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Green Building Bible, Fourth Edition
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General: £6bn to insulate UK’s houses

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      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeNov 17th 2022 edited
     
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/17/6bn-insulate-houses-sizewell-c-jeremy-hunt-energy-efficiency-autumn-statement
    but only starting 2025, on top of recent extension of ECO to £5bn over the present 4yrs.
    Where's the catch, apart from total lack of trained workforce?

    "The Energy Saving Trust has said that installing 270mm of insulation, in a home with none, can cost between £455 and £640, depending on whether it is terraced, detached or a bungalow." Cheap at half the price.
    • CommentAuthorrevor
    • CommentTimeNov 17th 2022
     
    Cheaper than a new nuclear power station. I go to 3 different industrial estates from time to time and cannot help but notice practically all the buildings do not have solar panels on them. Some are electrical wholesalers' builders merchants, warehouses, etc and cannot understand why the absence of them. Some of the roofs are massive and could accommodate hundreds of panels. Add in the big supermarkets and we could cut down on the use of agricultural land for solar use. The irony of it all is as they are at the premises all day, they could use it and save the grid a bit whereas the houseowner is out at work and makes less use of whatever they generate. I was told it was due to the fact that their business rates would increase, really?
    The one exception that does have panels is the LA business centre.
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeNov 17th 2022 edited
     
    Posted By: revorbusiness rates would increase, really?
    Weooh!
  4.  
    ...'Where's the catch, apart from total lack of trained workforce?'

    I think it may be the total lack of a trained workforce...

    And a potential tendency to sub-contract to non-trained operatives

    And a failure to offer low-rate VAT on materials only to DIY-ers and to non-VAT reg'd businesses and sole proprietors.

    Look at all the people on here and all over the place who can, and do, 'do their own'. Allowing them to buy at 5% would (to an albeit small degree) increase their buidget and therefore possibly further enhance the work they can do and the CO2/£ savings they can make.
    • CommentAuthorJeff B
    • CommentTimeNov 17th 2022
     
    I would not trust anyone to install loft insulation in my place especially if we suddenly see a plethora of new "we install insulation" companies offering their services. If the government is serious about this issue then insulation should be VAT-free to DIYer's.
    • CommentAuthortony
    • CommentTimeNov 17th 2022
     
    Are we seriously only talking about loft insulation? There is a lot more to it than that
    • CommentAuthorJeff B
    • CommentTimeNov 17th 2022
     
    Posted By: tonyAre we seriously only talking about loft insulation? There is a lot more to it than that


    I'm pretty sure it's what the government mean by insulating peoples' homes. Somehow I can't see a huge programme of subsidised IWI or EWI installations coming along any time soon much as I would love it!
  8.  
    Absolutely! Everyone should be able to get a sensible Whole House Plan and, if they cannot afford to do it all at once, advice on proper incremental implementation. And a reasonable amount of money to do it!
    • CommentAuthorMike1
    • CommentTimeNov 17th 2022 edited
     
    Posted By: fostertomWhere's the catch, apart from total lack of trained workforce?
    "The Energy Saving Trust has said that installing 270mm of insulation, in a home with none, can cost between £455 and £640

    Adding (more) roof insulation helps - a bit - but is clearly inadequate to upgrade the housing stock to a good level of energy efficiency. For that you'd be spending much more per property.

    £2bn / year sounds is a step in the right direction, but last year France €3.11bn just on improving privately-owned housing, covering 751,646 renovations (see http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17429#Comment_295494)

    The FMB suggest* that 20 million UK homes need some kind of thermal upgrade; based on the French figures that would require a ball-park budget of around €83bn / £73bn to cover the lot, excluding inflation.
    (* https://www.fmb.org.uk/news-and-campaigns/campaigns/retrofit-and-energy-efficiency.html)
  10.  
    The problem that any time there is government money involved in the form of grants, prices go up. Plus all the scammers who get involved to make a quick buck.

    Insulation should be made so cheap it is virtually free.
    • CommentAuthorJonti
    • CommentTimeNov 18th 2022
     
    Posted By: bot de paille
    Insulation should be made so cheap it is virtually free.


    There was a time back in the early 2010's when it was available at a pound a roll.
    • CommentAuthorMikel
    • CommentTimeNov 18th 2022
     
    This is an article from Sept 2021 laying out the scale of making UK homes more energy efficient.

    https://theconversation.com/five-numbers-that-lay-bare-the-mammoth-effort-needed-to-insulate-britains-homes-162540

    Since the article was written, the energy price has risen significantly, which will help with the payback time. However, inflation will mean that building costs will also have risen which will tend to lengthen the payback time.

