"Mike Tullett" wrote
Go on tell me how much. I am sitting down with a large scotch handy...
Will need to order this winters 2000l later this week or early next
and I'm not looking foward to it.

Just received 1300 litres at £368 and back in 1999 the same amount was
only
£186. Mind you it was paticularly cheap then.

Good morning, Mike.



I hope you are well.



In noticing your e-mail to the ng a few minutes ago, I got to thinking
about my heating provision. I bought an unmodernised late-1960s house 2
years ago which had the original oil-fed, ducted air heating (it was all
the rage in 1967, I recall).



As part of the plan, I ripped that out and installed a gas-fired,
condensing, combination boiler which is listed as having a 91% efficiency
rating (fuel conversion into useable heat). Together with 250 mm
insulation in the loft (it hadn't got any in at all, before), cavity wall
insulation and the new "K" glass double glazing, I find that my winter
quarter gas bill is around £100. This is in fact more than my electricity
bill - and we cook with gas.



(I'm now wondering if my gas meter is faulty!)



I do appreciate that many homes still don't have mains gas but, from a
purely subjective point-of-view, I didn't quite believe the difference
those insulation measures I described above would have made to the feel of
the house. It was instantly turned from a rather damp and chilly place,
even in summer, and visitors don't believe that it's the same place,
sometimes. We'd had a more modern, well-insulated, house before we moved
here, with a thermalite inner leaf, plenty of loft insulation and dry
lining as standard, and we'd got used to just "blipping" the heating on
for a few minutes when we wanted a quick boost to the temperature but I'd
never thought that we could transform an older house in the way that we
did.



The Government is currently fiddling around with the issue of "thermal
comfort" in homes as part of its "Decent Homes Strategy" and I still can't
believe that they aren't pushing much harder for more insulation. It's
quick, clean, uncomplicated and relatively cheap and it certainly made all
the difference to my home. I appreciate that some homes (with solid
walls, for example) can't benefit from some of the measures I've mentioned
but I think that encouraging more insulation would be very cost-effective
and could result in a major reduction in our energy consumption, overall.
A reduction in/removal of VAT on insulation would be one big step, but
they could usefully expand the currently meagre grants system they have at
the moment. Grant schemes were fairly widespread in the early 80s, but I
would have thought there was a much more pressing need for them now.





- Tom.