£2bn home insulation scheme

[Conor]

While I welcome any grants or schemes to get our terrible housing stock to be less terrible, I always feel they fall short. In Ireland, they have/had the "Deep Retrofit Grant", which meant you only got your cash back after meeting the SAP requirements. By no means perfect, as only made sense along side other renovation works, but at least guaranteed that the work done made a significant improvement. Seems a more effective way rather then just throwing money at loft insulation jobs.

 

And expect the cost of a loft insulation job to rise from £500 to £1500  ?

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53313640

 

 

Edited July 7, 2020 by Conor

[SteamyTea]

£2bn at 5k a house is 400,000.

So just over 10% of the stock.

And most of it will be substandard.

If the use the existing MCS scheme to fit heat pumps, at best it will probably only cover half the cost.

I personally think that just fitting PV to suitable houses would be the most cost effective method as it displaces fossil fuel use. But that is not what the scheme is set up to do, seems it is to reduce individuals energy bills.

Realistically it is just the Green Deal repackaged.

Edited July 7, 2020 by SteamyTea

[epsilonGreedy]

An excellent initiative, quick to get under way unike big civil engineering projects, labour and material intensive hence instant economic activity and recurring payback for the nation as a whole.

 

On the downside could this lead to insulation material inflation? I might need to pre purchase this for my own self build.

 

Final devious thought. If I finished my new build with inline wallas heaters couped to the UFH could I get the Government to fund an ASHP?

[ProDave]

I only have boarded up window holes in my sun room. Would I qualify for a grant to buy the 3G windows? 

[SteamyTea]

55 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Would I qualify for a grant to buy the 3G windows

Hope not as you are in a different country.

[Ferdinand]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

£2bn at 5k a house is 400,000.

So just over 10% of the stock.

And most of it will be substandard.

If the use the existing MCS scheme to fit heat pumps, at best it will probably only cover half the cost.

I personally think that just fitting PV to suitable houses would be the most cost effective method as it displaces fossil fuel use. But that is not what the scheme is set up to do, seems it is to reduce individuals energy bills.

Realistically it is just the Green Deal repackaged.

 

Where is that 10% from?

 

There are something like 25,000,000 houses in England (leaving out approx 10-20% for flats etc).

[SteamyTea]

4 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

Where is that 10% from?

I was thinking of buildings.

 

So about 1.6%

 

(400k / 25,000k *100 = 1.6)

Edited July 7, 2020 by SteamyTea

[Ferdinand]

10 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

I was thinking of buildings.

 

So about 1.6%

 

(400k / 25,000k *100 = 

 

TBF  my estimate is probably over, as this will probably exclude social housing.

 

I think the 100k jobs will right-ish for once, as it is due to be spent within a year - and that is 20k each.

 

For anyone doung it, the low hanging fruit imo  will be boilers, double glazing and insulation. EWI will not be helped by this, and under floor may be too complex.

 

I hope there are some sort of EPC improvement requirements linked to it.

 

I would see it as a return to the ECO scheme, but government supported this time, and no buggeration with complicated finances.

Edited July 7, 2020 by Ferdinand

[Pocster]

Can I ask for the entire 2bn?

[Declan52]

42 minutes ago, pocster said:

Can I ask for the entire 2bn?

As an exchange for your walk on glazing???

[Ferdinand]

1 hour ago, pocster said:

Can I ask for the entire 2bn?

 

Interestingly the VAT holiday also applies to BTLs and Second Homes (it seems). Which makes sense if the aim is to encourage the overall market.

 

The Daily Telegraph is having a minor "tax breaks for landlords" flap about it. Though she may be wrong.

 

Will  still be charged 3% more than everybody else however .. due to  the 3% Osborne surcharge, which applies from £40 purchase price upwards iirc.

 

 

F

Edited July 8, 2020 by Ferdinand

[Ferdinand]

And the Treasury isn't QUITE saying what the Teleflap said they said:

 

 

[Reiver]

40 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

Interestingly the VAT holiday also applies to BTLs and Second Homes (it seems). Which makes sense if the aim is to encourage the overall market.

 

F

Well yes, but NO!!!! Second homes  have completely buggered the housing market for young couples/first time buyers in this area, all the small properties tend to get snapped up as private holiday homes for people from out of the area.

[Ferdinand]

1 hour ago, Reiver said:

Well yes, but NO!!!! Second homes  have completely buggered the housing market for young couples/first time buyers in this area, all the small properties tend to get snapped up as private holiday homes for people from out of the area.

 

Quite possibly on that point.

 

Which is why I am sceptical about the reports.

[SteamyTea]

4 hours ago, Reiver said:

Well yes, but NO!!!! Second homes  have completely buggered the housing market for young couples/first time buyers in this area, all the small properties tend to get snapped up as private holiday homes for people from out of the area.

