"Repayment period: the time horizon for financial returns (in terms of energy savings) on the initial investment in insulation can be long: up to 30 years for external wall insulation."

"6.9 Perhaps even more importantly, if poor installation causes problems with damp, these may not become evident until a year or more after installation. Monitoring, which is typically done in the weeks following installation, cannot identify these longer-term problems."

We know from posts on this forum that cost/benefit vs payback time can be a deciding factor and 30 years is a frighteningly long time and not one most people are likely to see out in the same house they've invested the money in.

And we likewise know that damp/condensation problems resulting from insulation without having thought through the combination(s) of type, extent and mitigating measures can be horrendous.

I have a really bad feeling about all this.

The point is whether that 30 year payback will stop people investing in the work who are more concerned with the cost benefit to themselves than any qualitative benefit in terms of quality of life.

Remember there is a Golden Rule that's supposed to operate with the Green Deal.

All the other ponderings have engaged many on here over a multitude of threads.

I spent a fair bit of money converting from a wood-burning stove to a mains-gas fire because I accepted the particulates argument along with the argument that zero-carbon biomass was a fallacious argument, but very few (if any) others have done the same.

Membership of the GBF fraternity is by self-selection of the like-minded - in the main.

I guess the big question is what does insulation do to the capital value of the property? A 30 year payback doesn't matter if you get the money back when you sell it after 5-7 years.

Aren't we forgetting landlords here?

But ST you're omitting the "leading horses to water" issue: the government has committed to some carbon targets, but however easy it makes doing the insulation, etc, some people just can't be bothered (you'd have to increase energy costs by orders of magnitude to compel most of them) and in the mean time the genuinely fuel poor would be in debtors' prison.

Never mind the politics of denial.

Thus the roundabout route.

Rgds

Damon

I took an informal look at the demographics of that sector of this village's population most in need of the kind of initiative the Green Deal is supposed to be and I'd say, finger in air, that 95% (and that would be a conservative rough estimate) of the properties desperately needing treatment are lived in by either the elderly-poor or long-term unemployed.

Ex-mining village with rows of terraced houses, all built to the bare minimum to keep the rain out. As ex council houses (right-to-buy) or still in council ownership they had the minimum required loft insulation fitted when councils first climbed onto the 'socially responsible landlord' bandwagon back in the 80s, since when some of them have had those bloody awful upvc top-hungs fitted with a matching plastic door (late 80s, early 90s). Still with their single-skin late-Victorian brickwork.

The problem with the ex-colliery terraces is that mix of tenant and owner, precisely the kind that the Green Deal ought to help because ownership of the property is irrelevant, the cost of the work being repaid through the individual property's energy bill. Ironically, of course, that financial burden will not be noticed by the tenants on benefits, who will continue to be subsidised by the taxpayer, whilst the homeowner will have to negotiate with any prospective buyer over the extra cost "hidden" in the energy bills for that property, always assuming that prospective buyer is savvy enough to ask the right questions.

Meanwhile... This place of ours (the old colliery offices, 1848) is solid wall, and if anyone feels generous enough to assist with either IWI or EWI on this 13.5 x 12.5 x 8 metre (ignoring the gables) pile then please whisper me your bank account details so that we can set up a BACS.

Posted By: SteamyTea
So if houses are to be made more thermally efficient, then just push the unit price of fuel up, really not difficult.

The reason no one wants to do it isn't because of the difficulty.

I think you're 100% right that it would bring about the right changes, but I'm 100% sure that no politician would stick their neck out and do it. It'd never get enough support to become policy.

Supply and demand will take care of it eventually, but it'll take a while.

From http://www.worldcoal.org/coal/where-is-coal-found/

"It has been estimated that there are over 847 billion tonnes of proven coal reserves worldwide. This means that there is enough coal to last us around 118 years at current rates of production. In contrast, proven oil and gas reserves are equivalent to around 46 and 59 years at current production levels."

Wikipedia estimates reserves of 948 billion tons and 2007 use of 7 billion tons, or 135 years worth.

Doesn't sound like hundreds of years worth to me. Of course, when the oil and gas go, the coal will be burnt faster!

Posted By: Seret

Posted By: SteamyTea
if...then just push the unit price of fuel up...

...but I'm 100% sure that no politician would stick their neck out and do it. It'd never get enough support to become policy....

I suppose the 'Fuel Duty Escalator' is a vaguely relevant of example for them to look at (& then, as politicians, probably run away from).

Posted By: SteamyTea
They really are a weak lot.

I think they're just acting rationally based on the system that's in place. You're never going to be able to push through the really, really unpopular policies in a liberal democracy. It'd be doable in a more autocratic system, but then you'd have to give up a ton of personal liberties that have been hard-won. Neither option is much good really.

Eventually the market will make change inevitable, but like JSHarris says we'll already have suffered some significant degree of change to the climate by then.

I'm actually a pretty optimistic dude normally, but I have absolutely zero confidence of us making all the changes we need to in the time they tell us we have to do it in. We'll just have to crack on, do what we can, and deal with the consequences.

I am in the midst of trying to get 100 lofts in houses round me on the council estate insulated for free before CERT expires. I'm anticipating a high failure rate amongst freeholders and tenants even at "free" and with next to no effort by the householder. The local council is not yet helping us do it for their tenants even though it would be free to them and their tenants, for reasons not clear to me except possibly over-caution and intertia.

I'm also trying to hatch a scheme, c/o of a challenge to TTK* by Ed Davey, to encourage people to switch energy suppliers, which he would like at least partly to be about money, but which TTK's energy group (incl me) would much rather be about green, and indeed Ecotricity has just said "no" to me (for very decent reasons) for cheaper energy to encourage such a switch.

It is very difficult for energy ministers to do anything other than try to keep prices down, especially if they can be voted out, but even when free some people won't save themselves money and discomfort or just do the right thing. Getting voters to do unpopular or boring things is hard!

Rgds

Damon

*Transition Town Kingston

Ah, you've seen my picture then?

Rgds

Damon