The £15bn Warm Homes Plan is welcome as the largest ever government commitment to building retrofit, but there are some glaring omissions, according to the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA).
The initiative is a major step forward for addressing fuel poverty and rolling out low carbon heating solutions, but there are serious concerns that it fails to address wider health issues and could even make the current situation worse, the Association said.
The World Health Organization states that 3.2 million people die prematurely every year because of indoor pollution and BESA fears that some of the measures proposed by the government’s Plan will exacerbate this “ongoing indoor health crisis”.
“Did they forget about ventilation?” asked technical director Kevin Morrissey. “It is barely mentioned in the Plan and even then, only to suggest that building occupants consider opening windows under certain conditions.
“There is a concerted focus on energy consumption but if you are going to go down that road you absolutely must balance that with ventilation solutions that guarantee healthy air change rates and filtration, especially where you are looking to improve thermal insulation” he added.
BESA also pointed out that the failure of previous government-backed insulation campaigns should have alerted the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) of the need to widen the use of mechanical ventilation systems in homes to avert growing problems with mould and condensation.
Healthy
Jade Lewis from the Healthy Homes and Buildings Coalition also raised concerns: “It’s great to see additional protection for renters to ensure ‘safe, warm and affordable homes’ but shouldn’t they also be healthy?” she asked.
“The long-awaited new Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards for the private rented sector are welcome but, as currently written, will not guarantee this.”
She said the Plan was a “missed opportunity to retrofit our homes in a more holistic manner to address health and well-being and reap the benefits that this could bring in reduced healthcare costs, safer communities, and removing barriers to opportunities”.
Lewis, who is also secretary of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Healthy Homes and Buildings, urged the government to widen the remit of the new Warm Homes Agency, which has been set up to oversee the delivery of the Plan, so it can educate and advise residents on solutions that aid their health.
BESA, which sponsors the APPG, also believes the government could expand the existing Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) system to support health and wellbeing outcomes for retrofitting homes and commercial buildings.
“We have long argued that EPCs could be improved by including health metrics, so they become more holistic building performance certificates,” said Morrissey. “We will continue to work through the APPG to encourage the government to make this change because this would inevitably improve the attention given to how buildings are ventilated for health.”
BESA also highlighted the rising threat from higher concentrations of radon inside poorly ventilated buildings. Health experts have identified this as the second highest cause of lung cancer in the UK after smoking. It also said problems of overheating were not addressed in the Plan despite the country's warming climate.
“There is a risk that the measures put forward could lead to another generation of ‘hot boxes’ where the push for energy saving trumps efforts to keep people cool during our increasingly frequent heatwaves,” said Morrissey.
Minister for Energy Consumers Martin McCluskey defended the Plan at the latest meeting of the APPG arguing that improving health outcomes was at the forefront of the strategy.
“The government is focused on this issue…right up to the Prime Minister. We have a lot of data that clearly shows the impact that poor quality housing has on health and social aspiration…but to tackle that we need to address the root causes of [poor quality] retrofit, which is why this is the country’s most ambitious retrofit programme ever.”
Skilled
He said around 60,000 people were currently working in retrofitting buildings and one of the main goals of the new Plan was to add another 180,000 “highly skilled, well-paid jobs” to that workforce.
The Plan explicitly supports wider adoption of heat pumps to help meet decarbonisation goals and cut domestic energy bills, and BESA believes air-to-air systems which can switch from heating to cooling mode in the summer can help to address the overheating issue.
However, it was critical of what appeared to be a “one size fits all” approach pointing out that heat pumps were not a ‘silver bullet’ solution and that the government needed to keep an open mind about all the technology options available.
The government’s failure to address the ‘spark gap’ is another concern for the Association as it undermines the case for full electrification of heating which would have the added benefit of reducing harmful emissions from gas systems.
For more information and to access BESA’s indoor air quality guidance visit the website here.
