HOUSING
HOW CAN SOCIAL HOUSING PROVIDERS USE MAINTENANCE AND UPGRADE PROGRAMMES TO TACKLE FUEL POVERTY? James Brett, Managing Director of construction and property maintenance company Edgeley Construction, discusses the importance of EPC upgrades in tackling fuel poverty for social housing tenants.
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t’s been a busy few months for news. While international headlines have been full of the horrors of the war in Ukraine, closer to home, the impact of the cost of living crisis has been equally distressing for many. Rising energy prices, escalating food bills and the cost of fuel are at the eye of a perfect storm, with increased National Insurance and VAT rates and an end to the Universal Credit uplift putting pressure on household budgets from all sides. The social housing sector is at the frontline of this crisis. Many social housing tenants are on low incomes and may have already been living with fuel poverty before the current jump in prices. Now, with increasing numbers of tenants facing the difficult choice between heating and eating, urgent and drastic action is needed to help reduce the impact of galloping costs. Against this backdrop, social housing providers are also under pressure to consider costs of another kind: the price
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paid by the environment when housing is energy inefficient. The Government has set ambitious targets for the UK to become net-zero carbon by 2050 – an ambition that is achievable only if substantial improvements are made to both social and private housing stock. Carbon emissions from residential properties account for around 20% of the UK’s emissions total, and reducing the environmental impact of homes requires a combination of measures, including investment in renewables and driving down consumption.
The EPC upgrade initiative The Government’s EPC (energy performance certificate) upgrade programme for the social housing sector has the potential to make a significant difference to both the financial and environmental costs of poorly-insulated housing stock. The initiative has seen a pledge for £179m of funding to improve the energy efficiency of 20,000 social
housing homes, providing resilience against additional anticipated energy price rises in the autumn, while updating housing stock to extend its service life and contribute to the battle against climate change. Many of the properties involved in the EPC upgrades programme are homes constructed with solid walls, which makes them unsuitable for external or cavity wall insulation improvements. Where this is the case, internal wall insulation (IWI) is an excellent alternative that will help to keep homes warmer so that less energy is required to keep tenants comfortable, helping them to turn down their thermostats or switch off their heating, which, in turn, will enable them to save energy and reduce their bills or top up their prepayment meters less often. Meanwhile, upgrades to heating systems are also key to reducing consumption. Where possible, renewable energy technologies, such as solar panels or air source heat pumps, can be installed to reduce tenants’ reliance
