SELFBUILDER SURVEY: BUILDING A LOW CARBON HOME


SELFBUILDER SURVEY NOVEMBER 2023


COMMITTING TO A LOW CARBON JOURNEY


What were your key reasons for choosing to build your home to high energy efficiency levels? EXECUTIVE SUMMARY


Why low carbon matters more than ever Far from only being the concern of a small but determined band of eco-zealots, as it was in previous decades, the fate of the planet is now front and centre of discussion at every level of industry and public life in the UK. Nowhere is the debate more ferocious than amongst


self-builders, almost two thirds (64%) of whom, according to our second Selfbuilder Survey of our magazine readers, want their new home to reduce their carbon footprint and avoid contributing further to climate change. But this might be in the face of a new prevailing wind from London. In the autumn of 2023, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a series of about-turns related to the Government’s previous commitment to achieving net zero emissions by 2050. Although he increased (by 50%) the grants available to UK homeowners seeking to install renewable energy heat pumps to


,500, he also significantly backpedalled on the move away from gas boilers.


Plans to ban the installation of new oil or LPG boilers or coal


heating for off-grid homes will now be delayed by nine years, from 2026 to 2035. unak has also eempted around a fifth of all householders from upgrading to non-fossil-fuel boilers from 2035 – if they will ‘struggle’ to switch. At the same time, his Government remains committed to


introducing the much-anticipated Future Homes Standard in 2025, which will require self-builders to cut carbon emissions on their projects (on previous Building Regs) by 75-80%, through use of sustainable design and materials, installation of renewables, and adhering to a raft of complex legal criteria relating to airtightness, ventilation and thermal performance. Our readers, and the wider self-building community, including architects, sustainability consultants and build/design professionals,


nov/dec 2023


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