Over time, your home will need improvements or upgrades (for example, a new kitchen, bathroom, heating system or windows and doors) to ensure it’s safe, comfortable and energy efficient – now and in the future
This is called 'planned improvements' or 'planned maintenance'.
We decide when your home is due for improvements by checking the condition of its main parts, not just how old they are.
To do this, we combine:
- Regular stock condition surveys
- Standard lifecycles for the main parts of your home
- The Decent Homes Standard, which sets the minimum standard all social homes must meet
Using these together helps us plan repairs and replacements fairly and responsibly.
A stock condition survey is a visual inspection of the inside and outside of your home.
Around every five years, a trained surveyor will visit your home to check its the condition.
The survey looks at things like the:
- bathroom
- kitchen
- heating
- roof and external walls
- windows and doors
The survey is not about how you live, how tidy your home is, or how you use it. It is simply about checking the condition of the building and its key parts.
How we use the survey information
The information we collect helps us to:
- Plan future repairs, upgrades and replacements fairly across all residents’ homes
- Identify issues early
- Make sure we invest money where it will make the biggest difference
We do not rely only on how old things are. Instead, we focus on their actual condition.
Alongside surveys, we use housing sector good practice lifecycle guidance.
This lifecycle guidance is widely used across housing associations to estimate how long different parts of a home usually last.
These timescales help us plan ahead — but they are guides, not automatic replacement dates.
Typical lifecycle timescales
The information in the 'Expected lifespan: Association' are the lifespans we use for guidance. The other column shows the Decent Homes Standard's guidance, which is more than ours for several components.
| Component | Expected lifespan: Association |
Expected lifespan: |
|---|---|---|
| Air source heat pump | 15 years | 30 years |
| Bathroom | 30 years | 40 years |
| External doors | 30 years | 40 years |
| Gas boiler | 15 years | 15 years |
| Kitchen | 20 years | 30 years |
| Roof | 50 years | 50 years |
| Windows | 30 years | 40 years |
| Exterior painting (timber windows, doors, facias, sofits) | 5 years | n/a |
The Decent Homes Standard requires that social housing:
- meets the current statutory minimum standard for housing
- is in a reasonable state of repair
- has reasonably modern kitchens and bathrooms
- is warm, dry and safe.
Our stock condition surveys and lifecycle planning help us make sure your home continues to meet these standards.
Between April 2026 and March 2027 we will be carrying out the following replacements and improvements:
38 bathroom replacements
12 kitchen replacements
41 gas boiler replacements
101 exterior painting (timber only, such as windows and fascias)
We've let all the households who are getting kitchen, bathroom, or heating replacements or external painting this year know.
We've let all the households who are getting kitchen, bathroom, or heating replacements or external painting this year (between April 2026 and March 2027) know.
When your home is due for an upgrade, we’ll contact you by email (or by post if we don't have an email address for you) to let you know:
- what work we’re planning
- when it’s likely to happen
- who your contact will be
- which contractor will do it.
The contractor will then contact you with more information, giving at least two weeks’ notice before work is due to begin.
We're also improving the energy efficiency of 36 homes this year, part-funded by the Government's Warm Homes: Social Housing Funding.
Which homes are included
We're upgrading homes with the lowest energy performance certificate (EPC) ratings first.
Upgrades include:
- replacing inefficient heating systems with air source heat pumps
- installing solar panels with battery storage
- increasing loft insulation and cavity wall insulation (if needed)
- installing humidistat fans,
These improvements make homes warmer, cut energy bills and improve the comfort, health and wellbeing for residents.