More energy-efficient homes in London

Please consider the needs of flats that rely on communal central heating and communal boiler. Residents and owners can’t even decide when the heating is switched on and off. Changing windows to double glazing requires planning permission on behalf of the whole block and individual flats cannot upgrade their windows to double glazing if they want to unless the whole block agrees. Owners who want to move away from the very expensive and very energy consuming communal  heating system can’t do this due to the lease. This has to change. 

Insulation and thereby reducing energy demand in total has got to be the sensible way forward. Reducing demand reduces bills, reduces the peak stresses on the network, reduces the total peak energy generation required and means we won't need to build as many power stations/wind farms etc to provide energy security. Insulation should be a priority.

I had to involve my MP before my Local Authority would grant me planning permission to insulate the side and rear of my house externally and then they insisted it be done in the most expensive way possible and added as many planning conditions as they could think of. The result of all this is of course that I just cannot afford to do it. We need a grown up approach across London towards the insulation of Victorian and Edwardian house and particularly in Conservation Areas. At present far more weight is being given to maintaining relatively unimportant side and rear elevations as they were in 1890 than is given to energy efficiency and saving the Planet. With spontaneous fires breaking out in London as happened last summer is the shade of yellow of the brick at the rear of my house really more important than energy efficiency? Apparently it is...  All the Councils have declared Climate Emergencies but sadly in reality it seems to be just more hot air. 

Why not take the heat from the Underground (perhaps you could filter out the pollution at the same time and make that mode of transport safer)?

Consult Southampton University and the University of Lincoln/East Anglia who are doing sterling works regarding biowires and biochains. These are micro-organisms, which reproduce by division, and which, if you give them the correct food, produce electricity. A potential application is for them to feed off something in bricks so future buildings will be energy self-sufficient. Explore this technology please.As usual the questions in this survey just don't give  the answers I would like to give. I don't heat my flat. I heat the person not the home. 

Most London flats are tiny - where would the battery be situated?  I wouldn't trust a battery charging in my home (or in the flats in my block) because of the risk of fire. Has the LFB been consulted on this? How can you install solar panels or heat pumps in leasehold flats? Wouldn't you need to negotiate with the freeholders or right to manage companies of blocks of flats? 

It's hard to find reliable information about insulating Victorian and Edwardian terraced houses. I would like to insulate my home better, but the advice on what to do seems to change from year to year. What is best practice? How do you avoid problems with cold bridging, or damp in the home? Are there people trained to give advice on this? If so, how do you find them, and are they accountable if their advice turns out to be wrong?

A number of South London Councils have been taken to task as well as many landlords for allowing their tenants to live in premises with incipient mould. Whilst we all know that such conditions are bad for health, the tenants themselves are often blamed - usually for drying clothes, cooking, boiling kettles etcetera. Such conditions are usually brought about by moisture-laden air coming into contact with cold surfaces. In other words poor insulation, poor ventilation and unaffordable heating. The subject of the survey and this discussion is surely the resolution of this problem.

I'm sure many people would like, in theory, to improve the energy efficiency of their homes, to reduce both bills and pollution.  However, in London much of the housing stock is old and possibly unsuitable for much alteration to achieve this.   

Also, there is a large capital cost to residents and local authorities in a time of government-imposed austerity which further reduces the chance of a quick solution.  Especially when the government is actively promoting further investment in fossil fuel exploration and production, which does not bode well for energy reduction schemes to receive official support.

I think the public in general is aware of environmental concerns and would be willing to do something to help but this would need positive encouragement and specific help from the government which is unlikely to be forthcoming from the current regime.

Ill-designed and misdirected survey.  The key will be central government funding.  The role of the Mayor and Councils may be to argue for a disproportionate share of this funding, given that a lot of London housing is old and ill-suited to any economic solution.  And that's before the mass hum of heat pumps  is blamed as a new health and well-being hazard.

How does the Mayor imagine that heat pumps could be installed in flats in a large block? Only flats with a balcony or roof terrace have outside space. If they install heat pumps it will cause noise disturbance to neighbouring flats. Flats with no balcony cannot install heat pumps. Even if there is a basement garage it is not possible to connect a heat pump and its external apparatus across several storeys. 
As for communal EVCs, this is impossible in a garage where all parking bays are privately owned. The electricity supply is not sufficient for every bay to have its own EVC. Moreover there would be a fire risk to have cars charging in a basement of a residential block. I don’t think the Mayor has thought through how his (theoretically admirable) policies can be applied to existing blocks of flats. New ones, yes, of course planning rules should require it. 

TO ACHIEVE ANY CLIMATE CHANGE MODIFICATIONS, THE MAYOR OF LONDON SHOULD REQUIRE THAT ALL LOCAL AUTHORITIES MUST PRIORITISE ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES OVER ALL OTHER POLICIES IN PLANNING DECISIONS.

