Whilst driving to a conference a few weeks back, I caught the beginning of an episode of Costing the Earth on Radio 4. The subject: self-heating homes.
It was definitely worth the wait in inspiration terms - and I recommend a listen here. I have long dreamed of building my own house, and with rising heating bills, the prospect of a house that requires minimal energy input is very tempting.
For me, the most shocking statistic in the programme was that 27% of our carbon emissions in the UK come from heating our homes. This is the result of poorly insulated housing - and you only have to look at 1960s prefab homes to understand why. Much of UK housing is cheap and cheerful - we tend to see our homes more as investments, as a step on the property ladder, so we tend to settle for the housing that is made for us, rather than investing the effort and hours to really make them our own.
The problem here is that building developers have absolutely no long-term interest in the houses they produce; as long as they look nice and sell well it's a job well done. Never mind the long-term heating costs (or future flood risk for that matter). When you design and build a house yourself you are more likely to invest in its insulation as it is you that will reap the rewards in the long run.
The dream is 'passive housing': the house that heats itself, requiring no (or minimal) input. Surprise, surprise, it's the Germans who are developing it. Some stereotypes exist for a reason (sometimes I seriously wonder if I should emigrate). The question remains: how to incorporate these ideas into existing UK housing. I for one will be keeping an ear to the ground.