    Most of the article will be familiar to us here. However, this paragraph was new to me.

    “ A mass retrofit campaign wouldn’t just be a step-change in the construction industry, it would be an entire additional sector. But it would also be time-limited. Once all existing homes are retrofitted, it will come to an end.”
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeNov 18th 2022 edited
     
    All manual work, and 'knowledge work' not far behind, is time-limited.

    Productivity, meaning more output, or perhaps value of output, for less human labour, has hardly ever stopped increasing since the beginning of the industrial revolution, although stalled somewhat in the last 50yrs by the convertion of worldwide peasantry into a glut of fresh industrial labour-forces on the world scene, which makes paying peanuts for 'off-shore' labour a temporary alternative to investment in mechanisation to get more output for less 'on-shore' labour. But the trend is inexorable, especially when you re-name productivity/mechanisation, in the current era, as robotisation - more output for no human labour at all.

    If any sector of production is overdue for productivity/mechanisation/robotisation, it's the world's building industry, which becomes more and more labour-intensive, hence costly, compared to the base-line of labour-elimination set by very many other sectors of production. Costs of goods and services generally continue to plummet (offset only by capitalist ingenuity in maintaining scarcity-pricing by monopoly/cartel/IP/EULA/DMCA etc and by converting purchase into rental) while building costs (incl retrofit) get ever more prohibitive by comparison. It can't last.

    Rather than both left and right worrying about maintaining 'jobs for all', albeit at ever-diluted real-wage, against the tide of the productivity end-game (when human labour is 'productified' out of sight), politics should be developing heretical ideas on how the real proceeds of real value-creation by labour-free production, can be distributed as spending-money to whole populations, without requiring people to 'work' their guts out as the sole means of qualifying for a share of the proceeds. The 'dignity of labour' - poo.

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zero-Marginal-Cost-Society-Collaborative/dp/1137278463/ref=sr_1_1?crid=PULUVB2ZFM4O&keywords=the+zero+marginal+cost+society&qid=1668765320&sprefix=the+zero+marginal+cost%2Caps%2C125&sr=8-1

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fully-Automated-Luxury-Communism/dp/B08FXW9H8L/ref=sr_1_1?crid=391X7OH03P3Y2&keywords=fully+automated+luxury+communism&qid=1668765368&sprefix=fully+automated%2Caps%2C107&sr=8-1
  14.  
    UK society was sold the lie that property prices are the holy grail.

    Above everything else
  15.  
    I think there's some fiddling going on with these ECO grants. I havent quite figured it out yet but somethings not right. I know several people having multiple surveyors and assessor visits offering free insulation heat pumps pv and lot of delays and date moves for installation over and over.
    I've heard of assessors being paid huge sums of money.
    I think the system works in a way that the assessor gets a payment for potential per kW saved.
    the golden job is an electrically heated house with the resident on certain benefits.
    They shut down the last 'green' scheme due to fraud but didnt give to many details.

    Without a decent structure, quality control, long term skill development its gonna be more money pissed up the wall.
    The current Tory ideologs adherence to the market means we'll just get substandard work that will damage buildings, waste money, achieve little real improvement on balance and potentially end up with multiple Grenfells of varying scales
    • CommentAuthorjamesingram
    • CommentTimeNov 18th 2022 edited
     
    AS to loft insulation, I'm currently working in a large, listed building split into flat.
    Top flats have no insulation in the cold vented loft.
    Problem is management companies, owner managed groups have problems sorting out these things, especially if other leasees think only individual properties benefit from such improvements.
    I said to the owners of the top flat, do it this weekend, pay for yourself, you'll get your money back year 2

    I used to think, surely pretty much every home has some or decent loft insulation after the super cheap stuff was available back in the 2000s.
    I remember buying a whole lorry load of rockwool for £3 a roll !

    How many places are there like the one I've mentioned above ?
    • CommentAuthorborpin
    • CommentTimeNov 18th 2022
     
    Posted By: fostertom"The Energy Saving Trust has said that installing 270mm of insulation, in a home with none, can cost between £455 and £640, depending on whether it is terraced, detached or a bungalow." Cheap at half the price.
    Those folk could always do that rather than go on their holidays (new car etc) in the sun of course. Not really sure why I should subsidise those holidays/cars etc.

