Green Deal MSE Guide Discussion

John_Pierpoint

Ken68 wrote: »

Makes sense, along with other compulsory measures. Cheaper and safer than subsidies to build nuclear.

Actually usually cheaper than installing the latest high efficiency heating kit.

But not a lot of profit in it for the suppliers.

Richie-from-the-Boro

SAP – the Standard Assessment Procedure - is the Government's approved mechanism for measuring home energy efficiency – taking into account lighting, heating and levels of insulation. The SAP scale runs from 1 (low) to 100 (high) and Energy Performance Certificate bands are based on the SAP scores: a G rated home has a SAP rating of less than 21, an F band home has a rating of less than 39.

- F&G banded homes can be brought to an E band for less than £3k
- 15% of the stock will cost more than £5k to bring into an E band
- most F&G banded stock is in the private rented sector
- full loft and cavity wall insulation cost less than £1k
- a modern condensing boiler usually costs less than £3k
- solid wall insulation is not the single most cost effective measure to bring a house to an E rating
- electric heating is prevalent in many of the lowest SAP-rated homes
- EPC's with a SAP rating SAP39 / Band E is a long way from the level of energy efficiency that will be required to ensure that residents are not at risk of fuel poverty
- F&G's fall below the acceptable minimum standard and risk fuel poverty, of never being able to adequately heat their home, no matter how much they spend
- F&G's constitute a “category one hazard” for excess cold, as defined in English and Welsh environmental health regulation

The Cheaper to Treat Band (37% of GB homes in 2005) – Cost less than £1,000 to improve These homes can be brought into the E banding through basic cavity wall and loft insulation measures. Of the 72 house types we analysed, the single most common house type fell into this banding – 19% of F&G rated homes (around 1m homes) are larger or medium sized (probably semi-detached or detached), gas heated, double glazed and with an unfilled cavity wall. All these homes can be brought out of this banding through cavity wall and loft insulation. Generally these homes fall into the F banding.

The Boiler Band (around 47% of GB homes) – generally cost less than £3,000 to improve These homes can be brought into the E banding most cost effectively by changing to a modern heating system: in particular to condensing boilers for oil fired and gas fired heating systems. Around 10% of homes in this band are currently coal heated, and there is a particularly large carbon saving potential from changing the heating fuel in these homes. For these homes, which are usually in rural areas, we considered that air source heat pumps may be the most appropriate solution. However, installing air source heat pumps may require larger scale changes to the heating system that cost well above the £3,000 limit

The Windows Band (1.5% of GB homes) – cost £3,000 - £5,000 to improve This is a small group of smaller homes (flats or terraces), electrically or oil heated and single glazed. These homes can be most cost effectively brought into the E banding through changing to double glazed windows, sometimes accompanied by basic insulation measures (loft and cavity wall insulation). As these are small homes, it is assumed that this can be achieved for less than £5,000. On average, these homes just fall into the G banding before improvement, with a SAP rating of 23.

The Expensive to treat homes (around 15% of GB homes) – cost £5,000 - £9,500 to improve A typical home in this band is larger on average, at least a large semi-detached house. They are generally electrically and oil heated homes, and are built with solid wall construction (though note that many solid wall homes do not fall into this band and can be improved more cheaply). Around 50% of these homes are single glazed and they are all expensive to heat. The average SAP value for these homes is less than 20 – well into the G banding. These homes may be treated by:

- Double glazing and improvements to loft insulation. As these are larger homes, double glazing is assumed to cost over £5,000
- Fuel switching (e.g. from electricity to gas). This is likely to involve large scale and expensive changes to heating systems
- rural, off-gas areas, switching to a condensing gas heating system is not an option, air-source heat pump based system is viable

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Most private landlords will simply do the math, for example anything over a £3,000 upgrade will be dumped into the market over the next 2 years for someone else to worry about, the remainder of their stock will have the £3,000 upgrade. Many will choose to go ECO and service the £5,000-£9,000 Windows & Expensive to treat homes upgrade repayments through the householders electricity bills.

Many will be able to do very little, even if they wish to do more BTL's [very high % small single & couple person block] etc, only own the space, not the roof and walls and will not even be able to participate in the Cheaper to Treat Band even if they were willing to do so and will have to choose to go with glazing only or the Boiler Band or .. .. nothing.

sheffield_lad

Richie good post, you are correct with the unfilled cavities but often these properties have been left due to the cavity being too narrow. Some of the energy firms have been looking into this and are almost ready to go with a charted surveyor currently signing the work off for them.

Most all electric properties in the UK are actually social landlords not private. Cities such as Leeds & Hull gambled back in the 1970's that electric was going to be cheap as chips and gas was going to run out! Unfortunately that gamble did not pay off and both cities have thousands upon thousands of houses/flats/tower blocks with under floor electric & electric warm air (horrible), which require an off peak rate (normally 16hr), which also restricts the type of company and tariff they can have. There is no easy cost effective solution to this situation (other than fitting E7 storage heaters), and both councils are retrofitting with external wall to offer some benefit.

