Labour must resist housebuilders’ pleas to weaken green standards, experts say

[UndercoverElephant]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/art ... -standards

The builders said the rules were too onerous and would add to the cost of new homes. Delaying the rules meant they saved about £5,000 per home on average by not having to fit high-grade insulation, heat pumps, solar panels and other green technology.

Their savings have come at a high cost to homeowners, however: the occupiers of the 1.5m new homes built since the rules were scrapped in 2015 will have to expensively retrofit their homes, at an average cost of £20,000 each.

Ed Matthew, the campaigns director at the E3G thinktank, warned the construction industry was likely to try the same special pleading with Labour: “Successive Tory governments caved into the powerful housebuilder lobby, who were major donors to the Conservatives,” he said.

[adam2]

I am doubtful as to the merits of heat pumps and can not support legislation or regulations making them compulsory. They are a potential source of significant ongoing expense.
PV modules are well worthwhile and should be required on all new suitable buildings, not JUST homes. Unlike heat pumps they should operate for many years without attention.
Good insulation should in my view be a requirement, and has zero running costs.

For heating a new home I would suggest electric heating, with good insulation the running costs should be affordable. Electric heaters often last for decades and are cheap to replace, unlike heat pumps.

[mr brightside]

Fit them all with a stove and a flue, the new owners will probably need them in the coming decades.

[Ralphw2]

Builders hate good insulation because it reduces the internal space of a house relate to it's outside dimensions, which reduces the number of houses they squeeze onto each hectare of land, and hence profits.

[adam2]

Fit them all with a stove and a flue, the new owners will probably need them in the coming decades.

For a larger home, I agree. A modern "rabbit hutch" home if well insulated would tend to overheat with even a small stove. The smallest readily available solid fuel stoves have an output of about 4KW, too much for a small and well insulated home.