    Hasn't been their priority, so tough. Fix the roof while the sun shines and don't expect me to pick up your bill.
    • CommentAuthorphiledge
    • CommentTimeNov 18th 2022
     
    Posted By: borpin
    Hasn't been their priority, so tough. Fix the roof while the sun shines and don't expect me to pick up your bill.

    Yep. Having spent the last 5 years(part time!) bolstering insulation and working on draughtproofing, Im not particularly fond of tax payer funded retrofit for all.
    • CommentAuthorJeff B
    • CommentTimeNov 18th 2022
     
    We have just added IWI in our living room and the total cost is of the order of £1000* with no grant support of any kind. I took the money from my pension pot as I suspect the pay-back will outperform any of the funds in my pension portfolio!

    *(includes cost of plastering work, replacement of coving, dado rails, skirting boards and carpet gripper (none of the existing stuff could be reused unfortunately) and new window cills).

    Previously we have massively increased the loft insulation (now 300mm), IWI'd all the upstairs rooms (dormer bungalow) and carried out draught-proofing wherever possible. Like others have mentioned, we took advantage of the very cheap offers on loft insulation at the time.
    • CommentAuthorrevor
    • CommentTimeNov 19th 2022
     
    Posted By: Jeff BWe have just added IWI in our living room and the total cost is of the order of £1000* with no grant support of any kind.


    You did well there to get all of that for £1000. Knowing the cost of materials, I wonder how you managed such good value.
    • CommentAuthorJeff B
    • CommentTimeNov 20th 2022
     
    Posted By: revor
    Posted By: Jeff BWe have just added IWI in our living room and the total cost is of the order of £1000* with no grant support of any kind.


    You did well there to get all of that for £1000. Knowing the cost of materials, I wonder how you managed such good value.


    Perhaps I should explain that only two of the four walls were involved i.e. the two eternal walls. Nevertheless it is quite a big room: total area to be insulated was approximately 25 sq.m. less approximately 4 sq.m. of windows. The single most expensive component was the plastering work which cost £340 (this being the only task which I would never attempt!). The Celotex came to approx £300 and the rest was spent on VCL, 25 x 50mm battens, frame fixings, various mastics and adhesives, plasterboard, gripper rods, skirting, dado rail, window cills and coving. I already had several rolls of self-adhesive aluminium tape and the various paints required.

    It will be interesting to monitor our heating oil consumption this winter. The picture is slightly complicated because we now have a wood burning stove in the living room which hasn't been used yet apart from a brief test firing up back in the summer. Will need to monitor log consumption at the same time!
  22.  
    Posted By: Nick ParsonsEveryone should be able to get a sensible Whole House Plan and, if they cannot afford to do it all at once, advice on proper incremental implementation. And a reasonable amount of money to do it!


    This, for me, is what almost all of the money should be spent on doing in order to do it properly.

    A free national helpline and staff training programme with simple app and website support would be worth more than any amount of non-joined-up half-measures.

    Less incentive to inflate prices and hard sell a particular product etc. since it covers the whole building, it should be more like a specialist arm of Building Control or the (original) BRE. Dedicated to testing and implementation with THERM style heat flux modelling and WUFI calcs in a feedback loop so that we learn from the installs and existing building fabric performance. Just imagine what could be achieved!
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeNov 21st 2022
     
    What a great vision!
    • CommentAuthorMike1
    • CommentTimeNov 21st 2022 edited
     
    Posted By: Doubting_ThomasA free national helpline and staff training programme with simple app and website support would be worth more than any amount of non-joined-up half-measures.

    Less incentive to inflate prices and hard sell a particular product etc. since it covers the whole building, it should be more like a specialist arm of Building Control or the (original) BRE. Dedicated to testing and implementation with THERM style heat flux modelling and WUFI calcs in a feedback loop so that we learn from the installs and existing building fabric performance. Just imagine what could be achieved!

    More-or-less what now happens in France, though not just a helpline. You get a free Government-approved advisor (Mon Accompagnateur Rénov') who visits the site, conducts an audit and defines the scope / options (insulation, windows, heating, ventilation, heat pumps, PV, etc.), helps identify the companies to quote & which estimates to accept, helps with grant & loan applications, monitors progress and follows-up after the work.

    For now they're optional, but from next year will be obligatory if the grant exceeds €5,000, so the Government knows that their cash is spent effectively.

    Of course, as in the UK, the renovation side is not DIY-friendly - all work must be be approved contractors.
  25.  
    <blockquote><cite>Posted By: Mike1</cite><blockquote><cite>Posted By: Doubting_Thomas</cite>A free national helpline and staff training programme with simple app and website support would be worth more than any amount of non-joined-up half-measures.