Richie-from-the-Boro

sheffield_lad wrote: »

Richie good post, you are correct with the unfilled cavities but often these properties have been left due to the cavity being too narrow. Some of the energy firms have been looking into this and are almost ready to go with a charted surveyor currently signing the work off for them.

Most all electric properties in the UK are actually social landlords not private. Cities such as Leeds & Hull gambled back in the 1970's that electric was going to be cheap as chips and gas was going to run out! Unfortunately that gamble did not pay off and both cities have thousands upon thousands of houses/flats/tower blocks with under floor electric & electric warm air (horrible), which require an off peak rate (normally 16hr), which also restricts the type of company and tariff they can have. There is no easy cost effective solution to this situation (other than fitting E7 storage heaters), and both councils are retrofitting with external wall to offer some benefit.

Ta sheffield lad,

Agreed most are LA / HA,I have an input into a HA and last year we looked at the impending legislation. With 42,000 housing stock we are already 'E' rated minimum. My point made then to the powers that be is the acceptable is unacceptable. Doing a complete refit of say 500 dwellings per annum with the heating and insulation at £3k would be a short term and short sighted investment. Moving to band 'D' should be the target, the point I was making was that 2000 dwelling per year over 20 years ÷ 40,000 units would take 20 years, and in the next decade or so the bar would almost likely or certainly have to be raised to [expected basic decent level for energy efficiency - or carbon targets] band 'D' by GOV. Its worthy of note that we have already treated other non-traditional HTT dwellings with external wall insulation applied, new boilers, photovoltaic panels, and their electric heating systems switched to gas.

E7 / E10 stored heat systems are often quoted as causal contributors to the lowest SAP - rated homes, my personal 35 year association with E7 leads me to believe that its not necessarily the case that such owner / tenants are never able to adequately heat their home, no matter how much they spend. There's a like for like modern swap out already on the market that will deliver the (1) comfort and (2) controllability element so sadly lacking in the legacy 'night store' installs for the same 7-9 hours delivery model. Take a standard open plan modern build 2 up & down 'town house' 60-70 m² social housing unit aged 25-30 years with filled walls and loft insulation and PartL installed heating. Here the EER & EIR would put running costs in band D and CO emissions in band E, putting in a retrofit £3k+ gas system in would :

- reduce energy use : 454 kWh/m² to 423 kWh/m² per!year
- reduce Carbon dioxide emissions : 3.7 tonnes per year to 3.5!tonnes!per!year
- reduce Lighting : £30 per year to £30 per year
- reduce Heating : £405 per year to £348 per year
- reduce Hot!water : £113 per year to £113 per year

E7 / E10 ceiling / floor /warm air / electric wet radiator systems should have been replaced by the 80's. A not inconsiderable 60's & 70's estates build dwelling type needs external wall [HTT] most council stock is now HA and most ex 'corporation' housing was post war built like brick thingy-houses with cavity construction, albeit designed with plenty of the draughts - a re-requisite of coal burning fires. You are correct that the mistakes of the 60's 70's with the cities in the sky [flats/ tower blocks] leave big social owners of such blocks out on a very expensive limb. I agree with you that putting a £50,000 heating system in an under-insulated tower block or a badly designed modernist council estate is a folly.

I'm not sure however that electricity is not the way to go, our problem in this country is we have none because we generate none and we generate none because we relied on carbon and continue to rely on carbon, and will always [fracking next stop] rely on carbon and £100 Bi££ion spent on little windy mills, that's £112 a year for everyone in the UK added to their leccy bills, for these redundant windy mill graveyard & scrapyards on sea and land in 15 or so [2,000 turbines rotting in the Californian desert] years. That's in addition to the cost of substantial 'back up' plant on the grid. Stupid little 'kettle' lakes are called kettle lakes for a reason, they only gave a couple of minutes generating power. We as a nation backed the wrong cheap energy horse when the tree huggers and sandal wearers took over the agenda. Doomsday sayers back in the days of Copernicus at the same time as the inquisition a bloke called Galileo forced the consensus that the earth was the centre of the universe just because the political consensus now says we have global warming does not mean the world will end- it won't. 250 years ago we had 4 trillion tons of carbon underground, we've burnt a 1/2 trillion tons or so in 250 years, gimme a break .............

Nobody likes the truth, and I mean nobody. As long as this country avoids the inevitable and fails to build nuclear we will forever be at the mercy of primary resources of which we have none. Building toy windmills, pointing little bits of silicon at the sun and putting wiggly worms in the waves won't hack it .. .. if we covered the entire island and its shoreline in them it still would not provide power for the nation. Temperature stopped rising 15 years ago, the scientists knew it and said so. The politicians however continue to trott out global warming to frighten the nation into paying for stupid windy mills as a way of generating employment and reducing the need for carbon purchase costs [coal & oil] but its not to reduce global warming. Globally the earth has warmed 0.8% since the industrial revolution, carbon dioxide has been on holiday since 1997 its still at 400ppm. Don't you find its a curious fact that all political traction - not scientific traction that drives these initiatives ? Put the whole worthless 'green' scenario in the long grass till about 2050 then have a~n~other look at the efficacy of UK 'green' energy, it might have improved .. .. but I doubt it. Do I want a nuke power station next to me, aye go on - I've got one 16 miles from here [1969- 1984], I suppose another won't hurt, I mean its been there for nearly 30 years and done me no harm. I haven't turned green don't glow in the dark and all my kids have the same amount of toes I have.

