby building trust and encouraging energy-efficient behaviour.
In combination, these improvements demonstrate how IoTSG’s approach turns retrofit data into social impact, reducing fuel poverty risk, validating energy savings and ensuring that Clarion’s homes remain safe, warm and healthy for the long term.
What’s the business case?
RoI is driven by a mixture of cost avoidance, better targeting and improved tenant outcomes:
- At least a 50 per cent reduction in repeat site-visits within 90 days of intervention, cutting cost and travel carbon.
- Earlier damp and mould intervention reduces escalation, reactive repairs and exposure to disrepair claims.
- Evidence-led retrofit planning improves the allocation of investment and funding, aiming to maximise carbon savings per pound spent.
What can other housing providers learn?
For technology and data leaders across the sector, the transferable lesson is simple: make measurement a first-class retrofit workstream, not an afterthought.
Some practical considerations from this project include:
- Define the KPIs you need before you deploy sensors (e.g. comfort, moisture risk, HTC stability, visit reduction).
- Plan your API/BI integrations early so your data can be used for workflows and you have actionable insights, not just data for data’s sake.
- Treat resident communications as part of system design because non-intrusive monitoring only works if it’s trusted.
By turning building-level data into measurable KPIs for retrofit validation and resident health, IoTSG’s innovation helps Clarion target investment where it delivers the greatest impact, creating a transparent, data-driven foundation for long-term decarbonisation and compliance strategies.
Carly Woodbridge is the lead project and programme manager for strategic asset management at Clarion Housing Group. The housing provider was Highly Commended in the Innovation category at the Housing Technology Awards 2026.
