the government would be better insulating everyones homes

[ivykaty44]

thus reducing the fuel bills year on year and effectively giving everyone ££££ every year than just once

A new boiler with a £350 saving per year has a pay back time of 5.5/6 years. A lot of people aren’t even going to have the money to finance the boiler, nevermind no return for that period.

We looked at insulating our holiday home (solid stone stable), to do it properly to avoid damp etc we were quoted £21-24k. Its only a very small building, so imagine the costs involved (and the upheavel as every outer wall is destroyed and recovered) in a standard stone cottage. Oh, on £21k it would have a pay back of around 46 years.

A lot of people aren’t even going to have the money to finance the boiler, nevermind no return for that period.

indeed and grants for new boilers have dried up

Ok a fair amount and I assume thirty years - one report said one home insulated a minute would take that long- maybe it has changed

We have huge demands on public spending after pandemic and now the war and people don’t generally welcome higher taxes

Is there a plan on how to pay for it?

Building regulations for energy efficiency are slowly but steadily getting tougher and there is a jump coming into effect from 15th June this year for both new builds and renovations. I've been surpassing regs for years on clients projects but they are inching closer to being better.
Unfortunately the way that mass housing projects are currently assessed allows them to get away with poor quality on the majority of an estate which means that there are gaps, poor design and installation issues which negates the improved regulations.
Smaller one off projects, aren't assessed in the same way so they don't get away with it as much.

@wonkylegs do you mind giving me an idea of what you've done to your Victorian home? We looked an insulation but I'm not sure what would work...

Is there a plan on how to pay for it?

tax the fuel companies?
If there is a way to find the £100 billion for HS2 then where did that money come from?

I think the government (or perhaps local authorities) should provide grants and guidance to incentivise people to insulate their homes, but I don't think this is a realistic alternative to helping people with energy costs now. Even if they launched a major insulation drive tomorrow, on a national scale few properties are going to be done by next winter. I visited a Victorian retrofit green demonstration home recently and they said that one of the main barriers to rolling this out at any scale is an absence of contractors with the right skills to undertake this sort of work.

See that 46 years is why i think a grant is needed. Apparently most people live in a house an average of 7 years. Even tripling that doesnt get near pay back. But a house could exist for 100s of years and the environment needs help.

The solar panel grant has ended. I looked into it.

Am i missing something here. Our last house we had for 20yrs. Pretty modern in the grand scheme of things. We had offers over and over again for free loft insulation and cavity wall insulation. We turned down the cavity wall insulation as we heard it caused issues but we took them up on the loft insulation and it made a huge difference.

These offers have been on for years around the north of england.

Our house was built in the 90s so not exactly old. We had the cavity wall insulation put in for free. Then had to pay to have it sucked out at great expense as it was causing damp. Several houses on our cul de sac had the same issue. 3 others that I know of out of 30 houses ( don’t know how many had the insulation though) I agree that houses in the uk are built to “breath” - wall cavities are there for a reason. It might be different in other parts of the country but in the wild windy wet north west - it doesn’t seem to work that well.

@Corgi887
No problem, we did a complete renovation which we knew we would have to do when we bought the place but we did live here whilst it was done.
We fitted 100mm sheep wool insulation under the suspended floors.
The main loft is insulated with 300mm rock wool at the edges, and 200mm pur insulation under the storage boarding. The secondary loft is 300mm rock wool insulation.
When we re-roofed the flat roof we added further pUR insulation there too.
We draughtproofed everything but then added controlled humidistat ventilation.
We rehung the front door so it actually fit in its frame and draughtproofed it.
We have chimney sheep in the working fireplaces that can be removed if we want to use them. Non working fireplaces have been capped with vented caps (we had a problem with birds) and have insulation at the bottom to reduce draughts.
We have new double glazed sashes throughout apart from the bathrooms which have upvc.
Most of the house doesn't have wall insulation except the very exposed single skin rear bathroom offshoot has external insulation with ventilated hit and miss timber cladding over it. The detailing was a nightmare but it looks lovely.
We are planning to remove the conservatory and replace with a new insulated garden room but at the moment it's separated from the main house with external doors. We have an extension on the garage which is my studio and it's super insulated and requires minimal energy input. None in summer and 1hr of heat in winter. We plan the garden room to be the same level.
We changed the hot water cylinder to a pressurised cylinder with better insulation and all pipework is insulated.
We upgraded the boiler and have a Honeywell smart heating system and that works very well. We have oversized radiators to enable them to operate at a lower temp - future proofs them for other heat sources like a ground source heat pumps.
None of its very sexy but it works.

