Upgrading homes
Poor housing stock
Most of the UK’s 29 million homes need upgrading, which will take decades at current rates. Despite fifty years of Government insulation schemes and new regulations, only half of our homes meet the low standards set in the 1970s. This is hugely wasteful. It means higher energy bills and carbon emissions, and l many people living in cold, damp homes. These housing conditions not only lead to respiratory illnesses such as asthma, bronchitis, and pneumonia but increase people’s risk of heart disease, stroke and mental health problems.
Mould and damp are a growing issue in our homes, as poor insulation, poor ventilation, poor maintenance, unaffordable heating and overcrowding combine, with serious health and wellbeing consequences. Estimates vary widely from 4% to 27% of homes affected, heavily skewed to those most at risk already. Many of us suffer in rental homes, despite protections in theory in both private sector and social housing. Expanding the Decent Homes Standard to private rentals is progress, but without proper enforcement these protections will fail.
Poor retrofit solutions
Profiteering and poor quality control has also meant retrofit schemes have sometimes done more harm than good, damaging homes and residents. We’ve suffered fifty years of cavity wall insulation problems – from the dangerous formaldehyde cavity wall insulation of the 70s and 80s to continuing issues with damp and mould due to cowboy installers. Our high rises have been covered with flammable cladding, with tragic results at Grenfell and years of ongoing problems for residents of similar blocks. Solid wall insulation on houses has also been problematic, such as at Fishwick and recently with the national ‘ECO4’ and ‘GBIS’ schemes. Loft insulation is much cheaper, and millions of homes need it, but again rogue installers have damaged homes and undermined public confidence in insulation by using risky spray foam.
Energy Company Obligation (ECO) has long been the main retrofit scheme. It has added billions of pounds to our bills to pay lead generators and contractors based on projected ‘Annual Bill Savings’ (ABS). This incentivises them to focus on big profitable homes with bigger ABS, not necessarily those in most need. And there is no check to see if residents are actually getting the savings and increased warmth predicted. FPA wants to see guaranteed improvements made a part of the government’s new Warm Homes Plan.
Inaccurate EPCs
We also need to fix the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) system which is used to determine who is in fuel poverty and who gets the very large grants that are available. As well as being inaccurate and misleading, the system is easily gamed. For example, landlords can ensure that their properties are nudged into a favourable category with a friendly assessor or by exploiting scoring loopholes, for example by installing solar panels without ensuring that the resident gets the full benefit.
Heating system chaos
Upgrades to home heating systems are also critical to improve energy efficiency and remove damaging fossil fuels. Progress has again been patchy. Conflicting government strategies mean that we have spent huge sums ripping out electric storage heaters and water tanks, replacing them with dirty gas combi boilers because gas is priced much cheaper than Economy 7 electricity. Now we need to spend billions of pounds putting electric heating and tanks back into homes, free or massively subsidised, because of high costs and the electricity premium. Reducing inflated electricity pricing will cut retrofit costs and accelerate the transition away from dirty fossil fuels, as well as tackling the group with the highest fuel poverty rate – those with traditional electric heating,
It’s time to listen, learn and transform
We need to learn from these decades of failures and transform our approach to home upgrades by focussing on delivering great results for residents using well trained workers, not the current profiteering and box ticking. This means a major investment in green skills and improved support for residents to ensure the quality and benefits are delivered.
The new Government’s Warm Homes Plan threatens to be more of a rebranding of existing fragmented and flawed schemes than the major improvements needed. The initial 300,000 target includes more money for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme that mainly benefits more affluent people in larger homes, so will not fight fuel poverty. There is also more support and higher standards coming for landlords, but without the protections to ensure that rent increases or ‘renovictions’ to sell upgraded properties. Bigger improvements are promised, but we are working with our members and allies to push the Government to legislate for real transformation.
If you can support these efforts, please get in touch via contact@fuelpovertyaction.org.uk.
Watch Fuel For Thought no. 4 for a discussion of some of the issues
What does retrofitting mean, is it expensive and who should pay for what?
What does safe insulation look like for residents, workers and the planet?
How can we organise to retrofit homes across the UK?
Read article: The problem with means testing
The problem with means testing
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Read article: Hydrogen as a False Low-Carbon ‘Solution’
Hydrogen as a False Low-Carbon ‘Solution’
The Labour Government’s plans for a low-carbon transition are not fit for purpose. FPA member Lee Towers has put together this factsheet, which outlines what hydrogen is and why it is not an efficient or cheap solution to home heating.
Read article: Free energy isn’t a utopian dream – it’s possible now
Free energy isn’t a utopian dream – it’s possible now
Ruth looks at how the scandal of curtailment – paying windfarms to turn off – is just one example of the deeply entrenched, deliberately designed unfairness in our energy system. She tackles the question of how to build a system which works for all of us, not just a wealthy few, and lays the groundwork for a new phase in Fuel Poverty Action’s Energy For All campaign.
Read more about Free energy isn’t a utopian dream – it’s possible now
Retrofit for the Future campaign launches
There’s no time to lose to fight fuel poverty and climate disaster.
That’s why we’ve teamed up with the Peace and Justice Project, ACORN, Greener Jobs Alliance and CACC to campaign for three key interventions in the retrofit debate: accountability for retrofit work, protecting renters and skilling up our workforce.
Energy For All Petition Hand-in
On October 1st 2024, the day our energy bills went up AGAIN, we delivered the Energy For All petition, signed by over 662,500 of you, to the door of Number 10. Meanwhile, Fuel Poverty Action members across the country went on the radio and social media to spread the word about Energy For All. On […]
FPA release 2024 Annual Report
Our Annual Report for 2023-24 is out now! The last year saw important wins for fuel poverty campaigners, with ongoing campaign actions such as ‘warm-ups’ (occupying local buildings together to keep warm) helping to secure a partial ban on forced installations of prepayment meters. But it also saw fresh cruelty from the political class, with […]
