Home insulation

[etienne]

Somehow, it should be possible to reduce the temperature inside houses without going as low as in Charles Dickens books. It is faster and cheaper than insulation. And if really needed, inside the building insulation is much easier in DIY than outside. When needed, cheaper solutions are possible.

[kassy]

If the Government wanted to motivate insulation in the most ineffective homes (old, no insulation etc), they should run an advert campaign for years.  One crafted by the best in the business, not some government think tank.  One which shows your money flowing out of the building.

But that is old hat thinking. It is not a thing which can solve itself by the market. We wasted over three decades so we do not have the luxury of time anymore. There are other faster ways to do it.

It also makes sense. A well insulated house needs less electricity. It also needs less expensive gas if you still use that etc. More well isolated houses reduce the winter energy peak etc.

[NeilT]

Well we are not going to insulate the house stock by mandating new regulations on new homes.

We noticed in Scotland that extremely aggressive insulation regulations for any work on an existing home had a negative effect where required upgrade work or desired expansion work was not carried out because of the cost of refitting the home with insulation to match the new regulations.

It is somewhat similar to banning replacement gas boilers when they become old and start to fail.  People will look for cheap solutions to avoid the large cost of transitioning to heat pump.

However creating a positive environment of saving money by insulating has the opposite effect and also means that as basic levels of energy efficiency rise, then more aggressive levels of legislation can be used.

Even legislating that any sale must bring the home up to standard, paid by the seller out of the profits of the sale, can have extreme negative consequences.

[etienne]

I had stability problems in my house that required a reinforcement of the foundations, which is now done.
The next step is to renew the facade which has a few cracks. I have already seen 3 businesses, and I haven't found someone recommending adding some insulation. If I would want to do it, I need to take an engineer who will define exactly what has to be done. I read a long time ago that when the freezing point goes through the different layers, that the binding might break. My house is built with insulated blocks.
If businesses don't believe in it, I don't know how it could work, and the state of Luxembourg has an expensive process for subsidies because it requires an validation of the project by an engineer which makes single improvements not worth asking subsidies.

[GrauerMausling]

Somehow, it should be possible to reduce the temperature inside houses without going as low as in Charles Dickens books. It is faster and cheaper than insulation. And if really needed, inside the building insulation is much easier in DIY than outside. When needed, cheaper solutions are possible.

   

We are currently using a combination of heat pump and infrared heating. When the house was build in the 70s it was popular to have a huge open space. So it is impossible to just heat single rooms as they are basically all connected. What we decided is to have a rather low temperature of 18 - 19 °C. This is warm enough for places where you move, like the kitchen. Where we are sitting we have an infrared panel with 800 W and this is sufficient to really feel comfortable. In Winter we are using the panel for around 5 hours and from what I can see it heats half the time. So that would add something like 2 kWh per day.
We have the heat pump since last year, so I wait for the full year to check my electricity consumption, but from what I can see, it is actually lower than what I was hoping for.

[etienne]

Hello GrauerMausling,
That's very interesting, I'd like to do the same with a house built in 2002.
Do you have an air to water heat pump? Did you also improve insulation? In which climate are you living? In my concept, I have a wood stove instead of the infrared panel and could do some solar thermal.

[Sigmetnow]

ACs and refrigerators help keep people safe—but they also further warm the planet.

For indirect interventions, we need to think more broadly about the built environment to reduce the need for air conditioning technology. This often takes the form of better building design and reducing urban heat island effects. It can also go with varying air conditioning and refrigeration loads according to time of day and actual need. There are a lot of ways that we can think about making air conditioning and refrigeration smarter, not just in terms of the technologies themselves but also in terms of managing energy use.

 
The Montreal Protocol phased out ozone-damaging CFCs. While their replacements, HFCs, don’t cause the same damage to the ozone layer as CFCs do, the chemicals have warming potentials hundreds to thousands of times higher than that of CO2—making their growing global use a cause for concern.
 
Are there newer alternatives?

