The Labour Government has been reported to be considering a scheme by which a homeowner could fund eco-improvements through a long term loan, possibly provided through the energy companies.

And although an inevitable row has broken out between the political parties as to whose idea it is – both the Tories and Liberal Democrats claim they had the idea first – it is a genuine attempt to help people afford home improvements with the environment in mind.

It has always been a dilemma for anyone contemplating making changes to their house and more energy efficient, is that the pay-back can be decades.

Take double-glazing which undoubtedly makes a property warmer. Although it will save hundreds of pounds off an average energy bill every year, that won’t cover for a long time the actual cost if installation which will cost thousands of pounds.

Even the simpler job of installing loft insulation is not that cheap, especially if a householder cannot do it as a DIY project.

So the Government plan is simple: provide people with access to long term funding so they can make their home more energy efficient.

The crux is of course, can the Government afford such schemes, especially as over the coming years the public purse is going to have to be considerably tightened and home grants will be hit hard? If you look at the welcomed boiler scrappage scheme, this has proved very popular, but the scheme itself has a limited shelf life. It will not continue forever. What’s more, various consumer groups are already complaining that a number of home improvement grant schemes are being withdrawn, or wound-down.

So, it’s perhaps inevitable the Government will want to involve the energy companies in the scheme. Maybe not to wholly bank roll-it, but to act as a clearing house, although you could see the temptation of ministers asking the big energy companies to put their hands in their pockets for people’s house improvements; almost a corporate tax by proxy.

But the cynics might also point out this is the period before the general election, when the Government and opposition parties alike will promise many things which are then conveniently forgotten when they become leaders.

So, it’s a great idea, but don’t hold your breath!

Guest Article by Neil Camp

When it comes to insulating your house for the coming winter, don’t ignore sheep’s wool.

If we know anything about sheep, it is that they don’t freeze to death in fields during the winter, so suppliers who recommend such materials for keeping houses warm, might be on to a good thing.

Sheep wool is now being used extensively to make rolls of loft insulation material. And experts reckon it is up to 20% more efficient, meaning that you only need a depth of 225mm of sheep’s wool insulation, as opposed to 270mm of normal (fibreglass) insulation.

Now this depth figure is important, because it is the government’s minimum recommended thickness needed to keep the heat inside the house and not heating the street outside. And this figure is not arrived at in an arbitrary fashion. It’s derived at by estimating the amount of fibreglass (depth) needed to arrive at the standard of current loft insulation of 0.16W/m2K. This might sound like a tricky mathematical formula, but it refers to watts per square metre per degree Kelvin. This is referred to as the U-value and the lower the U-value, the better the insulating effect.

The trouble is of course, and this is a fact that many DIY insulators find to their cost, is that most attic roof joists are 100mm deep, which means that the insulation is way thicker than the joists. And if you want your attic boarded over to create a usable floor, then you cannot just compress the fibreglass as it’s insulating properties will be cancelled out. So, people who want to board over are usually faced with the decision of having to add to the current joists with new pieces of timber up to the required depth.

Adding new timbers in even a comparatively small loft space can be an expensive and time consuming job, which will dramatically increase the cost of insulation.

The base cost of laying down fibreglass is around £5 per square metre. If you choose say mineral wool fibre, which is said to not irritate the skin so much as fibreglass when laying, you still need a depth of 270mm, but it will set you back nearer £8 per square metre. You can get various types of non irritant fibreglass and lesser thicknesses, all achieving the desired U-value of 0.16, but some of these will cost between £10 and £25 per square metre.

And sheep’s wool? That will cost you £20 per square and say the salesmen, this will last the lifetime of the house and will not degrade like synthetic and mineral fibres, which will eventually collapse and lose their insulation properties.

Guest Article by Neil Camp

The government scheme that is meant to guard consumers against fuel poverty has upped the level of money now available.

Grants of up to £2,700 have been available to households who opt for energy efficient initiatives such as the fitting of a new boiler, loft and wall insulation, and double glazing. That figure has now increased to £3,500 and for those households that are not on the national grid and have to rely on oil, or LPG, they can now apply for a grant up to £6,000. Also, grants for new carbon friendly technologies, such as air source heat pumps and thermal heating, will now be available.

But critics point out that the grants are not usually 100% and top-up fees are often payable by the householder. Furthermore, many people on the receiving end of work carried out say that much of it is below standard and over priced. Some 22,000 people who originally applied for a grant over the last three years have either pulled out of the scheme, or put their applications on hold, fearing that they would not be able to afford the top-up contributions.

The government has ear-marked a total of £959 million for the Warm Front scheme until April 2011, although there are many who see this as promised and not secure funding.

Guest Article by Neil Camp

Britain’s most eco-friendly neighbours live in Green Lane, Cookridge, Leeds, just in case you were wondering.

In an experiment masterminded by British Gas, the Leeds residents won a competition which saw eight families on eight different streets throughout the U.K. try to cut their energy consumption by 25%. And the prize, some £30,000 for the street to spend on energy saving light bulbs, solar panels, loft insulation and energy conscious kettles.

The project highlighted some families which achieved a whopping energy saving of over 50%, and many coming in with a still impressive 30%.

One family in Green Lane achieved a dramatic 45% reduction, saving what they believe was £700 off their annual energy bill. They were helped in their quest with a smart meter that allowed them to monitor real-time their consumption. They told reporters how shocked they were whenever they boiled a kettle, or used an iron. The amount of electricity they used was incredible they said and encouraged them to only boil the amount of water they needed, and to use the iron less. They also gave up on their electric mower and used a manual one.

By running the competition, British Gas were keen to highlight the fact that households account for a quarter of the total U.K. emissions. Furthermore, that for every £3 spent on heating a U.K. house, on average £1 is lost due to poor insulation.

The Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR), an independent think tank, monitored the experiment and will make a report to the Government. It’s been pointed out that if all British households took the same measures as the families in the competition, the country could easily beat the target to cut U.K. emissions of carbon dioxide. In fact, it would save 35 million tons of emissions, which is equivalent to what three coal-fired power stations produce every year.

Guest Article by Neil Camp

The Government’s much trumpeted Warm Front initiative is “unfit for purpose” says The National Audit Office (“NAO”).

The Warm Front scheme was created to help poorer households get subsidised help with roof and wall insulation, double glazing and high-efficiency boilers. It is also a scheme on which a number of energy companies build their customer help programmes.

But the NAO discovered that some 57% of vulnerable households – those in fuel poverty – could not be helped by the scheme because they did not claim key benefits. Fuel poverty is officially defined as those that spend over ten per cent of their household budget on energy costs. Ironically though, the NAO also found that 75% of those who are entitled, were not necessarily in fuel poverty.

So, whilst there are some two million households in fuel poverty, only around 600,000 have been helped between June 2005 and March 2008.

And, in another twist, the NAO discovered of the nearly £900 million spent on grants, around £35 million of it was spent on homes that were already regarded as fuel efficient.

Various charity groups claim to have received thousands of complaints about Warm Front, mainly over the fact that the measures are only subsided and many households literally cannot afford to make up the difference in the cost from their own pockets.

The net result, say the various bodies, is that the government’s scheme cannot be said to cope with the nation’s energy cost crisis.

The government has responded via Energy and Climate Change Minister Joann Ruddock who highlighted the fact that nearly two million households had received tangible help, but she did admit that some improvements were necessary. She said the scheme was being reviewed, more money was being made available and that an independent consultant was being brought in to make recommendations as to its viability.

Whether that will be enough to please the various pressure groups, remains to be seen.

Guest Article by Neil Camp