Governments 'Green New Deal' will result in far fewer homes being insulated

cepheus

This is appalling, we first waste taxpayers money on subsidising photovoltaics for the middle classes in a cloudy country, then discourage something which is so economical it will pay for itself. What the hell are they thinking of?

The Green Deal is meant to be at the heart of the government's stated ambition to be "the greenest government ever". It is meant to deliver large cuts in carbon emissions. But the government's own figures show that it will instead lead to a dramatic fall in the number of British homes which are being lagged or insulated to make them more energy efficient.

About a million homes a year are currently being insulated under a government arrangement that make energy providers pay for most of the work. The result is vastly reduced utility bills for homeowners and significant reductions in carbon emissions from our old and leaky housing stock. But all of that is about to change.

The Department for Energy and Climate change's figures show that they expect their new plans to reduce the take up of lost insulation by 93 per cent. That's not a typo; it really is 93 per cent. They also predict that the numbers installing cavity wall insulation will plummet by 67 per cent.

A straightforward process?

I am ashamed to say I have never looked in my own loft to check how well insulated it is. Not very, I fear. So I called my energy provider and confirmed they offer free insulation to most of their customers. They made it sound like a very straightforward process. So why haven't I done it before now? I could save hundreds of pounds a year and it wouldn't cost me anything.

The government says 'hassle factor' is the main reason people haven't taken advantage of existing insulation schemes.

Every major supplier offers free or cut-price deals for loft and cavity insulation. Some, like E.On, even pay you £100 for taking up their offer. Yet still more than half of the people eligible for this assistance don't ask for it. Why?

The government itself says that "hassle factor" is the main reason people haven't taken advantage of existing schemes that would better insulate their homes and cut their bills. Yet their Green Deal plan is about to make it much, much more of a hassle to get your home insulated.

Under the Green Deal you will have to arrange it all yourself. Arrange for an assessor or surveyor to come round and look at your property. It will also be up to you to find a building firm or contractor who will then come round and do whatever the assessor recommends.


'Whole home' approach

The Department for Energy and Climate Change thinks this will be more attractive to homeowners because they will have a free choice of who they want to do the work in their home. And they can take more of a "whole home" approach to energy saving. Instead of concentrating on just loft insulation and cavity walls you can get all your windows draft-proofed at the same time.

Environmentalists warn the government's own green policy will result in the UK significantly missing its climate change targets.

The biggest change is that you will then have to pay for the costs yourself. You don't have to write a cheque for the building work on the day it is completed. But you will pay for it through your energy bills. A small additional charge will be added to your monthly bill to pay for the costs over several years.

The government insist this will still save you money as the charge will be less than the amount you are saving on your current bills. But it will cost you more than it does right now because it's currently free to most people.

Home insulation helps individuals because it significantly reduces their energy bills. It can also make a real difference to the environment. If this "greenest ever" government is to meet its global warming targets, it needs to double the number of lofts being lagged - not reduce it to fewer than 10 per cent of the current rate. So environmentalists are warning the government's own green policy will result in the UK significantly missing its targets on climate change.

http://www.channel4.com/news/green-deal-could-hit-uk-climate-change-targets

Ken68

It makes sense to get the unemployed to do the whole country. C ompulsory.

rogerblack

Rather than the unemployed, those tradesmen who have been recently working on installing solar panels would be far better employed doing insulation work.

Insulating homes is not only good for the homeowner.
It's also good for the country.
Neglecting for the moment climate change.
For the near future, most of our energy will come from non-renewable sources that are largely imported from overseas.
This means that every pensioner, everyone on welfare, all the doctors, ... are buying fuel from overseas.
This means our economy has to work harder to produce exports to sell overseas, or our currency falls, and all imports get more expensive.

If we can reduce domestic energy consumption - specifically fuel imports - the UK as a whole ends up more prosperous.

Ben84

Insulating buildings in probably one of, if not the cheapest long lasting ways to cut carbon emissions and fuel consumption. If the government can't see the long term value in continuing this scheme to insulate as many existing houses as possible, I don't have great hopes for their other environmental plans.

In contrast, solar panels are a much more costly way of doing things and hardly lower on the hassle factor either. However, they allow a smaller number of people to do more than average to cut fuel consumption, which is fine, but as a national energy conservation plan is missing the reality that everyone doing a bit does more than a few people doing a lot. The government and a lot of people and businesses have got very caught up in individualism of environmental impact and perhaps feel that allowing a small number of people who really care to do a lot is more voter pleasing than getting everyone involved and getting the most value and benefit from the costs.

