The space heating cost is commenbaly low in both monetary and carbon terms, but in the longer term how sustainable is the use of wood? Can we grow enough locally on a sustainable basis to avoid transporting it long distances?

A nice, well-informed piece. But one point I must take issue with:

>>The more conservative elements in this most old-fashioned of industries are quietly and not-so-quietly saying that the rules will be impossible to meet and calling for a concerted campaign to persuade the government to relax the Code.

I am one of the ringleaders of this campaign to “relax the Code” but I don’t regard myself as one of the industries conservatives. In fact I fully agree the sentiments expressed in your article: turning houses into renewable power stations is a nutty policy. Expensive, unrealistic and wasteful. Homeowners won’t understand the systems that have been landed on them, they won’t maintain them and the promise of a zero-carbon home will be quickly revealed as an empty one.

There are other aspects of the CSH which are questionable too - only 36% of the points required to get to Level 6 have anything to do with energy saving. When the big issue is carbon saving, why is all this other stuff cluttering up the future building regulations. The Code is a repository of good intentions, but bears little reality to the economics of development, as you have pointed out. That is a fundamental flaw.

Your analysis suggests to me that one consequence of CSH might be that already built, high quality, well insulated and maintained houses will enjoy a price rise above the market in future years as the higher prices of new houses hit the market. Another incentive (like EPCs?) for home owners to start investing in their current properties to make them low energy?

One aspect of future housing which doesn’t get a lot of coverage is adaptability. Here the Code for Sustainable Homes is silent - as far as I know. A large proportion of houses are eventually modified in some way, either internally, or are extended. Will the new zero carbon homes be built in a way that facilitates this? How will local authorities implement building control to ensure that an extended level 6 house is as airtight, has a larger PV panel to guarantee zero carbon etc etc?

Similary with maintenance. What happens if your 4.7kWp PV panel fails at 12 years old and you can’t afford to repair it? Maybe you don’t feel you should if you choose to buy green electricity from the grid instead. Do you have that choice? Do you have to face the consequences of failing to be zero carbon only when you come to sell and your HIP finds you out?

Strangely the Govt policy on new houses doesn’t really square with their approach to aviation. Here I’m quoting Hilary Benn from evidence he gave to the Environmental Audit Committee in December 2007, when challenged to explain why there seemed to be little enthusiasm to try to curb the growth in flying:

“However, we still come down to a choice about where we emit.
I think one of the issues that we have to address is are we saying that
there are certain types of greenhouse gas and carbon emissions that we
think, because of their character in some shape or form, are particularly
bad as opposed to other types? I made the point that agriculture and
aviation are currently seven per cent each roughly of UK emissions. Are we
able to accommodate a system in which in the end people or the system will choose where emissions take place? As long as you meet the overall target, does it matter whether the emissions came from this sector or that sector as long as you achieve a reduction? That, it seems to me, is the issue that we are debating here.”

Read literally, it appears that in 2016 we will be able to choose to emit as much GHG as we like by driving and flying, but if we want a new house we have to ‘choose’ the zero carbon option. Perhaps the idea of zero carbon homes is to free up emissions capacity so activities like flying can continue longer into the future?

Robert