NextgenHeating

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

The Survey is now closed ...

Many thanks to the 150 people who filled in my survey.  I promised to publish the results, which I will do in another blog in the near future.  For now, here are some of the comments:

On Q10 : House Construction:
  • I have just had insulation board added to the inside of the walls which are at the gable end.
  • Cavity wall and loft insulation installed to current regulations in last 8 months.
  • Recently insulated
  • Recently renovated up to modern insolation standards (but still an old house)
  • Three storey converted terraced building
  • Rental property
  • Not completely sure don t have construction knowledge!
  • We rent our house so we are not likely to make any major changes to it eg. solar panels different heating.
  • The house is less than 1 year old and was designed very efficient as far as heating hot water and water consumption concerned. Examples: water heating tubes on the roof day/night eletricity meters and use rain water for toilet flushing.
  • Much lath and plaster. Some inaccessible roof spaces.
  • cavity wall just done
  • We rent. If we owned our home there is a lot we would do differently (adding insulation solar panals etc.)
  • Breeze block construction with brick facing very small cavity between brick and internal.
  • Three storey terraced house
  • During renovation close attention was paid to improving this aspect of the house
  • Added cavity wall insulation.
  • in is vintage 18 century
  • Some extra insulation has been added.
  • I am not the owner of the place I am currently living in.
  • You forgot to ask whether the respondent lives in an apartment in a larger house... and then let them skip the irrelevant questions :)
  • Energy Level as defined by Belgian goverment: E44 To be more correct on heating system; it s an air-to-water heat pump.
  • insulation as per 1979 standards = not great but OK
  • Originally solid wall construction but a considerable part of the walls is now insulated double glass and a new roof.
  • Mixed: cavity and solid
  • Cavity wall insulation installed about 2 years ago. Loft re-insulated this year.
On Q11:Other Greentech:
  • would love to but not feasible as an individual flat
  • conduits built into walls from roof ready for solar panel installation
  • specialised glass to reflect heat as part of double glazing
  • Specific building construction. Hot water comes from 1. solar panel 2. air heat pump (which is alo used for heating) 3. electricity
rain water for toilets & washing machine
On Q13: Why people would not be interested to lower their C02 by 50%
  • Unless US & China come to forefront then whatever the rest of the world does is pointless - if these guys join in then hopefully we ll see cost effective solutions.
  • [yes] Although the future saving on energy bills would be the most attractive lure for me.
  • not yet convinced these carbon footprinting philosophies are truely helping and not just a marketing gimmick.
  • depends on initial outlay. Q13 makes no sense to me.
  • Because we rent our house and we don t expect to be in it for many years. If we had our own home we would be interested in this.
  • I said yes because I believe anything vs today is a gain. Without financial details (what will it cost to me) and understanding what would be the consequences if I do not go lower than 50% I cannot give a better answer.
  • We won t stay long enough in the house for it to be worth it
  • This does not represent my entire carbon footprint it would be easier to make savings elsewhere e.g. less air travel
  • As a senior citizen I do not have the capital to undertake the work required
  • I would say yes but we rent our house so would not invest!
  • Other (budgetary) priorities right now!
  • don t believe it makes a difference
  • it is the energy (read $) that needs to be reduced. whether or not carbon footprint is reduced is less important (or seems)
  • Depends on the payback period should be < 10yrs I am not convinced carbon footprint is related to global warming. not interested in % rather in payback period. Population is the main cause of global warming. Anything other than reducing the number of people is palliative at best and diverting form the real problem Not enough detail to form an opinion Cost vs. proven savings.
On Q17: Comments about Financial Section
  • free money helps! Not prepared to take out a loan.
  • Prefer to finance alone and make independent decisions about company I would choose to carry out installation. Government/approved installers often charge well above the reasonable rate and do not necessarily do a better job. Would also prefer to see such help restricted to those who most need it
  • Would not need loan - but would want to reduce the cost / payback period - so loans not of interest.
  • Payback is the real issue. If the goverment would match half of the cost the technology would be widely deployed
  • Not clear why the energy supplier would want to subsidize a technology that reduces dependency on them... this is absolute B.S.
  • goverment tax breaks are only relevant for people paing a lot of goverment taxes
  • Payback period
  • Government subsidies and tax breaks are usually tied to it being done by qualified suppliers which seems to drive up the cost. I don t like borrowing money. I suspect that my *heating* costs (i.e. cost of gas minus hot water costs) are not that high so I would imagine that anything with a sub-three year pay-back would be quite cheap anyway. If it was going to take (say) twenty years to pay back then I d have to be totally convinced that (a) it would actually still work in twenty years time and (b) I couldn t do better just putting the money into an ISA.
Last but not least, Final Comments:
  • Perhaps people aren t filling in the survey cos they don t know if you are genuine? I don t think I am really your average person when it comes to this sort of thing. I would spend up to about £4000 and not want payback and spending more than that I wouldn t really be calculating payback but how much the price of my house would go up as I don t know if I ll live in this one all my life. Good luck with your venture.
  • Sorry Didn t understand question 14
  • Our house is rented so we may not have much say in the final decision to install a new heating system in our property but have answered the questions as based on if we owned our property and therefore had full control over the upkeep and contents.
As you can see one of the recurring comments is what to do about rental properties.  Any bright ideas would be gratefully received!

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