Making the news today....

[Big J]

55 minutes ago, Mark Bolam said:

Why aren’t panels compulsory on new builds?

 

52 minutes ago, Mark Bolam said:

There is no genuine reason for it not to be law.

 

33 minutes ago, Woodworks said:

It's bonkers. To fair not every house will have a suitable elevation but most will

 

It all comes down to cost and profit for the building companies.

 

90% plus of all houses built in the UK are built are constructed to the absolute lowest possible standard. Building companies have historically heavily lobbied successive governments to keep building regs to the lowest possible standard. Not only is it ridiculous that all new houses don't have solar panels, but the fact that we're still building homes with only double glazing defies logic. The average garage here in Sweden is better insulated. 

 

What we're seeing in the UK now is the consequence of decades of inadequate regulation of the house building industry. We've had the technology for years to build houses that require virtually no heating and yet we still accept the little shitty rabbit hutches that Persimmon and the like throw up and expect us to get excited about.

 

If summers of 40c plus become common place, a great many people are going to suffer horrendously, especially if electricity is so expensive that AC is uneconomical. 

[Mark Bolam]

The cost/profit thing is a non argument if it was compulsory though, it would be a level playing field.

 

Also it wouldn’t cost much in the grand scheme of things, not anywhere near the cost of retro fitting.

 

You’re spot on about the regs J, it’s a disgrace.

[Big J]

1 minute ago, Mark Bolam said:

The cost/profit thing is a non argument if it was compulsory though, it would be a level playing field.

 

Also it wouldn’t cost much in the grand scheme of things, not anywhere near the cost of retro fitting.

 

You’re spot on about the regs J, it’s a disgrace.

 

The building companies use their undue and unfair influence on politicians to ensure that they aren't mandated to build anything more than the minimum. They'll claim that there isn't market demand for green technologies, but it's bollocks. They don't offer them, so what choice does the consumer have?

 

The house industry in the UK is something akin to having the technology to build Teslas but offering nothing more than Morris Minors. It's utterly ridiculous.

 

I'll state again - our 1957 house in Sweden (with original, albeit fair sophisticated for the time, windows) uses 10 times less heat per square metre than our 1860s/1930s farm cottage in Devon. And that's despite a Devon winter averaging 9-11c warmer than here. 

 

There's a house four doors away that with it's rooftop solar array and extra insulation costs £800 a year to run, combined heat and power. For 210 square metres.

[Squaredy]

1 hour ago, Woodworks said:

It's bonkers. To fair not every house will have a suitable elevation but most will

I seem to remember reading that in Milton Keynes new builds do have to have solar panels, and that was many years ago.  Do I remember right I wonder?

[Squaredy]

1 hour ago, openspaceman said:

Will you just go for charging off the 13A supply then? Should work out a lot cheaper than that, 6 panels for £1600 the inverter will be the interesting one because it will have to run off grid?? to avoid an application to the DNO.

 

The obvious cheap way would be to stay DC but I wouldn't know how to charge an EV that way.

I am getting it specced out by a local firm, not sure of the details yet.  I think it will be AC though, and then of course converted back to DC by the car!

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, Mark Bolam said:

The choice not to have free, renewable energy?

It is not free and when you consider the return on capital it is not actually a good investment compared with quite a few other investments but...

[Mark Bolam]

Maybe free was the wrong word, but a pittance on to the cost of a £500k investment.

 

With the benefit of then not having a £3k leccy bill every year.

[openspaceman]

56 minutes ago, Big J said:

We've had the technology for years to build houses that require virtually no heating

Well I agree with you to a large extent but the problem is the old houses,like mine, that defy straightforward solutions to insulate them. They are a very large portion of the housing stock, no reason that new builds couldn't be better though.

 

Does anyone have figures for number of houses, semi-detached, terraced  verses flats, apartments etc,

 

Also  it is something to do with the extremely poor standard of policing building regulations  that means a lot of techniques for preventing things like cold bridging are compromised by poor application. I do actually have a bit of experience in trying to get building workers to adhere to the instructions.

 

BTW the latest bit of building regulations seem to make use of plastic insulation nearly obligatory over rockwool (which I prefer).

[Woodworks]

9 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

It is not free and when you consider the return on capital it is not actually a good investment compared with quite a few other investments but...

That equation is changing pretty rapidly though. When we got our PV on the FITs many moaned about the "ridiculous amount of money we get paid" through the FIT (45p per kWh) Payback was around 7 years

 

Now panels are half the price and electric is soon to hit 50p per kWh from what I hear

[openspaceman]

5 minutes ago, Mark Bolam said:

Maybe free was the wrong word, but a pittance on to the cost of a £500k investment.

 

With the benefit of then not having a £3k leccy bill every year.

Well of course I agree, I bought my panels at the same time my car was new, they were similar in price, and I chose to forgo a modest new car at the time and acquired it five years later instead.

 

BTW in the absence of panels and battery my electricity bill would still only be £1050 at today's capped price so one needs to be careful with what is used anyway.