ROOF Blog

The Government has set out new plans to make Britain’s homes ‘greener, warmer and cheaper to run’. The strategy is aimed at cutting emissions from the UK’s homes by 29% by 2020. It will help people make smarter use of energy in homes, making it easier to take action and reduce bills. Installing some technologies, such as solid wall insulation, could see energy bills cut by £380 a year. The strategy will be implemented in a three stage plan: to insulate 6 million homes by the end of 2011; to have insulated all practical lofts and cavity walls by 2015; to have offered up to 7 million eco upgrades by 2020.

The UK industry should develop more products to help builders and property owners make the 5.5 million properties at flood risk in England and Wales more resistant and resilient to flooding, Environment Agency chairman Lord Chris Smith says. Speaking at the National Flood Forum annual conference, Lord Smith also encouraged building merchants and DIY stores to offer advice to builders and members of the public on how to make properties more resilient to floods, so that drying out and cleaning up is faster and cheaper following any flooding. A recent Environment Agency study into the devastating floods of summer 2007 found the average cost per flooded home was between £23,000 and £30,000 and a quarter of homeowners were not fully covered by insurance.

Roof-mounted wind turbines and solar panels are ‘eco-bling’ that allow their owners to flaunt their green credentials but contribute very little towards meeting Britain’s carbon reduction targets, according to the Royal Academy of Engineering. Developers will waste millions of pounds installing such micro-generation devices unless the Government revises its building regulations on carbon-neutral homes and offices. Doug King, professor of building engineering at the University of Bath and the author of a report on low carbon buildings, said that far greater savings could be made by installing better insulation and methods of trapping the sun’s rays. He proposed that the government target for all new homes to be carbon-neutral by 2016 should be relaxed in return for developers making equivalent contributions to wind farms and other large-scale renewable energy projects.

Housing and Planning Minister John Healey has proposed a more consumer-friendly green rating for homes that will promote energy efficient properties and reduce future utility bills by up to £1500 a year in the most energy efficient homes. The Code for Sustainable Homes was ratified in April 2007 as a standard to measure improvement in the overall sustainability of new homes. Mr Healey is proposing changes in the Code to make it easier for consumers, whether they are developers or individuals simply wanting to grade and track the sustainability of their properties. Mr Healey said: ‘Our homes account for a quarter of UK carbon emissions, so it’s clear they are a vital part of our efforts to tackle climate change. The Code has proved its worth but now is the time to make it a more user-friendly standard for consumers. In the future, this will help drive uptake so people will save more money on bills and reduce the carbon footprint of new homes.’

Three weeks after last month’s devastating Cumbria floods, the Environment Agency is urging owners of damaged properties to insist that insurers repair their homes and businesses to be more flood-resilient.

Properties affected by flooding are often simply returned to their previous state, meaning that similar damage is likely if flooding occurs in future.

Repairing a property that has been flooded offers a chance to minimise the damage and disruption that could be caused by any future flood.

People who generate electricity from home wind turbines and solar panels will not have to pay tax on the money they make by selling it to the national grid, the Chancellor announced in the pre-Budget report.

From April 2010, the £900 a year they typically make from electricity sales to the grid under so-called ‘feed-in tariffs’ will be tax-free. This will save a basic-rate taxpayer £180 a year and a higher-rate taxpayer £360 a year.

The government also announced that it would take steps to encourage poor households to generate their own electricity.

Although home generation equipment often pays for itself over its lifetime, the Treasury said, the initial costs can discourage low-income families from installing it.

Tax rebates for people who ‘go green’ by installing solar panels or wind turbines on their homes or swapping their company car for an electric vehicle will be announced by Alistair Darling tomorrow.

Although his pre-Budget report will include few giveaways as he promises to rein in a £180bn budget deficit this year, the Chancellor will give householders and drivers a financial incentive to play their part in saving the planet.

At present, people who sell electricity to the National Grid are taxed on the income. In future, it will be exempt from tax.

A householder on basic rate tax selling £900 of electricity to the grid from April would receive the full amount, instead of £720 as at present.

The government has unveiled its vision of hi-tech homes with ‘smart’ meters acting as a cornerstone of a more efficient, greener electricity grid system.

British Gas and other power suppliers have been given responsibility for installing meters in each of Britain’s 26m homes by 2020, enabling them to read consumption levels remotely and end the use of estimated bills.

The gadgets would also allow homeowners to monitor their own gas and electricity usage – and production if they have solar panels or wind turbines.

However, a row over the £8.5bn outlay for smart meters threatened to overshadow the announcement with critics warning that the energy companies might pocket the benefits.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said the cost of the scheme would be dwarfed by the £14.5bn of expected savings as power companies reduce administrative costs and consumers benefit from lower bills.

Nine new locations have been given permission to proceed with developing plans for new settlements which meet environmentally-friendly standards, and will receive a share of £5 million in Government funds.

To qualify to become an eco-town a development must have 5,000 homes, at least 30 per cent of which should be affordable for those on low incomes, and contain low-carbon services, buildings, transport and energy.

Shoreham Harbour and a second site in Northstowe, Cambridge, have already begun development and will be redesigned to meet higher levels of sustainability.

Five more local authorities are seeking to set up potential eco-towns across 10 locations.

More than 900,000 homes and businesses in England and Wales could be at the highest risk of flooding by 2035 without increasing investment in defences, the Environment Agency has warned.

The agency said the number of properties at the highest risk of inundation could rise by 60 per cent from current figures of 560,000, as it outlined a new five-year strategy, including plans to protect an extra 200,000 homes and businesses from flood waters.

The agency said that in the past five years, 156,000 properties had been protected against flooding.

Chief executive Paul Leinster said: ‘Less waste is going to landfill, more properties are protected against flooding, pollution incidents have halved since 2000 and there are more fish and wildlife in lakes and rivers.’

But he warned: ‘Climate change is already affecting the UK and the challenges we face as a result are only going to get tougher and more properties could be at increased flood risk.’