Apparently, home-buyers aren’t that keen on carbon neutral homes…
UK home-owners are not prepared to make the changes needed to live in “zero carbon” homes, according to a report.
People felt the eco-friendly buildings would require extra maintenance and that they would have to cut back on certain appliances, it added.
Sounds fair enough to me.
Despite widespread media coverage of climate change, the study found that energy efficiency was not a major factor when it came to choosing a new home.
Quite. In the grand scheme of things, it takes decades to recover the capital cost of expenditure. So, replace your windows if they need replacing, for example, but not because you expect to save loads of money on your fuel bills – if you do, you will be in for a disappointment. Still, I digress:
“What has happened since the Stern Review is that there has been a general understanding of global warming and carbon emissions,” he told BBC News.
“But the debate about house building has largely been between government, regulators and the construction industry; in short, the supply side.”
“The demand side – home-buyers and home-owners – actually haven’t been involved in this process.”
“Unless people actually understand and engage in this, they are not going to be willing to buy these homes and change their lifestyles.”
Given that man made global warming is nothing more than invented wank, neither would I…
and since when has what we want ever been of interest. They will just legislate to force the builders to put what they want into the houses and we will just have to conform.
True enough – I will simply buy older properties to avoid getting trapped by this stuff. I’m becoming increasingly intolerant of this carbon neutral crap – I am repeatedly telephoned by some company offering me a government grant to fill the cavity wall in my home with gunk that is supposed to insulate it. This, despite my repeatedly telling them that I don’t have cavities in my walls – and, If I did, I would not fill them up with gunge. Cavities are there for a purpose; to allow the building to breathe, using air as a natural insulator. Filling them up is a sure-fire way to get condensation.