Bishop Hill Westminster loses it
Apr 10, 2012 Climate: Parliament Climate: WG3 Christopher Booker's article in the Mail is extraordinary. The idea that we are intending to add massively to the cost of making home improvements by forcing people to complete a variety of other works at the same time is quite mindblowing.
Anyone thinking of building a new conservatory, replacing their old boiler or putting in new windows had better move fast.
If they wait a couple of years they could find themselves falling foul of a deluge of new ‘green’ red tape that will leave them having to pay thousands of pounds extra.
Under plans being discussed by the Government, revealed by yesterday’s Daily Mail, anyone hoping to make improvements to their home from 2014 may have to carry out a whole lot of additional works to show their property is ‘energy efficient’.
I find the idea that it will be forbidden to replace a broken down boiler without spending thousands more quite immoral. Are people supposed to sit in the cold if they can't afford it?
This is going to make ordinary people very, very angry.
Reader Comments (111)
I am still waiting to hear (and they have still to decide) how the govt will "encourage" people to "decarbonise" their home heating. The Carbon Plan commits the govt to make it happen.
Unless they pay vast subsidies to install low carbon technology, the only options seem to be either taxing conventional systems and natural gas to make them unattractive, or making the new systems mandatory.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/how-will-britains-homes-be-decarbonised/
TBYJames>
No, the point is that Booker's imagined a situation that is just not going to happen, and cited it as a downside of an otherwise reasonable policy.
Effectively this is a minor subsidy towards improving the nation's housing stock, financed by a tax on homeowners with enough spare cash to do things like build conservatories, Seems fair enough.
I'm a big believer in deregulation, but that doesn't mean all regulations are bad. Would you like it if we abolished the regulation that stops your neighbour piping his wastewater over your fence instead of paying sewerage charges?
Forget global warming - this country still needs to improve its energy efficiency drastically to compete in world markets in the future.
Paul Homewood
I stuck a little water wheel on a bicycle dynamo and fixed it to the cold tap on my bath. Its constant, renewable and carbon free!
Dave,
If your neighbour piped his waste water onto your land, then they are causing you injury,harm or loss
with intent - a common law crime - no regulations needed
Alan
I think just the word ‘carbon’ is enough to set them off these days!
If only someone like Humphrys or Paxman would insert a simple question like ‘do you know the difference between CO and CO2?’ or ‘can you tell me, minister, what percentage of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide?’ the next time they interview one of them, we might get somewhere.
dave uses one of the favorite arguments of the toatlitarian: To paraphrase, "it is all so reasonable".
Well it may or may not be reasonable. But why is it up to the state to decide in the first place? If someone wants a drafty house, so be it. If they want a greenhouse attached to the house, why not? The only real beneficiary of these sort of buiilding codes taht go beyond the quality of the work the owner wants is to line the pockets of contractors and govt. bureaucrats. If an owner makes choices about thie property that are not desirable by the market place, the price of the property will suffer. The idea of some sort of pervasive extended checklist for performing maintenance or minor home modifications is a first step in the direction of loss of property rights. Queensland's new popular govt. decision to end this sort of envirocrat opporession is a good step in the right direction. Hopefully it will spread worldwide.
Islandlife>
Law is the same thing as regulation.
Hunter>
No need for the ad hom. We do not live in completely deregulated societies, and it's not totalitarian to think that might actually be quite a good thing, all in all. Sure, we could live in a world with no governments, taxes, or laws, but that's not what most people want. Since we do have laws and taxes, we need to look at which ones are good and which are bad. If your only reaction is that anything done by government is bad, you're entitled to your view but you're not adding anything to the discussion.
Dave
I know there have to be regulations (and builders are snowed under with them nowadays, especially for anything new) but my objection here is their predication on so much unsubstantiated nonsense.
