The UK's first Energiesprong homes

[vtsnowedin]

If you raise taxes enough to pay for your proposed program you will collapse the economy and with the waste and corruption inherent in such boondoggles you still won't get the job done or improve the environment.

[kenneal - lagger]

You don't raise taxes, I'll say it again louder this time, YOU PRINT THE F*****G MONEY!!!

We, and the US, got through the last war very successfully with a command economy and little crime and corruption. Why can't we do something similar again? the need is as great if not greater.

[vtsnowedin]

You don't raise taxes, I'll say it again louder this time, YOU PRINT THE F*****G MONEY!!!

We, and the US, got through the last war very successfully with a command economy and little crime and corruption. Why can't we do something similar again? the need is as great if not greater.

Saying it louder doesn't make it any smarter. Dumping that much unbacked money into the economy would cause inflation the likes of which have not been seen sense the Weimar republic, post WW1 in Germany. Inflation taxes everybody without regards to ability to pay and is as a regressive a way to wring assets away from the poor as there is.

[Little John]

Private banks lending unsustainable amounts of "money" into existence has the same inflationary effect as "printing" unsustainable amounts of money. The only difference being, when the banks fail, in order to stop the system crashing the state has to intervene and cover the mess with QE, which is another analogue of printed money.

So, whatever happens, someone has to be in the position of generating money in the system and so the only question that is relevant is who do we want to run the money supply and for whose benefit.

[vtsnowedin]

Private banks lending unsustainable amounts of "money" into existence has the same inflationary effect as "printing" unsustainable amounts of money. The only difference being, when the banks fail, in order to stop the system crashing the state has to intervene and cover the mess with QE, which is another analogue of printed money.

So, whatever happens, someone has to be in the position of generating money in the system and so the only question that is relevant is who do we want to run the money supply and for whose benefit.

When the banks loan out money the borrowers have something useful they want to do with it. You can expect that on average the borrowers gains far exceed £400 per year for each £75,000 borrowed. Loans get paid back plus interest which balances the equation avoiding inflation. Unchecked money printing without taxation to cover the costs just devalues all of the currency.
The problem here is not the method of financing or the goal of the program, it is the extremely high cost of the proposed solution per unit of improvement.

[clv101]

When the banks loan out money the borrowers have something useful they want to do with it. You can expect that on average the borrowers gains far exceed £400 per year for each £75,000 borrowed. Loans get paid back plus interest which balances the equation avoiding inflation. Unchecked money printing without taxation to cover the costs just devalues all of the currency.

The problem here is not the method of financing or the goal of the program, it is the extremely high cost of the proposed solution per unit of improvement.

Maybe one (or both) of those numbers is wrong? Are the returns only £400 per year when you take into account the 'value' of the:
1. reduced excess winter deaths due to cold
2. reduced illness (& time off work) and discomfort caused by cold housing
3. environmental impact of extra fuel burn
4. macroeconomic impact of reduced balance of payments as we import extra fuel...

If the £75k figure realistic for a wide scale deployment, or would economies of scale and learned best practice reduce this cost?

[vtsnowedin]

If the £75k figure realistic for a wide scale deployment, or would economies of scale and learned best practice reduce this cost?

Possibly, maybe even probably, but I'd want to prove out and find favorable answers to that question before committing to any such program.

[cubes]

You don't raise taxes, I'll say it again louder this time, YOU PRINT THE F*****G MONEY!!!

You print the f*****g money at this scale and the price of everything goes up as the pound in your pocket buys much less, pretty much offsetting any interest savings or worse.

[clv101]

What was the scale of the quantitative easing money printing? Around £500bn or about £17,000 per house - that could have cut out energy use and improved our homes dramatically .

[vtsnowedin]

What was the scale of the quantitative easing money printing? Around £500bn or about £17,000 per house - that could have cut out energy use and improved our homes dramatically .

Do you have a short course on where this quantitative easing money went and who has to pay it back if ever? I confess that I have lost track of where it went and what has to be done about it in the future.

[woodburner]

If the government funds a large scale scheme, it will just reslt in large scale corruption and fraud. It happened with the insulation scheme..............

