PassivHaus Refurb

[Andy Simmonds]

Main point is - these investment decisions need to be made at UK level not left to individual homeowners or social landlords to try and justify. If we muck 'it' all up, it will be as a result of inadequate national governance.  Maybe the answer is now political. as well, meanwhile 'behind the scenes', we (the pioneers) need to find out what works technically.....

[Peter Bayer]

Given the lack of government action in these matters I keep hoping for the price breakthrough that will lead to mass adoption, hence asking for an opinion on where that price point might be ( clearly not £45,000 )
I fully accept your case as put in your last three posts but as with most on here you're preaching to the converted, I just worry about how to win people round while all things eco as perceived as luxuries for the privileged.

[Andy Simmonds]

When I say that the Government has not done its sums, I am not forgetting DECC advisor Prof. David MacKay's book and ongoing work with DECC, however what I am saying is that extensive energy efficiency appears to be an underrecognised and under utilised resource, if it was better recognised that would change DECCs '2050' pathway options to a low carbon future (I am told it is hard to use the DECC site to model engery efficiency propoerly), so energy efficiency as applied particularly to buildings is too important a potential to be left unresearched. This means that I prefer to see pioneers try to drive down the costs of low energy refurbs, but we shouldn't allow costs to dictate the level at which we pitch national refurbishment levels, say, if it ends up after pioneering stage costing an average of say £30,000/house (maybe work spread over a period of time) for a level of retrofit that allows increased comfort and c. 60 - 80% (measured) water and space heating energy reduction, then as it benefits UK as a whole as well as the tenant/owner, then the investment in these meaures should reflect that - so a mixture of self finance with grant funding or interest free loans, paid back over 25 - 30 years. Large scale adoption of this approach would negate the need to build #no. power stations of whatever sort and will be cheaper for UK plc (ie all of us) than just building more supply. I realise that there are currently no big businesses fighting for energy efficiency, in the way that they are more interested in investing in supply side options. With deregulated energy markets, 'least cost planning' is not possible and therefore no financial benefit to big business to invest in efficiency (?) that just makes peoples houses warmer and cheaper to run.