Some of them can just be things like carbon dioxide, actually, which can be used as an alternative refrigerant by using the thermodynamic properties of gases and methods common to heat pump technologies. CO2-based cooling systems use highly compressed CO2 and then manipulate the pressure of the gas. When the gas expands due to reduced pressure, it absorbs heat. …

One of the big reasons to be concerned about cooling services, as an industry, is the tremendous expected growth, not just in one but in two major sectors. The first is in building cooling, which includes air conditioning of spaces. The second is product refrigeration—keeping products like meat, vegetables, and vaccines cool and safe throughout their supply chains. …

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/05/rethinking-air-conditioning-amid-climate-change/

[kassy]

Sunak’s UK oil subsidy could have insulated 2m homes, says thinktank

Billions of pounds given away in a tax break for UK oil and gas exploitation could have permanently cut the energy bills of 2m homes by £342 a year if invested in insulation measures, according to a green thinktank.

Rishi Sunak announced the 91% tax break alongside a windfall tax on the huge profits of oil and gas companies last week. The E3G thinktank calculated that the tax break would hand between £2.5bn and £5.7bn back to the oil companies over three years, while an energy efficiency programme of £3bn over the same period would upgrade 2.1m homes making them less reliant on gas.

...

Another report published on Tuesday by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) found that a £4bn annual investment in energy efficiency could permanently halve heating bills for households by 2035. Its author said Sunak was handing out “raincoats” but “failing to fix the roof”.

The tax reduction meets official definitions of a fossil fuel subsidy, which the UK and other countries had pledged to phase out. It incentivises new oil and gas production, despite a recent Guardian investigation finding that the fossil fuel industry is already planning projects that would blow the world’s chances of maintaining a liveable climate.

Euan Graham, at E3G, who conducted the tax break analysis, said: “[Sunak] is providing a subsidy to oil and gas producers which will do long-term harm to the energy transition. The government has not grasped what is needed in order to deliver a genuinely resilient and affordable energy system. Instead, it is willing to implement policies that support the interests of oil and gas companies instead of British households.”

...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/may/31/sunak-uk-oil-subsidy-could-have-insulated-2m-homes-says-thinktank

Insulate homes and your country will be richer, subsidize FFs and you will be poorer (in multiple ways).

[GrauerMausling]

Hello GrauerMausling,
That's very interesting, I'd like to do the same with a house built in 2002.
Do you have an air to water heat pump? Did you also improve insulation? In which climate are you living? In my concept, I have a wood stove instead of the infrared panel and could do some solar thermal.

I'm using air to water heat pump - water to water was far to expensive and I wouldn't really know how to do the drilling in the existing garden -> no easy access. I used the not-spend money for the drilling to get more PV on the roof.
For the insulation, I only replaced the old windows (with an aluminum frame) with new ones. For the rest I'm still thinking about what to do next.....
We live in the 'Ruhrgebiet', so the temperatures are higher than on average in Germany. Even compared to friends who live in a more rural environment our temperatures in the winter are usually 1-2 °C higher. For my area the lowest expected winter temperature is -10 °C. But this winter the lowest temperature was something like -2 °C.
As we have an underfloor heating, a water temperature of around 35 °C is enough to get to the house to the mentioned 18 - 19 °C.
What is really bad for the SCOP is the hot water supply. I'm lucky that my wife accepts a hot water temperature of 43 °C for the shower. Any degree higher does require a lot of electricity as the efficiency seems to drop like a stone. When I started with the heat pump, I used 52 °C for the hot water and was really surprised how low the efficiency was even in summer with high outside temperatures.
As the last winter was really mild, I think I have a SCOP which is better than 4 - actually close to 5, as far as I can see. An with the gas prices getting really high, this saves quite a bit of money. I'm not using any special rates for the electricity as this would required some further investments, and the savings are not that great at the moment in Germany. However, this might change in the future - I also have a BEV so I need a lot of electricity.

I have a rather big PV on my roof (19 kWp) but in winter there are a lot of shadows - March though was really good, not much electricity which I had to buy.....

[BeeKnees]

Not really insulation but fits in the same space as home heating.

