Range on the home

I'm still smarting having been blanked by Mr. McC (or his people) on another issue, but this seems worth sharing:

Make existing homes greener, says McCloud

Of course it ties in with my reuse/pair notions anyway, but also sets up the obsession some have with making new things to solve PMWNCC. Which usually translates as making money or giving it away with a dodgy enviROI sticker on it.

And let's be sensible. I live in a 400/300/200/100/50/5 year old property. Only that last 5 is in any way shape or form designed and built to high green standards.

Hence I, and I suspect others, need all the help we can get to do our best to make the most of what we have got. Not snappy new initiatives all the time.

Home out of the price range?

Greener homes are a no go

'..just anti-being forced into spending up to £40,000 to meet the 2016 standards and not getting a penny back for the effort.'

One presumes that there might be some if the money has added value in terms of operating costs, surely?

Maybe no one is yet very good at explaining what you pay now pays back over the years.

Hardly a flying start!

Back in December 2006, Ol' Golden, then our chancellor, trumpeted a major tax relief policy that would see all new homes deemed to be zero carbon (in terms of emissions) free of stamp duty. Despite the apparently vague definition of what zero carbon meant exactly, this created quite a bit of excitement at the time, and many pundits were forecasting that the savings involved for buyers would entirely offset the additional construction costs.

OK, so a year and a bit on, just how many thousands of new homes have been constructed to qualify for this major tax relief?

Go on, have a guess. Any idea? No? Well, the answer is six. No, not six thousand, but the single digit only - i.e. six new homes have qualified for stamp duty exemption. Report is from This Is London.

"Clearly this does fall into the camp of green-tax con. The Government is not putting forward serious policies to tackle climate change and this is a classic example. ........ It is all talk and no action. If the Government were serious about benefiting the environment, they would offer everyone a rebate if their houses were properly insulated."

Quite! Despite the government spokesman's claim that numbers will rapidly rise this year, for once I agree with the Green Party's economic spokesman wholeheartedly.