Energy / home insulation, hard to insulate homes

[brunogirin]

A good start on home insulation in the energy section. However, ~30% of the UK housing stock are solid wall properties (typically built before 1940 ish) and are hard and costly to insulate (see https://www.nia-uk.org/consumer/understanding-insulation/solid-wall-insulation/). Specific funding should be earmarked for such properties with criteria on how landlords can apply for grants when insulation those.

It would also be good to involve organisations such as the Leeds Sustainability Institute who have done extensive research on home insulation: http://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/as/cebe/projects/fabric_l1/index.htm

In terms of regulations, the simplest would be to extend current legislation that makes it hard to rent properties that are badly insulated: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/feb/05/landlords-draughty-homes-ban; of course this can only work if it's enforced and if there is proper regulation of the housing market.

[brunogirin]

In terms of manifesto impact, this could be worded in two sub-sections:

• Easy to insulate homes: legislate to tell landlords "get on with it"
• Hard to insulate homes:
  • research program to come up with best practices;
  • accreditation program to ensure companies do it properly;
  • grant programme to provide landlords with the financial help needed to do it;
  • legislation to get it done, with longer deadline.

Then there is the problem of commercial buildings that often combine bad insulation with a raft of other problems that need to be addressed (antiquated building management systems, inefficient lifts, etc) and that's probably worth its own special section.

[Floppy]

I've tagged this with "idea" so it shows up in the list of things that need turning into a proposal. Thanks @brunogirin :)