Eye watering amounts some pay for energy

FreeBear

ProDave said: (Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery)

It is not rocket science and well known technology, and perhaps when builder realise such low running costs might be important to customers, we will see one of the mass market house builders offer this as standard?

A MVHR unit is going to cost upwards of £1K - The mass market builders are more likely to fit bling (fancy kitchens) to attract buyers unless they are compelled to do otherwise.

ProDave

brewerdave said:

ProDave said:

It is not rocket science and well known technology, and perhaps when builder realise such low running costs might be important to customers, we will see one of the mass market house builders offer this as standard?

I had a "conversation" with the agent for Taylor Wimpey at a new estate of detached houses being built on the edge of our "village". I asked him why 1. they weren't installing solar panels where sensible (plenty of large roofs facing South)  2. they were installing gas central heating rather than heat pump technology and 3. no triple glazing, only (not very impressive) double glazed units.
His answers were that all of those improvements would be far too expensive, not necessary for planning and increase the selling price by more than the market would bear.
 I suspect the true reason was that their profit margins would be squeezed too much!!
Builders won't do anything until forced by legislation thru planning laws.

More likely, the unskilled labour they employ that have never built anything other than a traditional leaky box, would not have a clue about how to build a decent air tight house.

Extra insulation does not cost much more, but then the mass builders have history for not fitting basic insulation properly and forgetting it sometimes. 

It is a shame they take the mick like they do as eventually decent building standards will have to be enforeced with tighter building regs and an end to the silly only 1 in 10 new builds have to actually be inspected.

BUFF

Cardew said:

I sometimes think there is little appreciation amongst 'younger' posters just how much old people feel the cold and indeed how 'low' temperatures in a house are a health risk. I read frequently on here about thermostats set at 16C or 17 C in living areas and that is far too low for most people. Indeed I think that those people either have a faulty thermometer or their thermometer is in a cool hall.

At ~58 I no longer consider myself young but not yet old but I also have recent experience of a female (women tend to prefer higher room temps to men) parent in their late 90s so I would like to think that I have some appreciation.

Individual people & individual buildings are different.
For myself, I typically have my room stat (in coldest room) set at 14.5C which typically gives me ~16C in the most used room during waking hours (over night it will drop potentially 2C depending upon external temps but I am warm in bed). This incidentally is also the temperature that Historic Environment Scotland suggest to heat to for a traditionally built pre-1919 building* (mine is 1905). I typically wear a baselayer + fleece (so not that many layers) & I am perfectly comfortable at that temperature.
I have multiple temperature sensing devices throughout the house which largely agree with each other (within a reasonable margin of error for each).


Remember that it wasn't too long ago that houses were only typically heated to ~12C in the UK.

*they do suggest that if you feel the need for more to perhaps use localised radiant heating.