Fuel Poverty Q&A with Drew Hendry MP 2pm today. Share your experiences!

Former_MSE_Andrea

Not many in the public gallery either by the sound of it.

Perhaps the MPs were saving themselves for today's Spending Review.

silverwhistle

My income is around £12k and I spend about 3% of that on fuel. That's unusual since I've solar panels and a wood burner which is not possible for many, but it has stimulated me to ask why the government have stopped schemes designed to improve energy efficiency and why they've reduced the standards necessary for new builds?

If you are using very little it's worth investigating Ebico as they have a high unit rate but no standing charge and as a result my gas bills for the summer 6 months are zero and a few pounds.

iris

Marisco wrote: »

Why don't they get WFA? All pensioners get it regardless of income.

I wonder if the OP is referring to the following scheme and not the WFA.
https://www.gov.uk/the-warm-home-discount-scheme

C_Mababejive

Its peripheral but an important part of the debate that we look at housing and heating technology.

I think first of all we need to look at the rise of high efficiency combi boilers which now proliferate and which have big question marks with regard to use of resources, efficiency and durability. It is my view that such appliances are often inappropriate for many homes, waste gas and water and have a poor servicelife . We should move back to a model of stored hot water using lower output system or heat only gas boilers which have more durable components, last longer, are more reliable and have good combustion efficiency.


Building construction. I think in this country we need to move away from the traditional model of gluing clods of clay together with mortar on some windswept building site. We need to consider a model of concrete raft construction and on site assembly of engineered, factory made homes which have high levels of ventilation and more accurate control of the interior environment to manage ventilation and minimise heat loss. Apart from driving energy efficiency up, this could also have a downward effect on construction costs which could be passed on to the end buyer.