Unworkable green policies don’t hasten Net Zero, they impede it
Gas boilers will remain until there are viable alternatives for older homes. Right now there aren’t.
As forecast in these columns, the Scottish government has this week abandoned is plans to force one million home owners to replace gas boilers with heat pumps by 2030. This was the centrepiece of the SNP government’s plan to decarbonise Scotland’s housing stock at a cost (in 2021 prices) of £33billon - 90% of which was to come from home owners. Unsurprisingly, this was not well received by home owners. It has now gone the way of other unworkable virtue-signalling policies like the Deposit Return Scheme and Highly Protected Marine Areas. And needless to say, Westminster is to blame. There is now no early target for boiler replacement and no legal coercion except for landlords. They may be fined if they fail to uprate the energy efficiency of their properties to EPC C by 2028. The cost - £10,000 to £15,000 - will of course be passed on to tenants in rent increases.
So far so predictable. It was always a ludicrous policy, no doubt scribbled on the back of an envelope in that wine bar in which the Scottish Greens are alleged to convene. Yet anyone who criticised the heat in buildings strategy was liable to be attacked as some kind of climate change denier. But I have been writing about the dangers of anthropogenic climate change for over 30 years since before the Rio Summit and I make no apologies for criticising unworkable policies on home heating and transport. These do not hasten the transition to renewable energy, they halt it in its tracks.
Threatening to fine people for not installing heat pumps, when leading suppliers of the technology were saying they aren’t suitable for Scotland was reckless. Mandating extravagantly costly insulation in Scotland’s elderly housing stock only discredits the entire decarbonisation project.
Yet Humza Yousaf doubled down on his coercive heat in buildings strategy in September after the prime minister Rishi Sunak, shelved the 2030 ban on petrol and diesel cars. The First Minister said then that he was fully committed to the boiler replacement target which has now been axed. And be absolutely clear it has been.
On Good Morning Scotland the decarbonisation minister, Patrick Harvie, could give no timetable for boiler replacement other than the 2045 net zero target which is so far ahead as to be meaningless. Nor could he give any update on the global cost of the policy after conceding that £33bn was outdated because of inflation and interest rates. He can say that again. The figure was always fantasy since no one can say how much it costs to decarbonise a home, especially an old one. The government is still apparently offering grants for boiler replacement but take up has been predictably slow.
Mr Harvie could not give a figure or timetable either for the insulation of Scotland’s housing stock to the previously mandatory EPC C standard. Plus ca change. The problems with these policies is that they are based on optimistic and often bogus claims about non-fossil fuel heating systems. Nor do they take account of the actual state of the housing stock.
Readers may recall my troubles trying to get our Edwardian tenement flat insulated to Scottish government efficiency standard. The government-authorised insulation inspector who hands out these certificates advised us that we would need to spend £14,000 on “interior and exterior cladding”. This on a third floor flat with high ceilings cornicing and other unique architectural features. No way Jose.
We have since moved house. Our new place includes an open plan loft with sloping eaves and no valuable architectural features to worry about. This should surely be a doddle to insulate we thought. Can you guess what happened next? Builders sucked their teeth and wouldn’t even estimate the cost of removing huge volumes of 100 year old lath and plaster. It seems you can’t just pin insulation to old walls, as I naively thought. They have to be broken down and removed, after erecting scaffolding to allow the rubbish to be funnelled to street level. The rest of the house would be uninhabitable for weeks, maybe months. It would be impossibly dirty and expensive. This was a non starter.
Undaunted, we got some specialist renewable energy engineers round to have a look. They agreed that the demolition of the walls would be prohibitively expensive and environmentally damaging because of the large amounts of rubble and filth going to landfill. “Why not fit infra red panels instead?”one of them suggested. I had not heard of these things before and was intrigued. We were anyway looking to find an alternative to the gas central heating in our new place. Heat pumps needless to say are not possible because there is nowhere to put them on a Victorian flat high above the ground.
But did he mean those ugly red heaters you see outside pubs where people are allowed to smoke? No he insisted. They are large white panels that look like very flat radiators and you put them on the ceiling. They are supposed to heat, not the air in the room as with conventional heaters, but the surfaces below and are highly efficient. “It’s like the heat from the sun” he continued, lyrically. Churches apparently use them to beat pews from above when it would be uneconomic to hear the entire space. God no doubt approves. The panels are made by an American firm Herschel. You can read all about them here.
This seemed like a no brainer - and indeed it was brainless to have listened to all this. I am normally pretty sceptical of greenwashing. But they were an accredited firm of eco engineers and it all sounded very sensible. Who needs expensive old gas central heating, I thought, when you can use these sleek panels to heat just the spaces you are actually using at any one time. There was only one catch. They give out virtually no heat.
Even if you have them on 24 hours a day they can’t compete with our winter weather in an old house with high ceilings- as the very same eco engineer advised us after we had spent almost as much as a new gas boiler fitting them. Buyer beware and all that. But what can you do? Is there nothing that actually works? Is green tech just a con?
Well, I have heard similar tales from people who have installed heat pumps at much greater cost than our dicky panels. They only seem work in modern, well insulated houses, which don’t need much heating in the first place, not in tenements or old buildings. Heat pump sellers admit that they generate much less heat than gas and have to be on 24 hours a day.
This is where we are with the decarbonisation of our housing stock. The message, I am afraid, to anyone in one of Scotlands one million tenement flats, or anyone in an old building tempted to apply for a government grant is: just don’t. Stick to gas as long as possible unless you’re happy to pay a lot of money to live in a cold home.
If the Scottish Govt really wanted to decarbonise Scottish housing stock, they would be raising the standard of newbuilds. That would mean refusing planning permission to developments with internal kitchens and bathrooms, provide drying greens, and solar panels on the roof of all newbuilds. Edinburgh has been undergoing a building boom for the past two decades, but standards are actually lower.
My previous flat was built in the 1930s and had a drying green, windows on each floor of the stairwell (the stair lights came on at lighting up time) and the toilet was on an exterior wall with a window. My current 21st century flat is admittedly warmer, with a lower ceiling (which I don't like - my son is 6'4"!), but the bathroom and shower room are both internal and require electric pumps to flush, which are electric and noisy (not to mention the mould!) there is no drying green - of course, and the internal stairs and corridors require lighting to be on 24 hours per day, every day.
While I was looking to move here 15 years ago, I even saw new-build flats with internal kitchens. There should be a clear progress in eco standards, not developers clawing back to the lowest they can get away with.
Local authorities should be empowered to do whatever best suits their area, not forced to do what central govt says, however idiotic (and of course I'm looking at the Greens here).
I also think there is a lot of post-war housing that could be upgraded, which would help decarbonise and also help people with their bills. This would be a more meaningful "just transition" than handing contracts to Chinese or Scandinavian manufacturers, with no benefit to workers in Scotland.
I realise that wouldn't solve the specific problems of people in older properties like yours, Iain, but surely there would be lessons being learned at each stage which could be applied to properties that currently seem beyond help? And it would finally be a "Green" policy that actually benefits the general population, instead of costing or threatening us?
I insulated the roof of my one and a half storey detached 100 year old sandstone home, one bedroom at a time.The lathe and plaster was a nightmare.So much dust.Once removed, then it was clean clean and clean again.Next it was fitting the insulation.You will only do this once so use the best you can afford, Kingspan or similar.I spent eight days fitting it inbetween the rafters and 2 inches over.Then plasterboard ,electrics etc. Watch out for heat escaping through the eaves and of course you must ventilate appropiately.For me this was a labour of love since it is my forever home.Get a good builder and expect tens of thou bill.I,m glad I did it fo the sheer comfort.