This person has just done the same as me to work out what needs doing and what size heat pump is needed.

What is really interesting is how little the work is needed to upgrade the system.  So many scare stories when really it's just a case of swapping a few radiators. 

Also his point that you get Central heating engineers who don't spend the time and effort to assess the house properly and so recommend huge and noisier heat pumps that are oversized for the property. The reason for this is because that is how the gas boiler industry has been working for decades.

[etienne]

What makes the difference with my house is the floor heating. I do need 60°C when the outside temperature is at -10°C. It is more than a radiator that I need to change.

[NeilT]

The point about insulation is very valid.  We have a bedroom converted from the old ground floor garage which has an earth floor.  The new floor is supsended and has 200mm glass fibre insulation.  Most of the walls have 100mm insulation and the ceiling has 200mm insulation.  The wall to the street which had the old garage door was wood framed with 100mm insulation and a upvc sealed unit door.  We found the noise too much so we pulled out the door, put in a new argon filled window and built another 100mm frame outside the existing wall and filled it with solid insulation then panelled it with 18mm shuttering wood.

The room has a double skinned 1kw radiator in it and if we leave the controller over 2 the room is stifling.  In deep winter we keep it around 1 unless we want to dry some clothes in there.

The room is 12 sqm but the ceiling is only just 2.3m.

Contrast our dining room, significantly less insulation, some of the floor no insulation to the downstairs hall, 16sqm (3.2m ceiling) and we need our 3kw cast iron radiator up to at least 60c before the room is comfortable.  In fact if we get the wood levels wrong at the wrong time it can hit 90c.

It takes about 3 days to get our house to general comfort levels in deep winter.  After that we have to reduce the time the boiler is on because it kicks out too much heat and it is rarely possible to reduce the temperature when it is burning, insufficient control on the boiler.

On the other hand I had a problem with the top of the boiler liner being blocked and it took me a couple of months to get on the roof and clean it out (massive plug of carbon right at the top of the pipe).  The heat to the radiators was rarely getting much over 40c and the house was not warm.

All things to consider if you know what your current system is doing.  I couldn't see us putting much larger radiators in the bedrooms, they are already massively overspecced cast iron radiators.

[kassy]

Climate change: UK government told to insulate more homes

The UK government must drive down energy bills and reduce climate-warming emissions by insulating more homes, a report says.

Official advisors the Climate Change Committee says the government's current insulation programme is "shocking".

It says consumers are paying £40 extra a year on bills because of previous cuts to the home renovation programme.

The committee also says ministers must harness the Ukraine fuel crisis to push ahead with renewables.

And it says to be fair to poorer families, the portion of electricity bills that pays back historic renewables should be taken off bills and absorbed by the Treasury.

...

Lord Deben focused on what he called “a lack of sensible policy” on home insulation. He said it was “scandalous” that house-builders were still building new homes that will need retro-fitting.

Overall the committee says credible plans exist for over a third of the emissions reductions needed by the mid-2030s. With luck the UK will manage another quarter; but there’s a high risk that over a third of plans won’t deliver.

...

In a briefing, the committee again rejected proposals for a new coal mine in Cumbria, but said there would only be a tiny increase in emissions if old coal stations were used to keep the lights on in the winter.

It said the government’s ambitions on nuclear power would be “very tough” to accomplish.

...

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-61926275

[NeilT]

News flash, people didn't insulate their homes and it is now costing them a fortune to heat them.

It is the government's fault.

My parents insulated their home in 1976!  They had already done the calculations and over 20% inflation meant that the insulation paid itself back within the year.

People have had it so easy and energy so cheap and stable, that they haven't bothered cutting heating costs. Now things are getting worse again and it is the fault of the government.

Granted they should lead and regulate, but the UK already has tough insulation standards for new builds and any renovations. They even ran a huge funded scheme for loft insulation in the 2010's.

I'm wondering at which point people themselves become responsible for reducing their heating bills?

[kassy]

My parents (or well my dad) did the same a decade later and i think for much of the same reasons. Inflation was probably a bit less , not sure.

But as they say those were different times. We had a long period were gas was really cheap which did not help.

