Just Another Scheme

By Author: Jessia Szychowski
Total Articles: 4
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Early in March 2010 the government announced yet another scheme designed at helping homeowners afford to make investments in the fuel efficiency of their homes.

This latest plan will give people the option of taking long term loans out to pay for measures to improve their homes. The loans will be repaid through energy bills, which should, even with the repayments costs, come in lower once the upgrades have been made.

The loans will be secured on the house rather than with the individual, so people won''t have to worry about staying in one place for the long term to reap the rewards of their investments.

The plans run over several stages, the first stage is to insulate six million homes by the end of 2011, using a mixture of the latest scheme, CERT and Warm Front to provide the capital, as well as hopefully encouraging homeowners to take matters into their own hands.

The loans make up just a part of a long term strategy for reducing emissions. The first step is already under way, with the government aiming to insulate six million homes by the end of 2011 with capital provided by homeowners, local authority ...
... grants, and private initiatives.

The second step is to insulate every loft and cavity wall in the UK in the next five years, again funded by a mixture of public and private funding. This is a massive undertaking and one that many critics feel unrealistic. Part of the burden will be taken up by the ''eco-refitting'' loans, which will be available for a decade for all sorts of upgrades. The final step will be the installation of smart meters in every home in the UK.

It is difficult to say how successful these measures will be, steps to far have been met with a mixture of success. One programme that has gone well, however, are the discounted gas boiler upgrades available through the energy saving trust, this has seen hundreds of thousands of old boilers replaced with newer, more efficient, models.

Everyone in the country has a responsibility to try to make sure that they use as little energy as possible, particularly with energy prices set to rise in the long term.

The onus is not just with the government to make sure that homeowners invest in their homes, it''s also vital that homeowners take the plunge themselves. Energy efficiency measures are expensive, but investing now could save you thousands over the next few years as energy prices look set to continue the inexorable progress skywards. Jessia Szychowski is the author of this article about gas boilers. Visit British Gas to find out the latest gas and electric prices for UK residential and business customers.