AGW is somewhere between barely understood and utterly insignificant, and yet whole swathes of regulation are dedicated to reducing the output of the ostensible cause, CO2, which will have either no or an unmeasurable effect, while raising the cost of almost everything that we buy or require.
dave,
"this country still needs to improve its energy efficiency drastically to compete in world markets in the future"
What on earth are you talking about? Me spending money on extra heating is bad for the economy? I don't follow.
dave,
law and regulations are not the same thing,
regulations are called 'acts' or statutes, they are not the same as the law of the land
suggest you get a law dictionary.
Your's is a common mistake / failure to distinguish
James asked: "What on earth are you talking about? Me spending money on extra heating is bad for the economy? I don't follow."
Don't forget, it's also about you spending money on someone else's heating via various forms of taxation to cover the fairly substantial proportion of the population who don't pay their own way.
Wouldn't you like that to be reduced?
That's not my experience - I bought a new property in 2008 with a very sophisticated heating system using two condensing boilers and it's been disastrous.
One boiler failed terminally in its second year and needed a complete control board replacement at a cost of over £300. The other only delivered heat intermittently for the first couple of years - shutting down completely on random freezing winter nights if it felt like it. Turned out, after two years of argument and grief with the installer and developer that whenever small volumes of circulating trapped air reach the boiler there is a detector which shuts it down for "safety" reasons.
In another property I've got a big old, cast iron, Camray pressure jet boiler which has been going strong since 1978 and never missed a beat.
All the plumbers I know hate condensing boilers and making then compulsory was Prescott's first manifestation of the sort of eco-facism that the present lot of numpties seem determined to continue (if they can keep themselves out of jail long enough).
Fascinated to read above that French people don't need building regulation approval for internal works and are still allowed to do their own electrical wiring.
How come we have to pay through the nose for the local jobsworths to hassle us over every minute detail of building work and I can now go to jail if I wire an extension socket in my garage?
steveta,
"Don't forget, it's also about you spending money on someone else's heating via various forms of taxation to cover the fairly substantial proportion of the population who don't pay their own way.
Wouldn't you like that to be reduced?"
So this only applies to people on benefits? If we're talking about me spending my money on other people, then you have a point. I'm all for efficiency in that case. But for people who aren't spending my money, I don't think it's much of my business what they do with it.
Can anyone provide me with a link to the relevant government policy/announcement etc. I'd like to read the details of the restrictions etc. Thanks.
One of the reasons British Business (English, yes, I'm not so sure about Scottish, Welsh or NI) is challenged to be competitive is that if it wants to expand & build an extension onto an existing building, it has to spend an extra 10% of the cost of the extension on improving the energy-conservation within the existing building.
"And so the endless nannying continues. Yes, it may be certifiable, but it's nobody's business. That's the point."
"I disapprove of your conservatory sir - but I defend to the death your right to build it!"
William..
As usual it originates from an EU Directive (2010/31)
pdf file
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2010:153:0013:0035:EN:PDF
The main problem with the compulsory Prescott Condensing boiler is the re circulation pipe was improperly fitted. it was given no insulation and/ or fed through a freezing garage to the outside. This pipe froze causing an emergency shutdown of the boiler and corresponding call out charge. And sometimes expensive repairs.
I reset my friends condensing boiler twice by warming the recirculating pipe and going through a full reset procedure. Then put thick insulation around it. The recirculation of previously lost heat was the great idea to save the planet but no one was told about the dangers apparently. And how to fit it properly.
I wonder if any challenge by a local authority could be defeated on a technicality. My carbon emissions are zero. My carbon dioxide emissions are not. This is not being picky. To a chemist, carbon and carbon dioxide are totally different things. Non chemists have caused great confusion by all this carbon emissions nonsense. Carbon is black, sooty, so carbon emissions have a nasty connotation. Carbon dioxide is invisible so no nasty images.
I think the nannying began in 1973 with compulsory crash helmets. Can anyone give me an earlier example?
James Evans>
On a bigger scale, the country wasting lots of money on heating is not good for economic growth - it makes us less competitive than we would be if our costs of living and working were lower. It's not a huge problem, although we can see at the moment that our inefficient usage of energy makes us rather vulnerable to fuel price increases - even if those increases are in large part driven by (in this case daft) government activities.
