Roger440

Wasnt talking about new build. Thats just another example of "not serious" government. As you say, shitty houses. Retrofit. My point was, who will pay? How? Vast majority of houses have loft insulation. That was an easy win. Next steps on insulation are way more expensive as per my post.

I think we agree on this. Mostly.

Well it doesnt do that. So its not fit fr purpose. Take, for example, building an insulated cavity wall. If you are lucky, he will pop his head in there and see insulation. He wont care if its got gaps, isnt taped, has air flowing behind it. Just that its there. Tick in the box. Pointless. What did it add to the process? Aside from cost.

What do think its function is?

Sadly, being ex-railway, i tend to take an interest. Whilst you could argue we have the expertise, its individual expertise. We dont, any longer, have any organisation capable of building a railway in a timely and cost effective manner. All that has been lost. Sure, nimbys and all that other stuff make it worse, but thats a bit of a sideshow. And thats pretty much true across the board. All the institutions that would deliver stuff, be it houses, railways, roads etc etc, are all hollowed out or gone completely.

Sorry people, for the lack of multiquote. Beyond my understanding sadly.

Mostly true, though it goes a bit deeper than that. I have a whole suite of BC certs, all from the council, not worth the paper they are written on. Including sign off for a sewage system that wasnt even there!. Building control is an utterly useless activity that achieves little.

Im not sure what the point of the debate is. You believe it can be stopped and reversed. I dont. With the emphasis on believe. There are ways to deal with flooding, both upstream and downstream. Most of them expensive, but not always. Instead of doing that, and trying to reduce the liklihood of farmland being under water, lets fit heat pumps. That will help. We cant even manage to clear the drains at the side of the road, but you think we can change the climate! Nobody in power being serious. FWIW, i lived next to a river, and had a farmer as a neighbour. I know what happens, and i see the change, including a house full of water.

Political reality prevents anything useful being achieved. I already outlined my thoughts. Move towards renewables at a pace that, a) achievable, b) affordable. And in a manner compatible with keeping the price of energy low. A much slower pace, will by default be more affordable as we slowly build up our capacity to do so. Thats the work of decades. As it stands now, we cant build a short railway from london to birmingham. Our victorian ancestors would weep watching that carry on. Bugger all chance of a huge electricity transmission program.

Who will pay for this "upgrade" of housing stock? What would the average cost be of doing it "properly"? Lets take a wild guess. Wales are currently doing (only for non gas houses though) this along with a heat pump. £45k max grant. So lets be optimistic, and assume that the grant harverters are not involved. Oh, and there enough people who understand old housing stock available. So £35k per house. Where would such staggeringly large sums come from? Its insanity to even think about it. And as above, it wont be £35k once the usual suspects get involved And theres no people to do it. Never mind, as you observe the inappropiate work that will get done. Nor does it come close to making any economic sense from a payback perspective (glossing over the zero chance of as built matching design). Ive come up with a plan for my house. Even doing all the work myself, payback is over 60 years. The most cost effective option is simply to do nothing. Genuinely curious to see any credible solution. I cant make to stack up.

Ive discussed this elsewhere, but the system is indeed completely broken. Even in its revised format, essentially inspectors are free to do as they please with almost no chance of comeback. Yes, they can be subject to penalties etc. But as a homeowner, you have no recourse. Theres no solution in the building inspection system for anything. Developers and anyone else who wants to will carry on circumventing things. They are using photos now. I mean, just how wide open to abuse can you get?

Im not sure i could think of a less appropiate organisation to manage a large house building program. Those days have well and truly gone. The mind boggles. The houses would cost 5 times what they were worth, if they got built at all.

I havent said fossil fuels is the way forward. Please re-read my posts. It isnt going to be cheaper. Ed's self written report says that. Its the infrastructure to move the power generated where the real costs, cost overruns and delays will come. The capital costs will be off the charts. Thats what will be the issue. And of course our old favourite the pegging of the price. Which wont change, irrespective of anything else. When someone sorts that out, i might just start believe the government is serious. Its isnt and it hasnt. As it stands, its wedded to the idea of ever increasing prices. Only action will convince me otherwise. In the meantime, we will disagree.

Well, clearly with ever higher costs, all being warm isnt going to happen. Maybe you can explain how a scarce expensive commodity can result in everyone being equally warm. Current policies and plans will 100% ensure lots of cold people. Already has.

