Simon Duffy
Getting good advice on making your home more energy efficient isn't easy, says Simon Duffy
When Simon Duffy receives another energy bill, his heart sinks. “It’s incredibly expensive,” he says.
Mr Duffy lives in a traditional stone-walled detached house in Sheffield. He estimates he spends £3,100 each year on heating and electricity.
Even though he cares about climate change and wants to renovate his property to make it more efficient, there is a problem.
“The question of how to better insulate the house is a real mystery to me,” says Mr Duffy, director of the sustainability think tank Citizen Network. “I don’t know where the expertise is for that.” He also adds that he is not sure if he can install solar panels, given that he lives in a protected area.
Millions of homeowners across the country could face the same dilemma.
Around 29 million British homes will need to be renovated by 2050, according to the UK Green Building Council, an industry body.
Renovation may involve measures such as improving your home's insulation, upgrading the heating system, or installing energy-producing devices such as solar panels, or even a private wind turbine.
These adjustments can cost thousands of dollars up front, but, if done correctly, could improve comfort and reduce people's bills in the long run.
Additionally, increased energy efficiency should reduce carbon emissions from homes, especially if homeowners move away from gas or oil boilers, for example.
Around a fifth of the UK's total emissions come from residential buildings.
Amy Peace and her husband live in the northwest of England, near Warrington. The two men both work in the sustainability field, advising businesses on the path to net zero emissions.
They wanted to improve the quality of their homes and apply the principles they promote at work in their own lives – but they, too, faced challenges when it came to deciding how to go about it.
“Even though we have this background and we're also engineers, we weren't sure where to best spend the money,” says Peace.
Amy Peace
Amy Peace spoke to several advisors about renovating her home
The couple spoke to several consultants, but Ms Peace found that the advice they received was often geared towards meeting Passivhaus standards – a type of ultra-energy-efficient building.
“There weren't many in that pragmatic middle space where you literally say, 'We have this much money, where would we best put it?'” Ms. Peace adds.
But the perseverance of the last three years has paid off: the couple's 1930s detached house now has better insulation, a heat pump and a charging station for electric cars. Solar panels and batteries will follow shortly, if all goes according to plan.
Aware of the confusion surrounding approaches to renovation, some organizations are working to improve the advice offered to homeowners. Among them is Ecofurb.
“We can model all the different options available, tailored to your home and your budget, and identify a set of metrics,” says Liz Lainé, of Parity Projects, a housing data analytics company that runs Ecofurb.
The company offers this initial consultation free of charge, but full plans, with personalized input from a renovation coordinator, start at £470. Ecofurb can also supervise the work because it is carried out by contractors to avoid “horror stories”, explains Ms. Lainé.
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A renovation might recommend additional insulation or alternative energy sources
There are many other organizations that offer to help homeowners plan a renovation.
The work often involves carrying out a heat loss study, identifying cold areas that require insulation and better understanding a property's heating demand. Experts can also advise you on the suitability of solar panels for your home, for example.
There is the Get a Heat Pump website, launched by the charities Nesta and The MCS Foundation, which explains what heat pumps are and how they can fit into a home improvement plan.
RICS, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, has also just launched a new renovation standard for its members: it essentially encourages surveyors with the appropriate training to offer their services to homeowners who are planning or undergoing a renovation.
The RICS website will soon include a range of renovation advice and a tool to help homeowners find a suitable surveyor in their area, says Steve Lees, of the RICS renovation project team.
Improving the energy efficiency of homes is “essential” for decarbonisation, says Gerald Charles, head of housing retrofit at the Center for Sustainable Energy, but adds that the current lack of good advice remains a real problem.
“The industry as a whole doesn't appreciate the importance of good renovation advice,” he says.
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Experts say improving home energy efficiency is key to reducing emissions
James Major, founder and managing director of HubbPro, which helps architects plan energy-efficient buildings, noticed a lack of knowledge in the market. Architects don't always have the most up-to-date information on how to incorporate energy-saving technologies into their designs, Major notes.
“Clean technology is not part of what they do or what they should know – it's an engineering function,” he says. And yet, architects' clients are increasingly asking about this technology when planning a new house or extension.
Through an initiative called MyHubb, Mr Major now offers architects detailed reports that estimate the carbon reduction potential and payback period of retrofitted measures, such as heat pump-based heating systems. or solar panels, for example.
He says these reports cost around £1,000, but he adds that this price has not yet been finalized.
Mr. Duffy says he will continue to look for solutions to his own renovation conundrum. But he makes another point. Much of the technology and advice currently available is tailored to individual homeowners.
He suggests that neighborhood-scale projects, such as providing solar power to an entire street, might make more sense and could include more people at once.
“That's what I think is the logical way to look at it,” he said.
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