In general it would be rather a good thing if we invest now in things which will pay back for decades, if not centuries, to come. Obviously the costs need to come into consideration, but all other things being equal, being more energy efficient is a good thing.
Islandlife>
Semantics. In regard to what we're talking about here, they're the same thing.
James P>
"I know there have to be regulations (and builders are snowed under with them nowadays, especially for anything new) but my objection here is their predication on so much unsubstantiated nonsense."
I agree - but because of that we have to be careful we don't reject good, sensible ideas out of hand just because someone's tacked something about climate change onto them.
Alan Reed @ 6:52
Car seat belts. 1960/61
Joe Public - thanks you are right
Compulsory for drivers here in UK 1983 so I didn't consider it.
I'm looking for the moment when governments decided we would never be gown up enough to make our own decisions.
Dave
If your neighbour lets his water escape onto your land, then sue him and cite the judgement in Rylands v Fletcher.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rylands_v_Fletcher
Alan Reed>
Don't think it's ever been any different - look at the resistance to enlarging the franchise any time it's been suggested.
Dreadnought>
Quite. A case of a regulation being quite a sensible thing to have, no?
I'll hold fire until the fine details are explained to me. I'm not against building regulations, per se. For example regulations relating to electricity usually seem reasonable and sensible. Improved energy efficiency is definitely something I see as desirable, but the devil is always in the details, isn't it. And I'm not yet ready to take on trust everything in The Daily Mail.
What I would strongly disagree with is using "decarbonisation" as a justification. Feeding the "Green Carbon-Troll" is pernicious and will lead to worse problems in the longer term. [And probably much sooner]
"They will need to have their property checked out by special inspectors to make sure they have double-glazing and enough loft and wall insulation."
Let me guess. These special inspectors will be Domestic Energy Assessors who currently produce the EPCs needed for home sales and rentals. So it's about green jobs and rent-seeking. Depressed housing market means depressed DEA inspectors, or more importantly, reduced profits for DEA trainers, assessors and floggers of software.
As of April 1st, the RDSAP 9.91 will be slightly less reduced meaning DEA people will have to click a few more buttons before the software spits out an EPC. DEA people will have to update their software and resit their exams. Change is good, and profitable. Not necessarily for the DEA person given EPCs go for £25-30 if you shop around, but the DEAs may make up for this with increased volume. Which will mean more work for the trainers and more profits for the administrators.
The scheme could be more lucrative if DEAs partner with local builders who would happily do the required work for the right kickbacks.
What's clear about the volume of laws being pumped out of EU / Westminster is that it has reached a saturation point where there's so many - that practically, enforcement must be patchy at best.
I can't give chapter and verse but I'm absolutely certain that the spread of interpretation across EU member states for a given Brussels diktat is massive - some I'm sure just ignore them.
It is going to reach a point where because of arbitrary interpretation of already irrational and unreasonable rules emanating from overpaid self serving process obsessed idjits folk will simply ignore the "rules" and do what they want / need to do.
It's a bit like the price of parking fees and parking fines converging.
I earnestly hope that Joe Public wakes up - but I'm certainly not holding my breath.
"Can anyone provide me with a link to the relevant government policy/announcement etc. I'd like to read the details of the restrictions etc. "
Of course not. This is all just hot air whipped up by people with a paper to sell or a website to fill.
"The government; on the other hand' will claim that it is creating green jobs."
Yes. Only it'll mean destroying jobs elsewhere in the economy, as it'll simply displace consumption spending which would have been spent elsewhere. So no net job creation.
The consequences of this proposal is probably to put a lot of conservatory manufacturers and assemblers out of business as most people will not be able to afford one with the additional cost burden. This law, if enacted, is simply, insane.
Politicians are the enemy of the people. No other conclusion.
Well this is just the start of the onslaught.
By 2016 a whole raft of "upgrades" to building regulations will introduce lunacy to what should be a sensible way forward for the standards of building in the UK. 40 years of poor standards have left us well adrift of continental levels.