All options are cost-dis-benefit and need megga taxpayer subsidy, regardless of green / nuclear / gas / coal:

- nuclear can / will provide for base & peak demand
- coal & gas could if built provide for base & peak demand
- coal is the most polluting, and is unlikely ever to make a comeback for that reason
- green can not now and never ever will ever provide for base & peak demand
- gas is the most state security risky, one twist of Putin's megalomaniac tap, the lights go out, the heating goes off
- off the graph's, gas is the decade on decade inexorably rising cost and is the single biggest generator of electricity
- nuclear, when invented, was supposed to be so cheap that metering it was a pointless and unnecessary cost - yeh right !

Folks we have an endless water supply and an island of 'clarts' we can survive indefinitely as an island nation, we can feed and clothe our people but we aint got king-coal and can no longer function without energy. The 59 nuclear reactors in France mean they make about 75% of their needs and have economic and energy security, indeed they sell us their surplus leccy. They own our power companies and water companies, their nuclear strategy remains essentially unchanged from day one, why would they change it, they're laughing all the way to the bank and their nation has security. I'm not denying Fukushima, and Chernobyl and the risks with nuclear I just hold a different view - nuclear was the best of a bad set of options even when Scargill ruled the carbon fields, it continued to be the best in the last 30 [10% of American electricity comes from former Russian warheads] years but we invested in more carbon. We should face the truth and build a zero-carbon small factor nuclear that works for mankind.

At some point it will be nuclear power or going to war at one level or another, the fact of the matter is, if anyone turns off America's tap, war - unlike toy wars such as Afghanistan & Iraq will be instant and final against those with this precious resource. Face the future - its a truth no one wants to face - I'd just rather do it now than later.

Right - off to watch the footy !

Coulsdon_Town

Deleted_User wrote: »

Already houses for let in my area that have been empty for months and months on end. Single glazed windows and no insulation and no modern combi/condensing gas boiler, just a 1980s gas fire and back boiler. No one is going to rent them when they can rent a house in the same street with all mod cons.

Hi LeeUK,
Can you tell us a bit more of your example please? By 'mod cons' do you mean insulation, recent double glazing and a modern gas boiler? What type of landlord owns the outdated housing, and what type of landlord owns the better housing? Are the landlords of the un-let properties showing any sign of waking up and spending some money on them?

[Deleted User]

Coulsdon_Town wrote: »

Hi LeeUK,
Can you tell us a bit more of your example please? By 'mod cons' do you mean insulation, recent double glazing and a modern gas boiler? What type of landlord owns the outdated housing, and what type of landlord owns the better housing? Are the landlords of the un-let properties showing any sign of waking up and spending some money on them?

By mod cons I do indeed mean modern double glazing, gas boiler, loft insulation (confirmed by EPC) etc etc and up to date kitchen/bathroom.

The ones that lay empty for months in a state of disrepair are owned by absent/overseas landlords who are only thinking of a quick £££ (only it's not happening).

I regularly browse the property portals to see what is for sale/let in my town.

tannoy_2

I'm about to purchase a property. I'm not moving in straightaway because the 3 bed terraced house has been neglected over the years and is in need of some TLC.

Currently there is a hot air heating system and a separate hot water boiler. I've instructed my builders to install gas central heating, radiators in each room and a combi-boiler.

My completion date isn't until the end of July and the builders will start there work immediately. Am I able to send in assessor before I move or do I need to have some previous energy bills to take advantage of the green deal?

Coulsdon_Town

A critique of the (poor) design of Green Deal, by an industry insider :
http://builtonperformance.wordpress.com/2013/06/28/green-deal-why-its-not-working-and-how-to-fix-it/comment-page-1/#comment-64

John_Pierpoint

Houses are bought by women and sold by estate agents.

I have yet to meet a female house purchaser or an estate agent's assistant, with any knowledge of the physics or even the terminology used for assessing an home's energy performance.

When we see potential purchasers on property !!!!!! programmes, ignoring the fittted kitchen and the new en suite bathroom, and getting the "wow factor" or even the "kerb appeal" from the "A rating" factors of a property - only then will the green deal make sense to the majority of the population.

Some people claim that cars are being bought on their economy factors BUT when I am driving my car the running costs are probably easily £10 an hour - fortunately the energy costs of living in a house are nothing like that.

Relatively rational and grounded MSE forum members discuss the features of homes in this fun thread.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/62213135#Comment_62213135

nazjon

I had call from getgreentoday.co.uk who offered this deal. However their assessment fee was £399+vat!! It takes around an hour and thought god I am in the wrong job!!

Having read the MSE guide the final point is if you can afford to pay for this upfront its not worth it.....is that the general consensus? You can still take advantage of the cashback etc by doing it independently? Also I only moved into my house in December 2012 and have a EPC for it then. Is that what the the assessment is for, just a straight forward EPC? Mine would still be in date although have had new windows and insulated the loft so will have improved.