While it's drifting somewhat off-topic now ...
We live in an ex council house of 1940s vintage. Well built, good sized rooms, decent garden - i.e. the opposite of modern rabbit hutches in all but thermal design. It's been upgraded with cavity insulation, uPVC framed double glazing, loft insulation, central heating - basically all the standard things to do.
As we've been going round the rooms changing the decor to something acceptable, I've also been fixing some fundamental issues with the heating.
The original house had small radiators, which didn't even keep the place warm with a (non-condensing, that's on my list) boiler running at a high temperature. I've mostly replaced them with the biggest practical radiators I could fit - subject to constraints of space etc. In one room I had to buy online as the local wholesalers told me that they don't do anything over 2.4m long, I've got a 3m long (but only 450 high) rad in teh living room. As to the designer "look nice if you like that sort of thing, but absolutely useless at heating the place" things the previous owner put in the extension, the least said the better ?
Anyway, I've been running the heating circuit at 40ËšC since I got the thermal store in, and in this recent cold spell it's not quite been enough to keep the place warm. So if someone comes along and tell me I have to replace the boiler with a heat pump that doesn't work well above 30ËšC and will cost me a few years of heating bills just to install and cost more to run - well they'll get a fairly strongly worded rebuttal of their policy ?
Caution - rant mode on, look away if you are easily offended ...
But at least we are owner-occupiers so it's (mostly) our choice what to do. I'm also a landlord, and luckily both our properties are either already band C or only need minor adjustments (like the assessor actually noting the existing heating controls rather than recommending them as an upgrade ?) to make it - because that's what's being proposed for a few years down the line for all privately rented properties. F**k knows what the idiots in London think is going to happen to a lot of properties that won't be easily upgraded - especially the ones where upgrades would destroy the character some people are specifically looking for in some older properties.
Needless to say, housing associations are going to be exempt from this. I can only assume that a relatively small number of large businesses have more of a voice in Westminster than millions of "little people".
And I've yet to hear what is supposed to happen during those cold spells - like we've just had, and like the prolonged one at the end of 2010 - where wind and solar are AWOL, we've not built much (if any) new nuclear, and so most of this lecky we'll be forced to use to heat our homes will be from fossil fuel. Oh yes, the smart meters will either hike the price to persuade people that staying warm is an optional luxury, or if that doesn't work, they'll cut us off - all for our own good of course.
