More energy-efficient homes in London

I would like to see subsidies, and more advice, for installation of secondary glazing. I live in a Victorian house with sash windows that has always been extremely draughty. I've DIY installed secondary glazing (acrylic 3mm panels with 25mm magnetic attachment strips) on all my windows and the house is so much more comfortable and less draughty. Installation is very straightforward. I estimate my gas heating bills are 5 to 10% reduced. I only have the secondary glazing on the windows from October to March so the windows are fully useable during the summer. Cost of the panels is about £90 each including mounting strips (for my largest sash window) if you install yourself, so not insignificant but could definitely worth incentivising with some form of subsidy.

Your survey should be sharpened up:

Several questions have a "don't know" option, but no "other" option.

I do know, but don't want any of the limited choice you have given, so I should be presented with an "other" option, not "don't know".

Assuming you know the answers is patronising.

Several questions referred to my use of a "washing machine", but didn't consider the possibility that I don't have a washing machine in my home.

Very dumb.

I live in a listed building.  The options for changes needed to make it more energy efficient are limited, and would in most cases require listed building consent, which is an expensive process even if consent is given.

I live on the ground floor of a purpose-built block of flats, yet the survey asked if I would install solar thermal or PV panels on the roof, or install roof insulation. There weren't "not applicable" answers available, and I was forced to answer, so I chose "don't know" as the least worst answers.

Now the results will dutifully record that X% "don't know" if they want solar panels or Y% "don't know" if they want roof insulation, and we won't know how many people really don't know, or how many people chose silly answers to silly questions because they weren't allowed to give better answers.

It seems to me that Hydrogen gas would be the least disruptive. I have seen in my daughters house how disruptive a heat pump system can be and can not envisage how such a system could be installed in my house without considerable cost, disruption and disfiguring of the property.  District heating sounds atractive but I saw this in the Soviet Union years ago and individuals had little or no control of it, if it was too hot you opened the windows, too cold and you shivered.

According to

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/transport-and-environment-statistics-2022/transport-and-environment-statistics-2022

• transport is the largest emitting sector of GHG emissions, producing 24% of the UK’s total emissions in 2020 (406 MtCO2e)

Not heating homes and buildings.

But any reducation from any source is welcome.

Insulate first,  then replace heating systems. 

I totally disagree with "net zero".  I do not agree that climate change has any relationship to the activities of human kind.  Net zero is just a woke political fashion and a way for politicians to impose their own political agenda to the detriment of society.  ULEZ is an example of using pseudo scientific claptrap to bail our the Mayor's failure to manage the finances of the GLC.  The consultation on ULEZ was nothing short of fraud.  No doubt the input from this consultation will be similarly manipulated to satisfy the Mayor's political agenda.  I have no confidence whatsoever in the London Mayor or the bureaucracy that supports The Mayor.   

The most pressing immediate issue is insulation: lofts, double or triple glazing and wall insulation either internal or external for solid walls or cavity wall where the building type allows. Save energy first and then calculate how much you need and find the most appropriate low carbon heat system.

Where installation is likely to cause domestic disruption, I hope the process will be thoroughly tested before it is rolled out to households.  There is a risk to trying to do things too quickly with a hastily hired and poorly trained workforce.

I have a number of comments, so I’ll be brief with each.

I am housed by a a fully mutual housing cooperative, as a member I take part in decisions but do not have a final say. I have lived here for over 30 years, and I love my home. I personally have carbon reduction and care of the living environment as a big priority, but the co-op rent setting is restrained by law (as a social landlord) and therefore we cannot afford expensive retrofits without some financial support. To be clear, we cannot just hike up rents to pay for the works.

We do, as a collective voice, have decarbonisation as a priority, but are focussing on insulation as a first step. Any major  (building) works have insulation maximised and carbon emissions minimised. We are VERY keen to reduce our carbon emissions and to keep tenants’ heating bills as small as possible. 
I think lots of good insulation would reduce carbon emissions of any heat source.

I want my social rent landlord to be made to insulate the old blocks of flats. They are not going to do this. 

