COMMENT


Household heating goes through the roof


Fiona Russell-Horne Editor - BMJ


T


Blow, blow, thou winter


“


wind, Thou art not so unkind As man’s


ingratitude; ” INFO PANELINFO PA PA


Builders Merchants Journal Datateam Business Media London Road Maidstone


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he end of February saw the usual chaos in the south-east when the ‘Beast from the East’ blew in from Siberia and dumped its sub-zero temperatures on the eastern half of


the country, before moving west and running into Storm Emma from the Atlantic.


When we get weather like this, it’s always an interesting exercise to venture out and look upwards at other people’s rooflines.


Of the nine houses in our cul-de-sac on the first day of heavy snow, two had their roofs completely clear by lunchtime, two were still covered and five were varying stages inbetween. To be honest, there’s so much loft insulation in mine that the house will resemble one of those snow-capped Alpine peaks for a few months yet.


If you look around at many of our residential areas you can see that there are still way too many houses that are insufficiently insulated. Indeed, a report by energy think tank e3g published last month says public investment in warm homes in England has been cut by 58% since 2012.


Remember when David Cameron said he wanted to cut out the “green crap” that was adding what the Tories felt was unnecessary weight to people’s energy bills? Turns out that was a mistake. Who knew?


According to the report, Scotland now spends four times as much per citizen as England on energy efficiency, and it is urging government to make warm homes a national infrastructure priority. The government apparantly didn’t disagree with the figures, but said that spending on homes was now “better targeted at poor households”.


Ok, fine and very laudable, if your main priority is to make it easier for people to afford their heating


bills. But what if you had another priority? How about making actual saving of energy a priority too? Better insulated houses use less energy than poorly insulated ones. And poorer households aren’t the only ones to use gas and electricity to heat and light their homes.


All cutting the “green crap” did was give


households a saving on their bills, which was eaten up by price increases in due course anyway, and cut the energy efficiency programme back to the bone. As I write this, the Siberian winds are whistling through all these poorly insulated homes, while the National Grid is announcing that it may not have sufficient gas to get it through the day, with worse weather to follow.


Saving households money on their energy bills is a good thing. But so is ensuring that the energy that is being used by everyone isn’t being wasted. Our dependence on fossil fuels really isn’t sustainable. We need to do more about those worryingly clear roofs. All of them.


In other news, the eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed we have spruced ourselves up a bit, here at BMJ. Sometimes, we all feel in need of a make-over and a re-think about the look we present to the world. Low and behold, BMJ presents you with our new look: cleaner, neater and easier to read. It’s the same quality, management-focussed editorial that you’ve come to expect from us during our not-quite-but-nearly 100 year history, but in a new size and an upgraded appearance.


We worked hard to come up with a look that we think best reflects the news and features we bring to the market and what you hold in your hot little hands now is the result of much teeth-gnashing, angst, hard work and the odd sleepless night. Hope you like it.


March 2018 www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net


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