HalloweenJack

The tradesmen recently working on solar panel installations - are still doing those installations; something, the likes of homesun, dont want to mention, is whilst the work has slowed down - installs are still happening as equipm,ent costs have also fallen

rogerblack

HalloweenJack wrote: »

The tradesmen recently working on solar panel installations - are still doing those installations; something, the likes of homesun, dont want to mention, is whilst the work has slowed down - installs are still happening as equipm,ent costs have also fallen

'Slowed down' somewhat understates it.

http://www.decc.gov.uk/media/viewfile.ashx?filetype=4&filepath=11/stats/energy/energy-source/3803-weekly-solar-pv-installation-and-capacity-.xls&minwidth=true



To put some numbers on that - 29000 installs under 4kW in the last week of the old scheme.
909 in the last week - which was about the same as this time last year.

A _large_ percentage - most of - the installers have to have been laid off, unless they are being kept on in case the FIT goes back up and a new spike in installs happens before any deadline occurs.

don0301

well, it was Xmas. can't see any other reason for the big drop off

theres no surprise there was a large spike of installs after the announcement on FiT reduction.

on a more serious note, the company i used planned to transfer the guys who did my install to industrial installations. They had no plans to lay anyone off. But they have been going for more than 5 minutes

I'm sure there will be a cull of the more fly by night installers, but is that a bad thing?

Once things settle I wouldnt be surprised that installation numbers will improve again, as IMHO it's still a decent investment.

bearcub

We recently had a leaflet thorugh the door, from a company apparently working with our council, to supply 'cheap' insulation for 'suitable' properties. We're retired scientists as well as house owners, so we're pretty interested in what these companies have to say. We came to the conclusion that the example savings that they're quoting are nowhere near the truth. In fact, we believe that we'd save very little so, if the government are allowing us to do all the organisation ourselves (how gracious of them!), we'd be out of pocket. But, hey, we'd be saving the world, so why should we let that worry us?

Martyn1981

bearcub wrote: »

We recently had a leaflet thorugh the door, from a company apparently working with our council, to supply 'cheap' insulation for 'suitable' properties. We're retired scientists as well as house owners, so we're pretty interested in what these companies have to say. We came to the conclusion that the example savings that they're quoting are nowhere near the truth. In fact, we believe that we'd save very little so, if the government are allowing us to do all the organisation ourselves (how gracious of them!), we'd be out of pocket. But, hey, we'd be saving the world, so why should we let that worry us?

Since installing cavity wall insulation about 5 years ago, our gas consumption fell about 20%.

However, you'll need to check that your house has a suitable cavity, and that it can be filled fully, and professionally.

Loft insulation is a no-brainer, if you do a quick bit of googling or get a fact sheet, you should be able to do it yourself. Minimum now is 270mm, but while you're at it, if you can, you might as well try to put two layers of 200mm down yourself for about £40. Nothing will come close to the savings from loft insulation.

Have fun.

Mart.

cepheus

Ben84 wrote: »

In contrast, solar panels are a much more costly way of doing things and hardly lower on the hassle factor either. However, they allow a smaller number of people to do more than average to cut fuel consumption, which is fine, but as a national energy conservation plan is missing the reality that everyone doing a bit does more than a few people doing a lot. The government and a lot of people and businesses have got very caught up in individualism of environmental impact and perhaps feel that allowing a small number of people who really care to do a lot is more voter pleasing than getting everyone involved and getting the most value and benefit from the costs.

I think you have summed it up there, this is not Socialism whether the party in power is called Labour or Conservative, it is about individualism, votes and corporate lobbying by the PV sector! I'm not convinced that PV saves more carbon than insulation though even for individuals.

bearcub

Our loft is already insulated to around 270mm so, in theory, we could have more. Having said that, our house is very small, and the loft is essential storage, so any increase in depth of insulation would render it almost useless for storage.

Neighbours in similar properties around us, including my mum's, have had cavity wall insulation installed BUT, and it is a quite big but, we have very little wall space, as the windows are large, plus the back of our house (the biggest expanse of wall space) faces towards the sea and prevailing winds (we're not far from the Needles). We've nearly had all the DG windows replaced with more modern ones, and we have low celings so, despite being a detached bungalow, our fuel bills are pretty low. The latter is why we reckon that the leaflet is total rubbish! Never mind, it can be recycled.