Ultrapanel Wins BUILDOFFSITE Innovation Hub Challenge 2025 with “Next-Gen House Jacket”
At this year’s Offsite Expo, the spotlight was on one of construction’s biggest puzzles: how to retrofit millions of UK homes quickly, affordably, and at scale. The 2025 BUILDOFFSITE Innovation Hub Challenge invited industry innovators to pitch bold solutions. The winner? Ultrapanel Building Technologies, with a system that promises to give Britain’s housing stock a whole new wardrobe.
The Big Idea: A Jacket for Your House
Ultrapanel’s patented External Wall Insulation (EWI) System works like a precision-engineered “jacket” for homes. Designed offsite and made-to-measure using advanced 3D scanning, the panels arrive on site ready to be installed with minimal disruption. Once fitted, they wrap walls—and even roofs—in a seamless layer of insulation, keeping heat in, energy bills down, and carbon emissions firmly in check.
Unlike traditional retrofits that can be messy, slow, and labour-intensive, the Ultrapanel solution is fast, scalable, and resident-friendly. The design cleverly includes a ventilated cavity to protect against damp, plus a dedicated service zone for running ducting to support technologies like air source heat pumps. It’s a retrofit solution that doesn’t just patch old homes—it future-proofs them.
Why It Matters
The stakes couldn’t be higher. To hit net zero targets, the UK must retrofit millions of homes to at least EPC Band C by 2030. For hard-to-treat properties—solid-wall homes, post-war prefabs, or BISF houses—internal insulation isn’t always an option. Ultrapanel’s system offers a universal upgrade path that delivers:
- Whole-envelope insulation for both walls and roofs
- Thermal performance as low as 0.15 W/m²K
- Zero onsite waste thanks to precision offsite manufacture
- Scalability to support housing providers upgrading entire estates
And the aesthetics? Thanks to its “stand-off” design, the system neatly conceals wall irregularities, delivering a flawless finish that makes a home’s revamp as stylish as it is sustainable.
A Proven Concept
This isn’t just theory. Ultrapanel has already proven its approach in a 2023 pilot with the Mayor of London’s Retrofit Accelerator – Homes Innovation Partnership, where it demonstrated significant energy savings and improvements in resident comfort.
The Moment at Offsite Expo
Hosted by Steve Chesters of HadleyFRAME, the challenge saw finalists pitch their retrofit innovations to a live audience and a panel of expert judges: Ele George, Gary Ramsay, and Jackie Maginnis. The Ultrapanel team’s clarity, engineering precision, and scalability made their pitch stand out.
“Ultrapanel have shown that retrofitting doesn’t have to be disruptive or difficult,” the judges said. “This solution has the potential to transform homes at scale and help deliver on the UK’s net zero commitments.”
Wrapping Up the Future
The win cements Ultrapanel’s position as a frontrunner in the race to industrialise retrofit. By treating each house like a unique digital twin and delivering a bespoke, ready-to-fit solution, the company has reimagined how the UK might tackle one of its greatest challenges.
Because, as the Ultrapanel team proved, every home deserves a good winter coat.
