RefurbN16

Tag: Roof Insulation

  • Sustainable Refurbishment – Towards an 80% Reduction in CO2 Emissions

    The UK’s building regulations didn’t start to consider energy consumption until the 1960s, when very basic requirements to conserve energy were placed on house builders. These requirements have slowly been tightened over the decades and the introduction of the Code for Sustainable Homes has accelerated this in recent years.

    The intention is that new build homes built from 2016 will be zero carbon (although the exact definition of ‘zero carbon’ in this case is still up for grabs). The problem is that the UK’s housing stock is the oldest in the developed world, with 8.5 million properties over 60 years old and an estimated 24 million homes built up to 2016 expected to still exist in 2050.

    Zero carbon new build homes are definitely needed so that new homes don’t add to emissions, but all of the carbon reductions will have to happen in homes that have already been built.

    In the previous post we looked generally at a whole house approach to sustainable refurbishment. The Energy Saving Trust has recently published an interesting new publication which looks at this in more detail and points the way towards an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions in existing homes. This guide is aimed at homeowners as well as housing developers and builders and is clearly written and nicely presented.

    It gives an excellent overview of the energy efficiency measures that can be implemented in the UK’s homes including the different types of wall, roof and floor insulation, improving windows and doors, increasing air tightness as well as efficient heating and hot water systems and lighting and appliances. Also covered are microgeneration, water efficiency, waste and recycling and even climate change adaptation.

    If you want to get a good picture of what needs to be done to our homes, then this is a good starting point. Hopefully it will stimulate you to consider which of these measures can be applied in your home.

    The Energy Saving Trust has lots of interesting technical guidance. More information can be found here.

  • Landlord’s Energy Saving Allowance

    For those of us who rent there are much fewer options open to us when it comes to reducing our CO2 emissions in the home. The no cost and low cost measures are well within our grasp and they can make significant savings, but to make bigger cuts money needs to be invested.

    As a renter, there is little incentive to invest in energy efficiency measures as you may only be living there for another year or two, and your landlord may not be interested in improving the energy efficiency of the homes they own because they don’t pay the bills.

    To help break this Catch 22, there is a nice little incentive to tempt your landlord into making that investment: the Landlord’s Energy Saving Allowance (LESA).

    This is a tax deduction which allows a landlord to reduce their taxable income by the cost of certain energy efficiency measures up to a value of £1,500 per house per year.

    The measures covered by the LESA are:

    • Cavity wall insulation
    • Loft insulation
    • Solid wall insulation
    • Draught proofing
    • Hot water cylinder insulation
    • Floor insulation

    Other measures such as double glazing and boiler replacement may be entited to other tax deductions.

    If your landlord fits loft insulation, floor insulation and draught proofing in your home and it costs, say £1,000 in total, they can deduct £1,000 from their taxable income at the end of the tax year.  If they pay tax at 40%, the insulation will end up costing them £600 rather than £400, if they pay tax at 20%, the insulation will end up costing them £800.

    The LESA is open to both individual and corporate landlords (although it cannot be claimed if the let is under the Rent A Room Scheme or a holiday let) and will run until 1st April 2015.

    As energy prices continue to rise, renters will become increasingly interested in the energy efficiency of prospsective homes. Landlords now have to show an Energy Performance Certificate to potential new renters and by taking steps to fit insulation and other energy efficiency measures, the rating will improve making the home more attractive.

    The LESA coupled with the fact that a wide range of energy efficiency and microgeneration measures qualify for a reduced VAT rate of 5%, makes a strong financial incentive for landlords to improve the energy performance of the homes that they own. So get friendly with your landlord and try and persuade them to takes steps to improve your home.

    For more information see the DirectGov page.

  • Queen Elizabeth’s Walk Pt 1

    One of the Building Group members, Yvonne, kindly hosted a well attended Buildings Group meeting last night, which included a couple of new faces.

    Her home is a south facing Victorian mid terrace with suspended timber floors and rooms up in the loft. It’s located on Queen Elizabeth’s Walk up near the reservoirs north of Lordship Park.

    Yvonne and her partner will be building a wider extension, amongst other work, and recognised that this would be the perfect opportunity to overhaul the rest of the home’s energy efficiency. They took a trip to the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales where they received some excellent advice and had the opportunity to get up close and personal with a wide range of high performance building materials and technologies.

    The main energy efficiency work which they will be undertaking is challenging.

    The dormer roof has all sorts of angles and slopes which make insulating difficult. Multiple materials of varying thicknesses will be needed, but the important thing is to ensure that there is a continuous “tea cosy” (as Fran puts it) of insulation on all surfaces, even if it’s just a modest amount on some surfaces and more on others.

    The suspended timber floor needs insulation but has Parquet over the top which means that taking up the floorboards is not possible. Access to the space underneath the floor is very tight across much of the floor area so this could prove a bit of a headache, but there are options which we will cover.

    Yvonne is also looking at fitting microgeneration technologies. With the south facing roof, solar hot water and photovoltaics are clearly strong contenders. The feed in tariff is being introduced in April, which makes this a good time to be considering electricity generating technologies, but as always with microgeneration, you need to ensure that your energy consumption has been reduced as far as practicable before investing, which is exactly what Yvonne is doing.

    Update: Yvonne has started a blog charting her progress.