Houses that are designed to use little energy will be judged worse than ones that have expensive, often inefficient (and usually subsidised) ways of generating it. On top of this new rural properties will be banned from the use of LPG and oil forcing them to use ground/air source heat pumps. Experts in the building industry reckon these plans will add £20k plus per property.
Since heat pumps use electricity, and are not as efficient as the salesman's brochure would claim, I wondered where the rationale for this was, but the government is hoping to say that the electricity will be carbon neutral by burning bio-mass, as Matt Ridley has pointed out in his excellent articles. This lunacy is to meet the 20% by 2020 target for renewables!!!!
Another piece of extra taxation has now started with the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), already being charged in three`areas including Shropshire and parts of Notts and London on any building project, including single self-build homes. This was introduced by the government in 2008 to enable councils to recoup costs of extra infrastructure when property is being developed. These costs were often levied against developers by a section 106 agreement - a property company paying the costs of roundabouts or traffic lights to access the development etc. Such costs were never levied against self-builders - but now CIL will be levied on any property built. The next 18 months will see it introduced over much of the country - not sure about Scotland Bish, where some expensive lunacy has been introduced anyway to meet fire regulations.
CIL is adding approx £20k to many self-build projects, which rather goes against the claims of the government in the last year that they would make self-build easier to ease the housing shortage. It was the Tories intention at the GE in 2010 to repeal the levy, but that is not happening - perhaps because we have a Libdem government.
CIL is based on the area of the property (priced per sq m), including any outbuildings or garage and is, unlike secion 106, completely non-negotiable. Even if you cost the council nothing and will just be an extra council tax payer - you will pay.
In defence of CIL - it is thought that the cost will eventually move to the vendors of the land, as the extra cost of building should drive plot prices down, but this just another form of taxation and its effects remain to be seen.
quote
I can't give chapter and verse but I'm absolutely certain that the spread of interpretation across EU member states for a given Brussels diktat is massive - some I'm sure just ignore them.
unquote
I once saw a smoked mackeral ina French market that was the size of a sprat. Sensible, of course, it had been caught, it was dead. However our keen inspectors would have fined anyone involved.
And Germany, of course, is building lignite-fuelled power stations. Presumably they give an airy wave and say 'CS -- we'll fit it later, no problem...', secure in the knowledge that they can stitch up the rules later with the French.
I'm beginning to get rather annoyed about all this.
JF
William morris
- you need to do some research. Have a look at the Code for Sustainable Homes - this is already law.
Huge costs are involved in meeting these codes - and much of it is not necessary. I have been interested in low energy housing for 40 years and it can be done without this stupidity. BUT of course we all know homes in the UK are not expensive enough!!!
Apr 10, 2012 at 8:53 PM | William Morris
well, yes - I take your point - but in truth I think that's not the case - you make it sound like a load of fuss about nothing - which it plainly isn't..
I have witnessed huge differences in the way the European Waste Directive is implemented and also the European Port Safety directive - but I haven't the time or the inclination to pull it all together - I need to do paid work.
It's not the individual diktats - it's the volume of them and the gold plating / arbitrary interpretation applied by the provincial bureauprats looking to embroider and put dangly bits on the process - it is definitely approaching critical mass and the temperature is rising albeit rather slowly due to the mass involved. The bureauprats keep carelessly shoveling combustible material on the pile as long as they're employed it would seem - nothing new there.
William Morris
Try here:
http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/planningandbuilding/pdf/2077834.pdf
Replacement of boilers starts at para 112.
In construction in the private sector the lunatics have already taken over, from affordable housing through bat boxes, Eco roofs, sustainability you name it the green brown shirts are on the case.
A developer today has to get green brownie points known as BREAM.
So instead of engaging four or five consultants on a project he needs to employ three or four more?
Oh for a dark room to lie down in, see I'm so eco friendly :-)
Dreadnought: many thanks for the link.
Mmm, it is a consultation document, so it is not yet law. Why don't people take part in the consultation instead of getting steamed up here?
People are upset just because "energy efficiency" or "CO2 reduction" are in the background, ignoring the reality, which is that many people live in houses that are costly to heat, either because they are unaware that it could be different or they don't know the solutions, or because their landlord doesn't pay the bills and hence doesn't care if the windows leak.
