The UK Government has just released a third tranche of £70million for households making energy-saving home improvements. The money is the latest tranche of the Green Deal Home Improvement Fund, which has proved immensely popular with households scrambling to obtain up to £5,600 for measures such as solid wall insulation, double glazing, boilers, cavity wall and floor insulation.

Read more

This article led me to read the UK consumer group Which? review of the Green Deal.

Surprise! Surprise! They found:

• unsuitable energy-saving measures recommended
• reports from different advisers showing big differences, when they should be comparable
• companies not supplying reports until chased.

Shows why independent and certified advice is so important!  Read more

This blog from visiting researcher Aimee Ambrose draws parallels between NZ and UK rental housing, and talks about UK efforts to improve rental living conditions.

She says the absence of minimum energy efficiency standards within the private rental sector, means that options for tackling the problem of widespread energy inefficiency are limited.

Many of the issues raised by Ambrose are identical to those in Beacon’s Performance of Rental Housing resource

Read the blog here

Still on a solar theme … this US EPA study shows that “buyers are willing to pay more for homes with rooftop solar panels — a finding that may strengthen the case for factoring the value of sustainable features into home appraisals…”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/realestate/solar-panels-and-home-values.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

Found this article which busts 11 typical myths about solar energy:

“Don’t think solar works for you? You could be wrong! A lot of myths swirl around solar energy that prevent people from making a well-informed decision about whether it’s right for them. PURE Energies, an NRG Home Solar Company, tackled 10 of the biggest myths about solar energy that you SHOULDN’T believe. I’ve added one of my own, because it’s the one that initially most got in my way when I was thinking about going solar.”

Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/11-solar-energy-mythbusters.html#ixzz3SVYedCtP