Then of course not everybody has the money to spare. Much more single income families.

The government subsidizing this can only be good since it helps to reach climate goals. Over the long time i would also save money for these families which they can then spend on something else. Do it with enough houses and you have to import less fuel.

[NeilT]

I have a lot less sympathy with the money to spare. My mother was at college. Gaining her teaching qualification as a mature student, my father was a corporal in the RAF, not the best paid job at the time and there had been 3 years of under inflation pay rises. In1976 the UK hit 26% inflation.

People need to prioritise and thousands spent on mobile phone contracts, streaming services and even monthly charity contributions does not mean you didn't have the money to insulate.  It means it was not a priority for them.

Now it is a priority and it is all someone else's fault.

I have spent more than €20,000 in glazing, doors and insulation in the past two decades. It was important.  I could easily have spent it on cars and pretty new phones every year.

[kassy]

Well 1976 is not like the recent past. People all differ and have a different budgets. And yes most make suboptimal choices but these subsidy programs will push more people who are thinking about it in the right direction. And they could have for years. Just as there is death by many cuts a whole lot of improvements add up too.

At some point we got to take real measures and then we will have to pay more for all those that did not transfer earlier while doing more in a shorter time drives up prices. At society level it is not about the individual.

[morganism]

How the housing industry is working to stop energy efficient homes

Home builders have used their political muscle to prevent states and cities from adopting the latest code, which would lower the climate impact of new houses

(...)
In the town of Granite Falls, N.C., Rob Howard is building ultraefficient yet affordable cottages. Each is priced between $200,000 and $300,000 and designed to be “zero-energy ready,” meaning the addition of solar panels or other renewable energy would offset all or most of its energy use. Such features add at most $6,000 to the price of a home, he said, and have allowed him to market houses to prospective buyers eager to save on their power bills.

“We’ve done a lot in this state to educate both builders and inspectors about what it takes to build a more efficient home. The notion that building this way is too expensive or too complicated … I just don’t buy any of that,” Howard said. “Let’s set a high standard for ourselves.”

Wiring and insulation might seem like unusual political flash points, but they are at the center of the home builders’ effort to push state legislatures to block changes to building codes. In the United States, states and cities adopt their own building codes, but they often do so based on recommended standards updated every three years by a Washington-based nonprofit called the International Code Council.

In 2021, the council came out with a new code that rocked the home builders. It called for the efficiency of new residential buildings to increase by almost 10 percent, a big jump after the past two code cycles led to estimated savings of barely more than 1 percent.

The industry and its allies used their influence to kill some of the more aggressive measures that climate advocates had pushed for, including a requirement that new homes be built with wiring that makes it easier to install electric vehicle chargers. Yet the resulting code was still the most climate-friendly in years: If fully implemented, the standard was expected to cut new homes’ carbon emissions by nearly 9 percent, according to a federal analysis.

That’s when the home builder lobby sprung into action across the country.

In North Carolina, the Republican-controlled legislature passed a law last year freezing residential building standards — making it illegal to update them until 2031 — after the state’s building council recommended an updated code. Emails obtained by North Carolina Public Radio show that the North Carolina Home Builders Association not only supported the legislation, but also that its lobbyists helped write it.

This year, the home building industry in Michigan has come out against the state’s plan to adopt the latest energy code. The industry is rallying its members to pressure Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) to abandon her administration’s proposal, repeating its claim it would increase new homes’ cost by an average of $20,000.

“TAKE ACTION,” says an advocacy alert on the Home Builders Association of Michigan website. “Your support is crucial in amplifying our opposition.”

To rally opposition to efficiency measures, the national trade group has funded studies and awareness campaigns. It has allied itself with pro-natural gas groups and heating and cooling equipment manufacturers, which have fought requirements that make it easier for homeowners to switch to heat pumps and other electric appliances — an effort that is underway again this year. And it has long wielded considerable clout over state legislatures through political contributions and relationships with part-time lawmakers who work in the building trades.
(more)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/02/21/homebuilders-energy-efficiency-climate/