How’s this for an unexpected Christmas present: lower heating bills for life?

Exterior solid wall insulation will lower residents' heating bills

That’s what residents of Rawnsley House in Bristol are getting. The entire block of flats is being clad with heat-saving solid wall insulation – and it’s arriving just in time for the coldest months of the year. Our EPC show how valuable this Christmas wrapping could be.

The giver is none other than their landlord, Bristol City Council (how many of us are expecting Christmas gifts from our landlords?) And unlike some energy efficiency measures, this one’s very visible: you can really see what you’re getting (see photo below)…

Christmas wrapping for council tenants

OK, so it’s probably not just a splurge of seasonal generosity. Rawnsley House is the latest of many council properties in Bristol to receive an energy efficiency upgrade. It probably doesn’t have a lot to do with making it easier on residents’ wallets. It doesn’t even have much to do with reducing CO₂ emissions.

It’s mostly because the Council needs to get 100% of its homes meeting the Decent Homes Standard by 2010. One of the four components of that standard is thermal comfort, meaning that properties need their insulation brought up to scratch.

So far, they’ve made good progress towards this goal. In April 2004, 59.8% of Bristol council homes met the Decent Homes standard; in April 2009, this was up to 93%.In the thermal comfort category, they’ve achieved this by first going for the easiest and most obvious improvements: loft insulation and cavity wall insulation across thousands of small homes (the low-hanging fruit, you might say).

Now it’s time to tackle the remaining 7%, including big projects such as the high-rise housing blocks (the high hanging fruit?)

These required a different solution. Blocks of flats like this already tend to be more efficient than small homes. Heat loss through floors and ceilings – two of the areas we examine for an EPC – can be discounted in all but the top and bottom flats. These blocks have one main weakness: solid exterior walls, which are no good unless insulated.  A solid-wall building takes a bit more work to insulate than cavity walls: you can do it internally, or in this case, get outside and clad it…

The 100mm thick insulating panels are applied directly to the flat's exterior walls

There are four main reasons why I’m writing about this.  Believe it or not, it isn’t just because of a tenuous link to Christmas…

1.Solid wall insulation works

Not just because it’s visually rewarding to watch the cladding go up – there’s more to this than pretty pictures!

Rawnsley House provides a great “before and after” example of the efficiency improvements brought about by exterior cladding. Bristol City Council works with Horizon exclusively to carry out its EPCs, so we have some actual figures to go on, based on our assessments of the premises:

Before: solid walls, no cladding

The building would and could only rate "D" before the insulation was added

At this point, the estimated heating costs are £378 a year, and the estimated  carbon dioxide emissions 3.8 tonnes per year. Now compare that to an EPC carried out on one of the flats after cladding was completed…

After: solid walls with exterior insulating panels

This raises the potential score to a "C"

Solid wall insulation has changed the game significantly: the estimated heating costs have plummeted to £220 a year, and the estimated carbon dioxide emissions to 2.6 tonnes per year.

Multiply these figures out by the 99 flats in this particular block and you can see how significant an effect this measure will have:

• CO₂ emissions for this building will be reduced by 119 tonnes year on year
• The reduction in heating costs benefits each resident personally – see point 4 below.

The installation is cost effective too. The payoff with solid wall insulation is usually within 8 years, which is quicker than installing an A-rated boiler and a lot quicker than converting to double glazing.

2. Retrofitting is an urgent necessity

The government has committed us to a rapid improvement in the energy efficiency of new build homes. However, in terms of meeting our CO₂ emissions targets, improving our existing buildings is going to be far more important.

We’re only going to achieve this if we take retrofitting seriously. According to the DTI, by 2050 two thirds of the total emissions from household energy will be derived from houses already standing. Amidst all the focus on new building standards, our existing housing stock is like the elephant in the room (for more on this, read Martin Hunt’s special report “The Future Is Retro-Fit”).

Like the council, we need to prioritise the easy, big wins such as fitting insulation where none (or inadequate measures) exist.

3. It’s the public sector showing the way

I recommend this sort of improvement in EPCs, but homeowners in the private sector rarely carry them out.

Councils have a statutory requirement to act, but private households and landlords are going to need some kind of incentive. Fortunately, Rawnsley House gives us a great example here of the benefits of acting on your EPC recommendations. Perhaps it won’t be long before the Government introduces measures to encourage the private sector to catch up.

4. Cash back!

Never mind the CO₂ for a minute, check out the cash benefits for the residents. Although it wasn’t Bristol City Council’s main aim, a nice side benefit for the residents is that it will also save them a chunk of their annual electricity spend.  This is where the Christmas present bit comes in.

In the illustration above, each resident is set to save £158 a year, or just over £13 a month, on their electricity bill. It’s the most straightforward reason why people should act on their EPC recommendations: it saves them money, now and in years to come.

So… does this count as a Christmas present?

Yes, of sorts: the residents haven’t had to invest in the insulation themselves, and they’ll be delighted to see those savings materialise in 2010.  They’ll be wishing the council a Happy New Year!

But there are other reasons why this fits with the season of goodwill. Retrofitting insulation is a smart move for CO₂, and one that needs some publicity. The very visibility of Rawnsley House’s Christmas wrapping should spur on other building owners to retrofit their buildings.  And if it isn’t too cheesy to say so, won’t that be a Christmas present to us all?

(Have a good one yourselves!)