It is supposedly the same down here.

The answer is to get people that want to buy houses onto the local council and change the interpretation of the planning laws.  They may build more houses then.

As it is at the moment, a couple of towns have effectively stopped all development because they do not allow building of holiday homes.

[tanneja]

On 07/07/2020 at 14:40, Ferdinand said:

 

TBF  my estimate is probably over, as this will probably exclude social housing.

 

I think the 100k jobs will right-ish for once, as it is due to be spent within a year - and that is 20k each.

 

For anyone doung it, the low hanging fruit imo  will be boilers, double glazing and insulation. EWI will not be helped by this, and under floor may be too complex.

 

I hope there are some sort of EPC improvement requirements linked to it.

 

I would see it as a return to the ECO scheme, but government supported this time, and no buggeration with complicated finances.

@Ferdinand why do you say EWI won't be helped?  I was holding out some faint hope that this would part pay for my renovation EWI.

[A_L]

@tanneja , solid wall insulation (EWI) will be included according to the Department for Busines.....  Look for 'Solid wall'

[Ferdinand]

2 hours ago, tanneja said:

@Ferdinand why do you say EWI won't be helped?  I was holding out some faint hope that this would part pay for my renovation EWI.

 

I said in my opinion, and I hope I am wrong.

 

EWI tends to fall in a category called "hard to insulate" (or similar), which can get excluded from schemes designed to make max impact for minimum buck.

 

For similar reasons they sometimes leave out "room in roof" houses. They can do a normal roof (above ceiling) type loft in an hour or less - I had one where I turned up 15 minutes late and they had already finished. But doing it on the slope is far more complex and takes days or a week or two. Similarly new efficient boilers are sometimes in, sometimes out.

 

I have been having free insulation etc in rentals since ages, and sometimes complex ones are included, and sometimes excluded.

 

The last time EWI was included here was a special local scheme which gave iirc 2/3 of cost capped at 4k or 6k grant. The ones I looked at still didn't add up for me as an investment - as by the time all the normal stuff had been done there were not enough savings opportunities left on the remaining energy bills even with the subsidy.

 

The Council cocked up quite a lot of it by failing to consider ventilation when doing EWI on trad houses. That is why I am rabbiting on about ventilation and sweating detail.

 

The next thing to check is restrictions - as they tend to include certain requirements to make sure you are making best use of  the money (which is very sensible). An example was the restriction of solar panel subsidies to higher EPC bands, or sometimes by economic status of the occupant. An interesting wrinkle there for LLs is that you are sometimes more likely to get funding once you have already moved a tenant in rather than when you are renovating.

 

You just need to understand the scheme. One obvious thing on the current one is to get your skates on, as it is iirc this financial  year only. Again very sensible if part of the idea is to start the economy rolling.

 

[Update: delighted to see that EWI has actually been included]

 

Ferdinand

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 7, 2020 by Ferdinand

[tanneja]

I can imagine I get quoted £12k for EWI if consistent with the quotes we have had already.  Do you fine people infer that I could get up to £5k of that paid as a voucher?

 

Also, I'm not sure how the second tier works. If I am capped out in the first tier, can I get anything towards second tier?  Was thinking it could cover a honeywell evohome thermostat with TRVs.

[joth]

7 hours ago, Ferdinand said:

You just need to understand the scheme. One obvious thing on the current one is to get your skates on, as it is iirc this financial  year only. Again very sensible if part of the idea is to start the economy rolling.

 

 

So ASHP are included too. I've already put down a deposit but balance of over £5k to pay. I've not even hassled my guy about it yet while waiting basic info, but I need to figure out if

- if I will be eligible for the voucher even with the deposit down

- if I can do both it AND RHI

- how I get the voucher.

 

I expect an MSC installer  price surge coming up.

 

[newhome]

2 hours ago, joth said:

I've already put down a deposit but balance of over £5k to pay.

If you’re a new build you aren’t eligible anyway. 
 

 

[newhome]

3 hours ago, tanneja said:

I can imagine I get quoted £12k for EWI if consistent with the quotes we have had already.  Do you fine people infer that I could get up to £5k of that paid as a voucher?

 

Also, I'm not sure how the second tier works. If I am capped out in the first tier, can I get anything towards second tier?  Was thinking it could cover a honeywell evohome thermostat with TRVs.

New builds are excluded. You may be eligible if you’re renovating. 

[joth]

12 hours ago, newhome said:

If you’re a new build you aren’t eligible anyway. 
 

 

 

Nope we're a renovation, paying full VAT on all the work and then extra VAT on putting right all the mistakes (don't ask) hence keen recover any costs we can from government (before they spend it all on nonexistent PPE)