So we should all be equally cold?

Proves my points really. Electricity is too expensive.

Im not sure anyone said it was. Cheap energy allows a succesful thriving economy. Everything spins off from that.

A modest decline is an easy thing to say if you are insulated from the effects of said decline. No, wealth is not my sole goal, though i dont speak for others. However, i do like to be warm, a not unreasonable ambition in the modern world id suggest. However, with prices double what they were just a few years ago, that now more difficult, indeed impossible for some. Current plans seem to steer us towards ever increasing energy costs. Which means more people being cold more often.

Correct, no solution. There isnt one. Certainly not one that can be succesfully implemented by our government(s). Lets be blunt, ive long given up on anything other than continued decline. Ive accepted it and plan my life accordingly. I dont expect anything to be solved in 5 years. Im not even sure its people being to stupid. Its government creating that message. Look at all the current targets. Like housing. 1.5 million homes in the current term. They said that, not the newspapers etc. No plan at all beyond the current term.

Im not sure a "date" is all that sensible. Its just arbitary. As per your other post, we need to build up our capability to do stuff in order to build the infrastructure. Its the work of decades. With concerted government will, we might get there by 2100? But it cant and wont happen. Anyway, i dont have an alternative plan. If i was that clever, id be in a power! What i do know, is driving living standards down, with scarce and expensive energy, most definitely isnt a solution to anything. Id love politicians that actually worked for the people and had morals and integrity. Even if i disagree with their views. Sadly, again, zero possibility. They are all in the pockets of big buisness, coprarations etc etc.

Maybe one way is to have more players in the market. Sadly, every change that happens, makes things increasingly difficult for smaller players. In the current world, scale is everything. I cant see it possible to build at such a rate, that there will be any meaningful dent in the shortage of supply and hence cost. Even if government took action to do so. The institutions that used to deliver not just housing, but so many other things have already been either destroyed or hollowed out. It would take a concerted 20 year effort to build up our building (not just houses) capability. No government is going to do that with a 5 year time horizon. It just wont happen. In the meantime, illegal house bulding in back gardens continues apace in big cities at least. If i look out of the inlaws back window, i see rows of garages and sheds with people living in them. The council do nothing. If they did, they will all be homeless, and the council problem. As you say, ideas needed, but i doubt there will be a solution in my lifetime. The closest we will get is going bankrupt and needing an IMF bailout. Plenty of people will then leave the country easing the pressure on housing.

No, it doesnt mean fossil fuels, i agree. I never said it did. But an orderly sensibly paced transistion is fine and achievable. What we are roposing to do is niether of those things. The costs of building the infrastructure are vast, and, i would suggest, well out of reach. Cheap it most certainly isnt. To spend all that money, in a short space of time WILL be a disaster. It always is when we do things like that. And this will be on a whole other level. The projected costs are unaffordable, and we know the actual costs will be many multiples of the projection. We cant even manage to build a short railway from London to Birmingham in less than 20 years! Irrespective of the rights and wrongs, it wont happen at pace, because it cant be funded. Show we a long term plan, with low energy costs, and abundant supply, im there. The current proposals are the opposite of all those things.

No, they wont go on strike. They will, however, secure concessions, which is, as you already observed, is a lower standard of house. They know that if they ramp up house building, that the cost they can achieve per house will decline. They will seek to protect their profits. In addtion, and as some on here have already experienced, outside the south east, the cost of building "good home" as opposed to a cheap one, already puts you in a non profit territory. If house builders are forced to build houses to a higher standard in areas where house prices wont support it, what do you think wil happen?

Any succesful economy, and the corresponding living standards that come with it, relies on abundant, low(ish) cost energy. If electricity (and energy generally) is niether of those things, then the economy wont do will and living stadards will drop. I dont think thats controversial. History shows this. I see nothing selfish in not wanting our kids and future generations to have a standard of living at least as goid as we have experienced. Indeed, id suggest what is selfish, is to consign those future generation to to that, in order to achieve nothing useful at all. For clarity, i dont buy into the idea that we will stop or reverse, or even slow done climate change by doing the things we are currently set to do Whats going to happen is going to happen. Best deal with it.. One can only assume you believe that if only we all did our bit, the climate will go back to how it was?

Agreed. As always though, follow the money. The government needs the big boys "on side" to build houses. There a price to be paid for that, as the house builders hold all the cards.