The survey did not always have answer options that are realistic given my living situation. Stuck in an old hard to heat block of flats, HA, so would not be permitted batteries - fire safety regs.  Cannot fit heat pumps to flats like this. HA landlord is going to abandon residents in these old blocks to the vagaries of climate change. They will not insulate in the (tiny) external wall cavity because of cost. They will not insulate internally in any of the old Victorian blocks because in some of the flats in some of the blocks the rooms are very small. I would love to have flexible solar panels and a power station that they can charge, but cannot afford these. The landlord not long ago installed new, double-glazed windows all over the estate. The wood is noticeably less insulating than the old wood of the previous, old Victorian frames and the installation is worse, so many flats have gaps between window and wall, stuffed with silicon sealer or screwed up paper and cardboard and silicon sealer. Remember the account by a Grenfell resident of the gaps below the new windows NOT being filled-in with cement?  Standard practice, seemingly. And too little insulation foam was used around the windows. Anyway, new windows, more heat loss.   Careless upgrading, careless retrofitting, lead to more carbon used, not less. 

I personally have already insulated my home and have a heat pump booked in. We should covert homes to make them more more energy efficient and use clean heating sources, but you would have a better rollout if you ran a program with your own installers to do a whole neighbourhood in one go. Starting with council housing, including flats etc. Insulation is key in reducing need to heat a home. Lets get insulating council and poor neighbourhood housing.

I have already installed a heat pump, changed all windows to double glazing and insulated external walls (from inside) I wanted to install solar panel but I have been told that the roof  space is too small to be a viable project . I  therefore joined other community energy project to install solar panels elsewhere.  I think the councils and GLA and the Governement should actively support these

It has always seemed to me that energy efficiency is the low-hanging fruit, and much can be achieved without any technical advances or heavy investment - improved insulation, replace old appliances with more efficient one, low-energy lighting, for example. Plus good old economising - turn down thermostats, wear warmer clothing, dry laundry naturally and not in tumble dryers, boil a cup full of water and not a kettle full, switch things off when not being used. I live close to office buildings, often lights are burning 24 hours a day; completely unnecessary.

It feels like development of these ideas and putting them into practice has been quite slow across the UK.  Local Heating Networks make sense in the same way as other collective approaches such as car sharing, renting out tools/appliances rather than everyone having their own boiler etc.  Also as many people   live in flats and homes with limited space there could be benefits in having centralised infrastructure. My only reservation is that any centralised system would need to be really reliable and controllable. 

Ground source heat pumps seem to offer benefits over air source as you dont have a fan blasting out freezing air into your garden/balcony. As the roads are frequently dug up for utilities - could this be an option for installing local heat pumps at a useful depth. 

Due to climate change we face the challenge of hotter summers so as well as thinking about heating our homes we also need ways to cool them down but in a low carbon way.

Net Zero is not completely possible to reach as we know from discourse and opinion both scientific and public that oil and gas will still be needed into the future for machinery, lubrication, motability and much else in the manufacturing and industrial industries. Green ethics within the public and domestic environments is, of course, to be welcomed so long as the UK as a nation isn't subject to foreign regimes for input and supply of energy as hitherto the UK has been and remains, for example, to the Chinese and French in the building of our new nuclear power electricity infrastructure, or that any residual oil drilled and needed, which it will be whatever we like to think otherwise, isn't given over to foreign investment and licensing which allows foreign multinationals control over UK's energy as is the case today. 

The first things I did when I moved into my top-floor flat was to double the insulation in the loft and replace all of the lights with energy efficient ones.  Technology is rapidly improving and costs are falling, however the up-front capital costs of energy efficient heating systems (e.g. solar panels, batteries and, most expensive of all, air-source heat pumps) is still prohibitively high - even with a grant.  The other major issue for flat dwellers is that there is typically not the required space for newer technologies, and many of flats will have covenants preventing the siting of air-source heat pumps on the outside walls.  I personally think that the biggest savings can be made cheaply by improving insulation.

I'm keen to act but am really concerned about the technical competence of potential advisers and installers which in my experience in this country is very low - so whatever you decide to do please address this otherwise it will ptobably go horribly wrong