Roger440

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.

It was in a newspaper or two, ill give you that. But it was a direct quote. It proves nothing however, beyond how clueless they are.

I think you may have missed my point, or ascribed a position to me that im not taking. Im not using the argument that because no one else is, we shouldnt. Please re-read my post As for your last paragraph, we wont be able to show that. Because, its essentially impossible with the country the way it is. If we continue on the path proposed, we will have a much lower standard of living. We are already going backwards on that measure.

Far more sensible would be to fit solar at the same time. Then who cares how much energy they use? You do seem to have some ideas that make life worse for people?

Starmer and Miliband both said this prior to the election. It would seem real life has caught up with them. Starmer also said he would turn of the gas supply to domestic properties by 2030. Seems to have changed his tune on that too. At a guess, id imgaine gas will be classed as "green" in years to come.

For that, you have to believe that anything we do will have an impact. It wont. We should be preparing for the inevitable. Id suggest this would be a rather better use of resources. Indeed, im confident in 50 or 100 years, history will prove that. In the meantime, i guess we keep giving away £7.5k to the leeches bleeding the taxpayer dry.

If memory serves, the reason for not doing so, is that they can be used for cooling. And thats not acceptable. Apparantly. Unnecessary energy use.

Good luck with putting up the price of gas. Force millions to be significantly worse off. Deliberately. How do you think that will go for the government of the day? Going to be a hard sell, especially given the price of electricity is artificially pegged as discussed already. Fix that first. Problem is, they wont. So you want to make everyone poorer, in order to achieve something, that cannot be possibly, tangilbly be felt by the consumer? If you believe this, id suggest your moral compass needs recalibrating. Harsh? Maybe, but anyone calling for higher gas prices needs to consider the implications of that.

£500 is just marketing guff. Nobody gets that in reality. Especially anyone on electric heating as there will be no existing central heating system to adapt. Plenty of evidence of that on here. Pie in the sky. Meanwhile, back on planet earth, correct, no one gives a toss. More pressing priorities in life than spunking £1000's of pounds they dont have to fix a problem that isnt going to get fixed. If everyone had a heat pump tommorow it will still make no difference to anything.

Im sufficently comvinced electricity prices can only go up, that everything i do and plan is based around that. The politics and ideolgy in play virtually gurantees it. Accept of course, that things can change.

The reality is housing, housing is a scarce commodity, be it rented or bought. You rent or buy what you can get. Start buggering around pondering the EPC and you will likely be homeless. Someone else will take it. The ONLY resolution to that is a situation where supply exceeds demand. Theres a lot of reasons why that also wouldnt be desirable. Though acedemic, as thats never going to happen.

Agre with that. Someone else suggested leaving it to market forces as its a no brainer to convert resistance to ASHP. Which, on face value is true. Sadly it ignores the fact that a majority of those on resistance heating have absolutely no chance of funding the capital cost. These people get zero help, but we are quite happy to chuck £7500 at what are, often, reasonably well of or weathly people. Logic? Zero. But as i said earlier, the cost of electricity is too high for wholesale swap to ASHP. Unless you are already in the market for a whole new system anyway, going to ASHP is going to cost you more, even if its installed properly. And we all know most are not and hence will cost still more. As others have pointed it out, if the ratio of gas v electricity was 1:2, people wouldnt be able to swap over fast enough. As an aside, my barn office, kitchen etc is on resistance heating. Using it is eye wateringly expensive. I need to sort it out. However, it gets its supply from the house, and with other equipment in the barn, means i dont really have the headroom on the supply for a ASHP. So i will have to do a new oil installation. I did want to put in a three phase supply. Theres one on a pole in my field 50 feet away. But they want £17.5k + vat to do it. And have the benefit of uncapped electricity into the bargain. Again, using electricity just to expensive. Edge case, maybe, but the statement still applies.

I keep saying this. The priciple blocker to ASHP's is that electricity is just too expensive. Sadly its suits powerful people to keep it that way. And so it shall stay that way. All the various wheezes are just trying to work round the core issue.

Interesting. 10 mins on google gives you so many different versions including those that show us at the top. Seems quoting a cost per kWh is complicated? Never mind, doesnt change the fact its too expensive, and its expense prevents switching to it. That point still stands. And it "could" be cheaper, but isnt. By government choice.

Well, i was actually planning on retaining the oil boiler, but, i know how much that costs, Exactly. 1700 litres per year. (thats heating and hot water) So if we assume 70% efficiency, that circa 2428kWh / year. Having just filled my tank this week at 56p, lets use 60p. 60p +5% vat is 63p. 1700 x 63p is £1071 PA. Ive turned the flow temps down, but ive concluded after the cold spell, i can turn it down further. Its clear that NO insulation project beyond the roof (already done) is remotely financially viable, especially if one uses the 15 year payback rule as per building regs. Im currently leaning towards your idea. Especially as doing it properly, and involving building control brings a number of additional costs down on me, further excarbating its unviability. I will, however, fit triple glazed windows for comfort and weather proofing reasons, and install UFH in the existing uninsulated floor. The windows in particular should yield a useful improvement as theres quite a lot of them. Adding an ASHP, even if the running costs were similar, still costs me the capex for no tangible improvment of any sort. Yes, oil prices can go up as well as down, but electricity is a one way bet, up.

For all the suggestions, it still comes back to the fact that our electricity costs are way to high. Unlike most of europe, or the USA. Its always going to be an uphill struggle to convert users to a more expensive energy source. We all know the main reason why, ie the pegged price. But that isnt going to change. Primarily related to reasons in my post above. Money. Being in wales, when my income drops far enough, i can sign up to the scheme for £45k of work to insulate and install ASHP all at the taxpayers expense. Its more cost effective to cease work, and cease paying tax, which is precisely what i will do. Its a mad world. Im sure england will follow with some similar madcap idea. My best advice is wait it out until it gets more generous. As it must.

Id not make that assumption. The new crowd are just as bad as the old crowd. Companies will lobby whoever is in power, that may or may not include donations or other incentives. Either way, what gravelld says is essentially correct. There no room for facts. Only money

And near enough (as can be achieved) government proof. And cheaper. Well so long as i dont run the genny outside of power cuts. Sadly seen a lot of use lately. I think 7 since november. Including one over 48 hours. And you wonder why i posted what i did?

Ahh, thousands more to be spent on "consultants". Another band wagon for them to jump on. Or, dont fit any outside lighting. Wait until everyone has lost interest, fit it later. Whos going to know or care? Even if they do, whats the likely enforcement. Lighting is penuts, so could be removed if it had to be.

I believe so, because such uses are commercial operations. Its the same for farmers now. You can use red diesel on your farm, but if you do some haulage work for someone else, you have to switch to white. My diesel tank is my tractor (and digger) food. Thus defeating the whole idea of red diesel, but, hey, politicians, so par for the course. If you follow the letter of the regs, you are supposed to drain the tanks, change the filters and flush through the lines if you switch from red to white. All whilst glossing over that even if you do that, you will still get a postive result for red. And a fine to go with it.