So we sit back in our cold draughty homes, pumping warmed air into the environment, while climate change gets worse still do we? With 25 million homes to improve the only way that it will be done is on a large scale scheme basis and with central funding because for the individual it is not cost effective. But then what is the environment, the world which we find habitable, worth?

You have a vested interest in this work being done, rather like the pharmaceutical companies have a vested interest in getting people vaccinated.
How I choose to ventilate my house, and keep warm is not up to your idealogical view and how much money you would ecpect to effectively force me to pay.

We have a door at the bottom of our stairs, so the heat does not heat the upstairs. The upstairs rooms are not heated. We have a wood stove in one room for heating, and an immersion heater for the hot water, with kettles on the stove for extra hot water and for drinks.

While I write this I have a jumper on, normal for this time of year. As it’s a bit perishing outside and my chair is next to a doorway, I have a jacket on to stay comfortable. I also wear thermals this time of year I am quite happy with this, and I do not complain. Our house is a Victorian cottage and would need virtually a rebuild, or enormouse amounts of money spnding to get it to meet your requirements.

I find your attitude objectionable. I do not attempt to tell you how you should live, but you continually attempt to force your views on others. Don’t bother having a go at me in future with your snide remarks as they are contemptible.

[Potemkin Villager]

"Energiesprong UK, the organisation overseeing project developments in the UK, suggests that the refurbishment process must be carried out at around £40,000 to be self-financing. Currently, the Nottingham scheme was around £75,000 per unit, with additional “top-up� income provided by other organisations."

To me this seems an insanely large spend per dwelling and I must wonder who is on the gravy train here. One imagines these might be luxury dwellings in the Grand Designs tradition with their snotty occupants expecting to sit about all winter in their undies showing off to their neighbours despite sub zero conditions outside.

[careful_eugene]

"Energiesprong UK, the organisation overseeing project developments in the UK, suggests that the refurbishment process must be carried out at around £40,000 to be self-financing. Currently, the Nottingham scheme was around £75,000 per unit, with additional “top-up� income provided by other organisations."

To me this seems an insanely large spend per dwelling and I must wonder who is on the gravy train here. One imagines these might be luxury dwellings in the Grand Designs tradition with their snotty occupants expecting to sit about all winter in their undies showing off to their neighbours despite sub zero conditions outside.

I live in Nottingham and I can assure you that there are no grand design type luxury dwellings in Sneinton. When I get some time, I'll drive through and take a look.

[kenneal - lagger]

Woodburner, there are people who chose to live in igloos and wear polar bear skins, and good luck to them, but there are also people in the UK who are dying from hypothermia and other cold related illnesses every year. It is they who probably would like to be a lot warmer a lot more affordably. I'm not out to press insulated homes on nutters who prefer to be cold but if a home is properly insulated and ventilated you can still live in an icebox if you choose. If your home isn't insulated you don't have the choice. All I want to do is give people the choice.

I am semi retired and wouldn't want, or be able, to handle the volume of work this would generate so I have no vested interest. I am just concerned that we do something about climate change and do something that will help ordinary people first for a change. If we don't do something soon the economy will collapse and we will all be left, or most of us will, living in unheated and unheatable shiteholes. Who would want that?

If the government wanted to recoup some of the money spent it could be done on the Green Deal basis that some of the reduction in fuel bills is taken back through the energy bills. That way no one pays any extra and the money is effectively taxed back and the QE isn't inflationary. If all you worriers about inflation hadn't noticed there's been massive inflation in the stock market and also in the housing market over the last few years as a direct result of the Bank of England's QE policy. Now some people say that that is a good thing but it is hugely inflationary, especially the housing price increase which really does take money out of ordinary people's pockets and put it into the bankers' pockets.

I strongly suspect that those Energiesprong homes had other work done on them as well. There were some homes done in a trial scheme a few years ago and they were uprated inside and out by the Housing Associations on top of the insulation work. I doubt that they were "Grand Designs" houses although they should be shown on GD to show people just what can be done to an ordinary home to make it comfortable and energy efficient.

[kenneal - lagger]

By the way I am sat here in my unheated office typing away in four layers, a hat and insulated trousers and the heating will go on in a few minutes when my wife lights the stove in the living room. That will warm the wall between the living room and my office and take the chill off the office a little.