Green Deal Collapse Risk For Scheme & Companies
The much anticipated Government backed Green Deal Scheme has been dealt a major blow which sees the scheme delayed until 2013 at least.
This is a major setback to many BISF home owners who had hoped to take part in the scheme due to be launched in the October of this year.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) announced recently that the delay was caused by energy companies who had not been able to implement a suitable payment mechanism for the scheme in time for the planned launch.
Thousands of BISF home owners now face the prospect of another cold and expensive winter.
Many home owners had hoped to take part in the scheme which would have provided warmer homes thanks to the application of an external insulation system that would be paid back over time by the savings made on energy bills. Until now BISF owners have been unable to take part in various government funded initiatives such as the Warm Front Scheme which offered free or subsidised cavity wall insulation because BISF houses do not have traditional cavity walls.
Please generate and paste your ad code here. If left empty, the ad location will be highlighted on your blog pages with a reminder to enter your code.The Green Deal Scheme is the first Government backed scheme specifically designed to thermally improve properties that have single and non cavity walls such as those found in a BISF house. As rising fuel costs force more families into fuel poverty, such a scheme is long overdue and desperately needed.
The delay couldn’t come at a worse time for thousands of struggling UK companies who have already invested in training and recruitment to deal with the anticipated demand. This latest delay could be catastrophic for many smaller firms who desperately need this new business to stay afloat.
Shadow Cabinet Minister Luciana Berger has criticised the decision to delay the scheme saying:
Ministers justified the scrapping of successful measures introduced by Labour like the Warm Front, CERT & CESP schemes, by promising that the Green Deal would be up and running to fill the gap in October. Any delay risks leaving millions of people struggling to keep warm next winter.
Watch this space!
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Hi Norm and welcome. You can see my post on DIY internal insulation that Marc has kindly put together.
My experience is that while a BISF definitely isn't up to today's insulation standards, it isn't especially bad either so I wouldn't worry to much about it. It's better insulated for example than the millions of Victorian, Edwardian etc houses that people still live in that can't really be upgraded because they don't have cavity walls.
I'm a little bit dubious that the Green Deal will cover external BISF insulation because it's only going to cover upgrades that will pay for themselves in a certain length of time through reduced fuel bills (15 year I believe) and if the insulation costs 15k, I don't think you're ever going to save 1k per year on your bills.
Anyway, I wouldn;t hesitate to recommend a BISF house because it's of a good size, convenient layout and is generally a light, airy and 'friendly' house in my opinion.
We are in the throws of buying a unit that is x local authority and on close inspection the owners have not had any of the free insulation work completed. My question is if the void created by the framework is filled with foam is it going to create problems in the future?. Are there any grants available for upgrading the insulation values for x council properties?. Is it still a good deal to buy a BISF 3 bed for less than 55k? How much would it cost to bring it up to regs privately?
Thank you all and good luck to you all.
Hello Norm, the warmest of welcomes to our community!
It's great to hear that you are buying a BISF house and you are certainly in the right place for answers and if there is anything that we can't answer, we will certainly do our best to find out.
Firstly, BISF houses cannot be insulated with standard foam filled cavity wall insulation that you often see advertised due to the construction type of the walls. BISF houses are not alone in this area as most pre-war houses have only single brick walls and no cavities either.
Your BISF house can benefit from free or subsidised loft insulation, which can be fitted by sub contractors for various energy companies or you can buy and fit it yourself as rolls often go on sale at a subsidised price of £1 a roll.
A standard BISF house does contain some mineral type insulation in the void between the plasterboard wall and outer skin of the house but by todays standards it is considered to be on the thin side offering little thermal insulation value.
This leaves you with 3 choices.
1) You can insulate the walls yourself but it does mean removing all the walls, installing insulation, replacing the plasterboard and re plastering.
2) You can consideran external insulation system which could cost anywhere between £15k and £25k+
3) If the governments proposed Green Deal scheme goes ahead you may qualify for a subsidised external insulation system. You would in fact pay the costs back on top of your energy bills with the hope that you would save as much on energy costs as what you would pay in repayments.
In short, BISF houses have never really benefited under previous schemes such as Warm Front in any area other than roof insulation and sometimes boiler or central heating replacement.
The Green Deal Scheme is the only scheme so far that should address this shortfall for hard to heat homes but even this is not certain yet.
As for value I still consider £55k to be very cheap in todays market considering that I have seen used mobile homes cost more than this.
Many BISF owners are indeed very happy with their houses as they do indeed offer good sized accomodation at a good price.
I hope this answers your questions. If I can be of further help don't hesitate to ask! :)
Marc
Hi Tanstaafl, thank you for you input.
At the time of writing the whole Green Deal was in jeopardy due to funding issues but this as you say does now appear to be resolved.
I agree one hundred percent regarding back peddling, the parameters are under constant review and change with many different parties attacking the Green Deal in order to suit their own business agendas.
I still cannot see how external BISF insulation will be incorporated into the Green Deal as the government estimates for a full application appear to be exceedingly low.
I would not be at all surprised if the Deal doesn't end up being a Warm Front replacement and of little or no benefit to BISF Owners.
Marc
*I think you will find that it is the Renewable Heat Incentive that has been delayed until Summer 2013, and that the Green Deal is still planned to start in October 2012, albeit with a 'Soft Launch.' However, given how much detail of the GD remains to be sorted out, it would be surprising if it weren't very soft indeed. Watch out for lots of back-pedalling by Barker, Cameron, Pickles adnd Schapps over the next few months ...