Owners of new-build homes ‘spend £200 more on energy after standards axed’

[newhome]

“Owners of newly built homes are being hit with higher heating bills because tough new energy efficiency standards were scrapped, a report has said”

 

https://www.itv.com/news/2019-02-10/owners-of-new-build-homes-spend-200-more-on-energy-after-standards-axed/

 

 

[Ferdinand]

1 hour ago, newhome said:

“Owners of newly built homes are being hit with higher heating bills because tough new energy efficiency standards were scrapped, a report has said”

 

https://www.itv.com/news/2019-02-10/owners-of-new-build-homes-spend-200-more-on-energy-after-standards-axed/

 

 

 

THe actual report .. not linked from the article .. is here.

https://eciu.net/assets/Reports/ECIU_Zero_Carbon_Homes.pdf

 

Personally I think it is too much of a "back of the envelope memo" created in a couple of hours to get media attention.

 

Interested in others' comments, though.

 

Ferdinand

Edited February 11, 2019 by Ferdinand

[scottishjohn]

the extra could just be the lack of them building real air tight houses !!

by fiddling the tests

[Big Neil]

Nice though it is to live in one and not have to do huge maintenance tasks, I am happy to confirm that new build houses from volume house builders, are a bag of ....

 

The attention to detail is just so poor. I'm never surprised by stories about spalling mortar (ours is fine as it goes), roofs with missing tiles (have seen at least two on our estate post completion) etc.

[Bitpipe]

Not helped by the fact BC only inspect 1 in 10 developer built homes.

 

As has been said many times before, developer makes the profit when the planning  / change of use is granted. 

 

Everything after that is cost, eating into the margin, so cost is minimises at the expense of quality.

[ProDave]

And the report again perpetuated the myth that space heating is the largest household expense.  It is NOT.  I repeat my claim that Council tax is the largest cost of owning a home, with little chance of ever reducing it.  Initial estimates suggest my Council tax will be not far from 10 times my heating bill.

 

I repeat my claim to be in "council tax poverty" and I suspect in reality a lot more people are, than those in "fuel poverty"

 

 

[Big Neil]

I get that council tax is a necessity from the point of view of local services, so  I don't have an issue with it as such. I think it's the seemingly gross disparity between one house and another which i'm sure we all see, and the seemingly arbitrary application of blanket rules which annoy.

 

My previous rented home - 2 bed terrace with forrific levels of insulation and so on, £110. Middle of a sub-town area in Manchester, terrible roads, loads of traffic and all the rest.

Current part owned home - 4 bed semi, albeit only about 150 square feet bigger than the last, nice and warm, new road right outside, tucked away in a relatively low traffic area and with no more occupants - £135.

 

I think there is a decent case to be made for a modular system. Yes i want the police to come quickly if i have a burglar, yes i want my man dirt to be swept away in a nicely maintained set of underground tubes, but there are certain aspects of local services which i don't think are so justifiable for some houses against others. If i were to be able to choose to have a house in the urban sprawl but have no car, have a sewage treatment plant, by own means of power generation, use rainwater collection and associated treatment for drinking water etc etc, maybe there should be a benefit in that respect, or if not a discount system against other optinal services like local buses for example.

 

I agree with you entirely @ProDave.