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New Energy World magazine logo
New Energy World magazine logo
ISSN 2753-7757 (Online)

Cold comfort: What’s it going to take for UK homeowners to improve energy efficiency?

26/2/2025

10 min read

Feature

Interior shot of Victorian house sash window, looking to outside row of houses and trees, with red geranium flowers in window box Photo: Adobe Stock/drimafilm
Popular aesthetic preferences for single-glazed Georgian or Victorian sash windows, which perform poorly in keeping the heat in and cold out, is a backward-looking cultural preference that prevents modern homeowners from demanding more energy-efficient homes, according to Donal Brown at Ashden

Photo: Adobe Stock/drimafilm

Most people think we should reduce the amount of energy it takes to heat our homes. However, most UK homeowners have never quite got round to tackling the issue. Apparently, there are many contributing factors in this pernicious problem, finds New Energy World Senior Editor Will Dalrymple.

In 2023, about a third (34%) of UK gas consumption went into domestic use – for heating, hot water and cooking. That amounted to some 21.6bn m3, based on the total amount of gas the UK consumed in the year, according to the Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy.

 

Along with fitting solar panels, one of the most common measures involved in green retrofits is swapping the boiler (of which there are 23 million installed in UK homes) to electrically-powered heat pumps. But this has generally not been happening at a large enough scale. Why not?

 

The trouble is the so-called ‘fabric-first debate’; in other words, whether more fiddly improvements to the physical fabric of the structure, such as insulating lofts, walls and floors, must also be made. While one could install a gas boiler without any fabric changes, in a draughty home it might end up costing users a fortune to run, and consequently be a big drain on the grid. So says Cara Jenkinson, Cities Manager at climate charity Ashden.

 

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