Are people really suggesting that installing a new boiler without insulating the tank is sensible? The improvements suggested (insulation and draughtproofing) are quite cheap and there are generous subsidies; after a short payback time they will save the occupant money and they make the house more comfortable. Maybe they can even be done using a "green deal" in which there are no upfront costs.
retireddave: the Code for Sustainable Homes looks like overcomplicated codswallop. However, I believe responsible builders, interested in making homes that are cheap and comfortable to live in already consider the majority of the items discussed in the Code when planning and building homes. Irresponsible or cowboy builders probably don't, hence the need for compulsion.
tomo: excess regulation is doubtless a bother and a cost. But the principles are surely right whether or not you accept global warming: set standards to improve the quality of the housing stock, because without standards, builders will do as they please (most likely to future owners' disadvantage).
9 April: Wall St Journal: Wendell Cox: California Declares War on Suburbia Planners want to herd millions into densely packed urban corridors. It won't save the planet but will make traffic even worse
It's no secret that California's regulatory and tax climate is driving business investment to other states. California's high cost of living also is driving people away. Since 2000 more than 1.6 million people have fled, and my own research as well as that of others points to high housing prices as the principal factor.
The exodus is likely to accelerate. California has declared war on the most popular housing choice, the single family, detached home—all in the name of saving the planet.
Metropolitan area governments are adopting plans that would require most new housing to be built at 20 or more to the acre, which is at least five times the traditional quarter acre per house...
To understand how dramatic a change this would be, consider that if the planners have their way, 68% of new housing in Southern California by 2035 would be condos and apartment complexes. This contrasts with Census Bureau data showing that single-family, detached homes represented more than 80% of the increase in the region's housing stock between 2000 and 2010.
The campaign against suburbia is the result of laws passed in 2006 (the Global Warming Solutions Act) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and in 2008 (the Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act) on urban planning. The latter law, as the Los Angeles Times aptly characterized it, was intended to "control suburban sprawl, build homes closer to downtown and reduce commuter driving, thus decreasing climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions." In short, to discourage automobile use...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303302504577323353434618474.html?KEYWORDS=WENDELL%2BCOX
Retired Dave
The Community Infrastructure Levy might make sense if the developer/self builder could reclaim the Levy from the council from whence the new incumbents came. Right now it is just a ransom for planning permission.
William Morris@12:40 AM
It would be comforting to believe that municipal officialdom had the people's interests at heart serving the taxpayer - in my experience it generally doesn't work out that way. The emphasis is almost always on interfering - generally using "guidlines" and promoting whatever's fashionable - this energy nonsense just gives them more ammunition.
Yes it's a consultation document but two years ago a now defunct local council in Wiltshire tried to scalp some builders I'm acquainted with for the best part of £300K using compliance with a consultation document in an attempt to ransom planning permission (The ghastly fatso Prescott's rural affordable housing initiative fwiw). When formally challenged by a barrister - they issued the planning without comment.
As ever the case with politics and indeed life - if people perceive essential value in a course of action they generally take it. This kind of behavior modification garbage being pushed by a bunch of folk who'd have difficulty finding their own rear ends with both hands in a darkened room doesn't qualify.
It's bureauprat makework fertilised with green catechism.
As Alan Reed says - it's simply another excuse to ransom planning permission.
Byzantine complexity is the glue that binds the cogs of our society together.
12:40 AM | William Morris
Perhaps you should read previous posts, in particular mine of Apr 10, 2012 at 1:44 PM. If you believe that £150,000 is cheap, you are,along with most other greens, living on a different planet. I suggest you return there, and don't pontificate your generalisations here.
Alan Reed: "I'm looking for the moment when governments decided we would never be gown up enough to make our own decisions."
On December 10, 1868, the first traffic lights were installed outside the British Houses of Parliament in London, so at this point it was clear that buggy drivers were not considered capable of using a junction safely.