Ah, but HS2 is a typical Government toy - why benefit the many, when you can benefit the few 😉

There is already the windfall tax to help people this winter

What is Labour’s plan to generate £600 to £700 bn?

I can’t really comment on HS2 it seems it has pros and cons, some environmental pros and cons included, some extra revenue to towns it reaches. It won’t affect me at all but I have very much benefited from being in an area that had no overground train links at all and now does. It’s changed the area.

Plus I’ve definitely seen people bemoaning train travel in U.K. v Europe on here and how we lag

Allywill ah what a waste, tough to read

on insulation I’m not totally against it more what is the reality of it, how much and how long will it take, can it be done without costly mistakes. And mostly how will it be paid for.

I can’t really comment on HS2 it seems it has pros and cons,

I was using it as an example of a large billion £ project that the government has found the money for, regardless of the pros and cons which there are many on both sides (I live in the worst hit county for disruption and am seeing first hand the decimation of the countryside) it was an example to answer your question

The solar panel grant has ended. I looked into it.

this is why I have been informed, but up thread a poster stated it was still going so asked for the link and information to this, there are grants for insulation etc but people are not able o fund the other part then the uptake will be low - which it has been for the last 10 years, incredible low

If only there had been a group of people actively campaigning for better insulated homes …..

And mostly how will it be paid for.

how will the £400 to every house in the country be paid for? and what will happen int he winter of 2023? how will people pay their utility bills then? This year the government is giving £400 to the fuel companies for every household int he country, if you have two homes you'll get £800

We had our house insulated many years ago. It was free. I live in Wale, does that make a difference?

Stellaris22 people are against that sort of campaign though...

there is thread after thread after thread about the cost of utilities direct debits and how much they are rising, people can't afford it and are struggling with the expense - but suggest a long term proposition to reduce that amount and there seems to be a movement against it

There's houses like mine which are as well insulated as they can be and are still quite cold. I can't get cavity wall insulation because the walls are solid brick. Can't add any more roof insulation because it has been converted. No solar panels because I live in a conservation area and they're not allowed.

What would help massively is the top 1% stopping lining their own pockets and some of that wealth making its way back into the population where it can actually do some good rather than sitting in accounts collecting interest to make obscenely rich people even richer.

I totally agree with you. Insulation is a simple and low-tech way to reduce energy consumption and improve comfort in our homes. New builds should be zero or negative carbon.

I’m not against it it just needs the reality of how long etc

If it is 10 years (or 30?) to get round all the houses it’s not going to help many whilst costs are so high this winter

It doesn’t mean it can’t be done - although the £600 bn is still needed from somewhere - but it won’t replace the immediate payment that’s happening

I do agree new builds are an easy fix in terms of regulation

@wonkylegs how did you calculate radiator size for future heat pump conversion?

We’ve just moved and I want to upgrade some of the knackered old radiators to efficient aluminium rads but we won’t be getting a heat pump for another 8-10 years - our boiler is too new and it’s not exactly carbon friendly to throw it out. Trying to work out exactly how big the rads need to be is hard work (or at least very well hidden) though!

There's been free insulation for years. Maybe they stopped it more recently.

But agreed. Additional insulation would help everyone.