The difficulty of making your home energy efficient

When Simon Duffy gets another energy bill, his heart drowns. He says, “It is madly charged.”

Mr. Dofi lives in a traditional separate house of stone in Sheffield. It is estimated that it spends 3100 pounds each year on heating and electricity.

Although he is a person who is interested in climate change, and is keen to adjust his property to make him more efficient, there is a problem.

“The entire question about how to better isolate the house is a real mystery to me,” says Mr. Dofi, director of the suffocating citizen network in Al -Khanaq. “I don’t know where the experience is.” He also adds that he is also not sure whether he can install solar panels, given that he lives in the preservation area.

Millions of homeowners around the country can face the same dilemma.

About 29 million British homes require the modernization amendment by 2050, According to the UK Green Building CouncilIndustry Authority.

The update modification may include measures such as improving your home insulation, upgrading the heating system, installing power plants such as solar panels, or even private wind turbines.

These adjustments can cost thousands of pounds in the foreground, but if they are implemented properly, they can improve comfort and reduce people’s bills in the long run.

In addition, the energy efficiency must reduce carbon emissions from homes, especially if real estate owners come from gas or oil boilers, for example.

Almost five of the total UK emissions It comes from residential buildings.

Amy Piece and her husband live in northwestern England, near Warrington. The couple works in sustainability, and advising companies on Road to zero zero.

They were keen to improve the quality of their home and apply the principles they promoted at work for their lives – but they also faced challenges when making a decision on how to do so.

“Although we have this background, we are also engineers, what we did not completely explain is where it was better to spend money,” says Ms. Pelly.

The couple spoke to many consultants, but Mrs. Paace found that the advice he received was often directed towards Passivhaus-a kind of very effective energy buildings.

“There was not much in this practical medium space where she literally says,” We have a lot of money, where will we be the best position? “Mrs. Salam adds.

However, perseverance over the past three years has resulted, and the home of the separate couple in 1930 has improved insulation, thermometer and the electric car charging point. The solar and battery panels will be followed soon, if everything is planning.

Consciousness of confusion about the approach to re -update, some organizations move to improve the advice available to homeowners. Among them Ecofurb.

“We can design all the different options available, suitable for your home and budget, and determine a set of measures,” says Liz Lin, of the housing data analysis company, which runs Ecofurb.

The company offers this initial advice for free, but full plans, with personal inputs from the modernization coordinator, starting from 470 pounds. Ms. Lynn says Ecofurb can supervise any works because she is carried out by contractors to avoid “horror stories”.

There are many other organizations that provide homeowners to plan for the re -update.

Work often involves a survey of heat loss, to form cold areas that require isolation, and understand the demand for heating for property better. Experts may also advise the suitability of the solar panels for your home, for example.

there Get the heat pump siteLaunched by the Nesta Foundation and the MCS Charitable Foundation, which explains what the heat pumps are and how it can suit the home renewal plan.

RICS, the Royal Corporation for Pural Surveyors, has also launched a new criterion for modernization of its members – mainly, encouraging surveyors appropriate training to provide their services to homeowners who plan or undergo a re -update.

RICS will soon include a set of challenge advice and a tool to help homeowners find a suitable space in their local area, says Steve Liz, of the Recs Retrofit project team.

Gerald Charles, head of the housing updates at the Sustainable Energy Center, says, but he adds that the current lack of good advice is still a real problem, that improving energy efficiency in the homes is “necessary” for carbon defects.

He says: “The industry as a whole is not the importance of good reference advice.”

One of the entrepreneurs who noticed the presence of a market gap in the market is James Megur, founder and chief executive in Hobbro, helping architects to plan energy -saving buildings. Architects do not always have the latest information on how to integrate energy saving technologies into their designs, as Mr Major notes.

“Clean technology is not part of what they do or what they should know – this is an engineering function,” he says. However, architect agents are increasingly asking about this technique when planning a new house or extension.

Through an initiative called MyHubB, MR Major now offers detailed architectural reports that appreciate carbon reduction capabilities and the recovery period in updated measures – such as heating systems based on heat pump or solar panels, for example.

He says that these reports cost about 1,000 pounds, although it adds that this price has not yet ended.

Mr. Duffy says he will continue to search for solutions to the update modification. But he explains another point. Many technology and advice are currently designed for individual homeowners.

It suggests that air range plans, for example, to provide solar energy to Kamel Street, may be more logical and can include more people at once.

“This is what I think is the logical way to think about this,” he says.