It was a gas-powered hand operated unit, and exploded on 2 January 1869, injuring or killing the policeman who was operating it.
C'est la vie.
What worries me frankly is that this has received littler or no attention on the BBC on tis matter, where politics shuts down once the soundbite brigade are on holiday. I am not a conspiracy theorist, however this dangerous paradigm of justifying everything on a false prospectus is very worrying. I blame a succession of youngsters masquerading as climate correspondents when their backgrounds are not relevant. Where has the kudos of respected tele journalism gone?
Steveta
Priceless - thank you.
Sometimes you hear things that you know you will never forget.
William Morris
Too late, comments on consequential improvements were due by 27th March. (See para 15.)
I don't think the general public were invited to comment. Look at the response forms in Annex B. They seem to be designed for Trade Associations.
"Consultation" means "This is what we are going to do." People think it means negociation.
Anyone who has ever tried to get a public body to change their minds knows it is virtually impossible. Their staff see any alteration to their original intention as an admission that they were wrong which is career suicide.
The following is copied from EU Directive 2010/31/EU:
(16) Major renovations of existing buildings, regardless of their size, provide an opportunity to take cost-effective measures to enhance energy performance. For reasons of cost-effectiveness, it should be possible to limit the minimum energy performance requirements to the renovated parts that are most relevant for the energy performance of the building. Member States should be able to choose to define a 'major renovation' either in terms of a percentage of the surface of the building envelope or in terms of the value of the building. If a Member State decides to define a major renovation in terms of the value of the building, values such as the actuarial value, or the current value based on the cost of reconstruction, excluding the value of the land upon which the building is situated, could be used.
It looks like the UK mandarins are gold plating again.
NW
>"Consultation" means "This is what we are going to do."
Absolutely.
Alan Reed - yes I totally agree with that position, but the argument seems to be a bit like CAGW. Yes we know it is costing you more now, but in x years land will cheaper. Even your suggestion just moves the cost around without achieving anything (well having to employ people to administrate it I suppose). A good study of Frederic Bastiat is required!
It is just a tax - nothing more, nothing less - that will add to the already upward pressure on the cost of new housing discussed in other comments. The big developer will probably be OK, he will muscle a lower price for land, or make them smaller (sarc) for the land he has already shelled out for. The self-builder who just wants one plot to live on will pay the full whack or end up with a smaller property than intended.
Ultimately this is about extra taxation. Governments of all colours (including the dirty green at the moment) have floated the idea of taxing the "gain" in house prices, when you sell. As if you could buy another one cheaper - these politicians are just degenerates.
Your government already takes 52% of your earnings in tax - surely it can only increase with so called green taxes, and stealth ones like CIL.
I thought it was only the left that ran out of other peoples' money - but I suppose we don't have anyone on the right at all.
I am amazed by the complacency of some people on this issue - no names, no pack drill - you know who you are.
Seriously - it reminds me of a socialist friend of mine (card carrying) who argues with passion for her leftist view of things. Me, I am a libertarian so I have no time for any of them - politicians that is, although I admire some on the left and right. What amuses me is when she spends an hour complaining about, immigration, the benefits culture and the excesses of H&S. There is never any realisation that nearly all of it is what her party have created. She only ever clocks the MSM sound-bite and never reads the parliamentary act. Then the bureaucrats cream over the top. The Equality Act 2010 is a case in point - the headline seems reasonable, but the devil is always in the detail. It includes such provision that leads to middle class areas having less fire-fighting provided (because statistically they have less fires) - the people who pay for everything, even get less of it - it is built-in to the Act. One can argue that it wasn't intended, but I think it was.
It is the same with this topic - some seem to think it is all so reasonable and will be applied with reason. I can tell you, it will not. Consultation is over and the petty bureaucrats have been enabled. Much stupidity will reach your door over the coming 4 years, all based on CO2, not on the very sensible aim of improving our houses, energy-wise.
As I said in an earlier comment, I have been interested in low-energy housing for 40 years, and improved housing stock should have been started at the beginning. It is a noble aim now, but very little of the proposed diktats are sensible, affordable or achievable.