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UK government scraps plan to ban sale of gas boilers by 2035 | Green building
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2025
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UK Politics
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I'd rather have a ten year target and fail to hit it, than have no target.
There are much better 10 year targets to have. Too many 10 year targets dilutes them all and soon people don't pay attention and so you fail them all.
As such I agree - everything I know about the UK (I'm an American who has never been there so not much!) says their insulation levels are world leading pathetic. Fixing insulation would make a much larger difference than just about anything they could do as such I would (again as an outsider who doesn't know UKs problems) place insulation as what should be a top priority because of how much larger the impact it would have. A 60% boiler (something 50 years old) in a well insulated house would use similar energy to a heat pump in an uninsulated house (there are so many variables in that statement that you cannot actually find any comparison to verify it)
The issue we have is that we have a large supply of housing stock built 80-120 years ago that cannot be efficiently insulated without it costing an obscene amount of money. A lot of these older houses also have no wall cavity, meaning wall insulation can't be done (without adding thick panels to the inside of every room, making each room smaller).
It's a tough situation, so I don't envy the government. Much like our roads, we are massively impeded by the fact that we're an old country and we tend to not want to knock things down and build from scratch.
Not knocking things down and rebuilding is often a problem. People get too caught up in things they can see would be lost (those old buildings which often were beautiful) but fail to see what they are missing: a well insulated building that meets/fits modern needs.
Of course it is expensive to rebuild from scratch so you wouldn't do it too often, but don't be afraid to do it either - it should be a great long term investment (paid off in lower HVAC bills, and layouts that are more modern)