The Government must help poorer home owners fix their ‘leaky walls’ if it is to be successful in insulating the country’s housing stock, think tank says.
A new report from the Resolution Foundation argues that decarbonising homes is one of the hardest aspects of the net zero transition and calls for ‘tougher, more radical solutions’ to decarbonisation.
The report, entitled Hitting a brick wall, says that the main home insulation challenge facing Britain is addressing the poor quality of walls – a by-product of over a third of its housing stock being built pre-1946.
The think tank’s analysis shows that four-in-10 homes in England – nine million homes in total – have walls rated as poor or very poor, compared with two-in-10 homes with inefficient roofs, and one-in-10 homes with poorly-graded windows.
Funded by the Nuffield Foundation, the issue is most acute in large cities, with close to two-thirds (64%) of all homes in London having poor quality walls.
The cost of heating a home with poor quality walls is likely to be around £350 higher between January and April next year than one with wall upgrades.
The ‘leaky wall’ problem is difficult to remedy because the financial incentive to tackle it is very weak for home-owners, according to the Resolution Foundation. The cost of wall insulation averages £8,000, and it can take 18 years to recoup upfront costs.
The think tank’s report calls for a radical new ‘carrot and stick’ approach to solving the ‘leaky wall’ problem – combining targeted financial help for home improvements with a ban on poorly insulated homes by 2035.
Jonny Marshall, senior economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: ‘England’s homes have as large a carbon footprint as our petrol and diesel powered cars. The key policy task for the 2020s is finding a way of decarbonising millions of homes without leaving poorer households behind or burdening them with unaffordable costs.
‘Previous approaches such as cheap loans have failed to deliver improvements at scale, and the biggest barrier to energy efficient homes has been largely ignored: our leaky walls. The sheer cost of insulating Britain’s walls means that the state cannot be expected to foot the bill entirely.
‘Instead, a new carrot and stick approach is needed to ensure that England’s nine million leaky homes are upgraded. Mandating that all homes must be energy efficient by 2035 can spur home-owners and landlords into action, while a new means test could help around half of households with at least some of the costs of the upgrades, crucially covering all of the costs for those with the lowest means.’