    Less incentive to inflate prices and hard sell a particular product etc. since it covers the whole building, it should be more like a specialist arm of Building Control or the (original) BRE. Dedicated to testing and implementation with THERM style heat flux modelling and WUFI calcs in a feedback loop so that we learn from the installs and existing building fabric performance. Just imagine what could be achieved!</blockquote>
    More-or-less what now happens in France, though not just a helpline. You get a free Government-approved advisor (Mon Accompagnateur Rénov') who visits the site, conducts an audit and defines the scope / options (insulation, windows, heating, ventilation, heat pumps, PV, etc.), helps identify the companies to quote & which estimates to accept, helps with grant & loan applications, monitors progress and follows-up after the work.

    For now they're optional, but from next year will be obligatory if the grant exceeds €5,000, so the Government knows that their cash is spent effectively.

    Of course, as in the UK, the renovation side is not DIY-friendly - all work must be be approved contractors.</blockquote>

    Which puts the prices up for everyone
    • CommentAuthorMike1
    • CommentTimeNov 22nd 2022 edited
     
    Posted By: bot de paillePosted By: Mike1

    Of course, as in the UK, the renovation side is not DIY-friendly - all work must be be approved contractors.

    Which puts the prices up for everyone

    Yes, to some extent, and since I know the subject I'd love them to give me the cash, instead of funding everything myself :)

    However it does ensure that - at least when they get qualified & have their annual assessments - someone at each company involved has a basic knowledge of whole-house thermal renovation; U-values, thermal modelling, thermal comfort, ventilation, MVHR systems, indoor air quality, moisture migration and the operation of the grant system are all among the topics on the curriculum.
  27.  
    <blockquote><cite>Posted By: Mike1</cite><blockquote><cite>Posted By: bot de paille</cite><cite>Posted By: Mike1</cite><blockquote>
    Of course, as in the UK, the renovation side is not DIY-friendly - all work must be be approved contractors.</blockquote>
    Which puts the prices up for everyone</blockquote>
    Yes, to some extent, and since I know the subject I'd love them to give me the cash, instead of funding everything myself :)

    However it does ensure that - at least when they get qualified & have their annual assessments - someone at each company involved has a basic knowledge of whole-house thermal renovation; U-values, thermal modelling, thermal comfort, ventilation, MVHR systems, indoor air quality, moisture migration and the operation of the grant system are all among the topics on the curriculum.</blockquote>

    Agree completely.

    Like you say though it’s a shame that competent people don’t have a rout open to them to have a DIY approach.

    What I am seeing is an increasing cost just on the administrative/Regs/Materials side even before starting any work. I would like to see a system in place for competent DIY work that can be independently verified and signed off.

    Because its absolutely the case that so called certified and qualified companies are still installing systems incorrectly. There is the risk of false confidence because businesses just need the certification, afterwards individual projects are not verified or inspected by an independent agency
    • CommentAuthorcjard
    • CommentTimeNov 25th 2022
     
    @JeffB "I would not trust anyone to install loft insulation in my place especially if we suddenly see a plethora of new "we install insulation" companies offering their services. If the government is serious about this issue then insulation should be VAT-free to DIYer's."

    Hear here; a friend asked me why the edges and corners of her ceilings at the eaves were all black with mold, worried there was a roof leak..

    ..no, the professionally installed loft insulation stopped too far short meaning about 6 inches of every room has 12mm of plasterboard separating the room from the world. Morons
    • CommentAuthorJeff B
    • CommentTimeNov 25th 2022
     
    Posted By: cjard@JeffB "I would not trust anyone to install loft insulation in my place especially if we suddenly see a plethora of new "we install insulation" companies offering their services. If the government is serious about this issue then insulation should be VAT-free to DIYer's."

    Hear here; a friend asked me why the edges and corners of her ceilings at the eaves were all black with mold, worried there was a roof leak..

    ..no, the professionally installed loft insulation stopped too far short meaning about 6 inches of every room has 12mm of plasterboard separating the room from the world. Morons


    Also I would go the extra mile to ensure that all cabling is re-routed over the additional insulation rather than buried under it.
    • CommentAuthortony
    • CommentTimeNov 26th 2022
     
    I think de-rate the circuits, lighting especially with LED luminaries can be mine is 3A now.

    Ring mains can be too but not showers or cookers

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