From now, local authorities should not consent to any planning application that does not include full insulation to current specifications. Multiple-story buildings should be entirely self sufficient in energy production, that is off-grid. 

Planning saga

In 2019 we applied to install in-roof solar panels. To include sufficient south facing roof areas to make solar viable for the house, we could change two dormer roof windows into two gable roof windows. The planning application was in full compliance with all environmental policies in the Nation Planning Policy Framework then current. Gable replacement windows were in keeping with the Victorian age of the house and already existed on a neighbouring house. The local council refused on the grounds of "appearance". After 11 months, the local council agreed. By then the pandemic had started. After the pandemic, the cost of replacing the roof had escalated by 400%. Solar panels were no longer affordable. By then we were subject to revised insulation regulations. The top rooms in the house have low, sloping ceilings. Adding insulation to the inside of the roof reduced the height of the rooms such that they would be mostly unusable. In discussions, council officers told us that the local authority was unlikely to grant planning consent to add the insulation to the top of the roof on the grounds of "appearance" as it would raise the roof by 15 centimetres. 

Within 500 meters of this house, the local authority has approved multiple, multi-story, high-rise concrete buildings. Evidence shows that the resulting flats are being marketed overseas (Acton (@capthetowers). 

World wide, air travel contributes 2% to carbon emissions, shipping contributes 2.5% to carbon emissions, concrete contributes 8% to carbon emissions. Stop building in concrete!

We live in a 1930’s house with single brick walls.  We recently had to change our heating system as the old one (probably over 40 years old) failed.  I looked into heat pumps.  The best estimate I could get to make our house suitable for heat pumps was £35,000 to £40,000.  This is BEFORE the cost of the heat pump itself.  Not doable.

Secondly. The survey was very limited in terms of choices; basically responsibilities between just between me, the local council or local community groups.  No responsibility options at all for the mayor or national government.

Our immediate neighbours are social housing (Optivo). Storm Eunice (2022 Q1) removed quite a lot of the roof. It has been reported to them repeatedly but they dont' repair it. They replaced a window years ago but 'forgot' to seal it so it leaks heat out and water in. Given this dismal level of maintenance there is a lot of low hanging fruit before mandating other changes. 

Local and National Govt is likely to say 'this should not happen' but the point is that it does happen and is even commonplace. Fix this first.

So-called green houses and dwellings really need to be built from scratch. I live in a Victorian terraced house built on insubstantial foundations, with cavity walls that had the purpose of allowing the house 'to breath' along with other aerated aspects of hollow uninsulated underfloor and roof spaces. Filling in these old 'spaces' to 'insulate' would be anathema to the spirit of an old building which would then have to have compensations of 'aeration' and 'ventilation' put back into the structure after it had been, if not entirely hermetically sealed with that 'green insulation ethic' would need condensation then to be tackled that we hear so much about as a killer of over-insulated or un-aerated homes.

I work as a designer in the 'Industry' of Heating and Ventilation/Building Services, why do you state Heating Homes and Buildings is the biggest source of Carbon emissions in UK? It is world wide not a UK problem, this is NOT a problem for the London Mayor to try and solve by  badly written surveys taken by people who have not been given any reference data to make a decision. There are various industry bodies investigating and reporting on the alternatives including technologies used in other countries, until there are properly researched recommendations backed up by test cases and long term examples this survey and others similar serve no purpose. The main problem for all of these technologies is the high cost of installation against a potential saving of the planet in the future, the average person cannot afford to become 'Net Zero' without some 'proper grants' to help. The current 'heat pump' funding is substantial but still falls short of the actual cost, and the contractors involved are often not looking at the design correctly. The current emphasis should be on all new properties whether commercial buildings or private homes are equipped with the nearest to 'Net Zero' technologies available, this must include recyclability after their service life. As many people have commented on here the best way to help yourself for the 'Average' energy consumer is to increase the insulation where ever possible in your home thus reducing the energy required for heating.

I think the first step is starting mapping all houses and buildings ( we can do that with new technologies and classify that); after also using satellite images to map roof , to have a map of potetial solar Pv installation.

Thanks for attention!

Good new year

Insisting on three responses on how you would pay for new or different heating is a bit strange. 

I would love to see more provision for insulation and new developments should include ground source heat pumps etc.

We need to make it easier for people to install double glazing and so on. There are conservation objections that are too difficult and expensive to deal with so people don't do anything and that is a problem. 

Retro for walls is difficult but roofs should all be done and with subsidy if need be.

Our a 1926 end of terrace house has solid walls. Going for a heat pump will require much improved insulation and replacing radiators across the house.

I think we would have to move out while the work was done and finding a competent installer seems very difficult. And then there is the substantial costs involved.

It’s a big challenge!