One in three Hackney families too poor to heat their homes
Friends of the Earth is calling for a new law to make it illegal to rent out the coldest health-hazardous properties. Photo: Jon Challicom
Record low temperatures, transport deadlock, dangerous roads, schools closed. While there has been chaos on the outside recently, don’t we all deserve to return to a warm home where we can stay cosy on the inside?
Unfortunately, that’s often not the case in Hackney, where far too many of us live in fuel poverty. This is defined as when it costs more than 10 per cent of your income to heat your home to a decent level. Partly due to massive escalations in energy prices over the past few years, 4.5 million families in the UK now live in fuel poverty. That’s one in six families. At the last count it was double that in Hackney – a staggering one in three.
A recent Friends of the Earth survey showed that a third of people felt uncomfortably cold in their homes during the freezing weather. This rose to half among tenants in rented accommodation; still a third turned the heating off to save money despite being cold. We’re now campaigning for a new law to make it illegal to rent out the coldest health-hazardous properties until they’re improved.
Living in a cold damp home can increase our risk of serious illness, even death. This is an even greater problem among vulnerable groups such as the elderly and children. It’s bad for our health, tragic for our fuel bills and moreover it’s dangerous for our planet.
Badly insulated homes lead to us literally pumping climate changing emissions into the atmosphere; a typical house wastes a quarter of the energy its occupants pay for through bad insulation. Hackney’s Sustainable Community Strategy 2008-2018 estimates that 43 per cent of our area’s carbon emissions are produced by homes. There is clearly room for improvement.
Friends of the Earth’s new Warm Homes campaign is based on the premise that improving energy efficiency in homes is one of the easiest ways to slash CO2 emissions. It can protect health, save people money, create jobs and help halt climate change. And energy efficiency is the only long-term solution to fuel poverty. We’re joining the call for the government to improve the coldest two-thirds of British homes.
But in the meantime, there are things we can do ourselves to improve insulation at home, to reduce wasted emissions, and to save money.
Although they’ll require initial investment, replacing old boilers and insulating walls and lofts will, in time, be fantastically cost-effective, saving money year-on-year.
In the short term, you can block off many of those cold draughts yourself. According to the Energy Saving Trust if everyone in the UK draught-proofed their homes we’d save enough energy to heat 260,000 homes. You can stick strips around window-frames, block gaps around the edges of doors and loft hatches, fit an inflatable chimney balloon in an unused fireplace, fill cracks in floorboards and fill small gaps around pipework. Old towels, cardboard and stuffed tights may not be the most glamorous draught busters but can make good temporary solutions.
Hanging thick curtains over doors and windows can make a real difference, as can laying warm rugs on cold floors. Don’t open windows while you have the heating on or dry clothes on radiators: invest in a cheap clothes horse and let the radiators do their job. Don’t put furniture directly in front of radiators and attaching aluminium foil to the wall behind them will reflect heat back into the room. Remember to bleed unwanted air for maximum efficiency.
And finally, some of my favourite tips for keeping warm inside. Eat a balanced diet so your body can keep warm and have plenty of hot drinks. Cook, then leave the oven door open to take advantage of the heat. Dress warmly – layers are more effective than one thick item – and remember that most heat escapes through the head. Use warm bedclothes and a toasty hot water bottle. And most importantly, stay active! And that doesn’t have to mean jumping around to Mr Motivator; just a few minutes of hoovering will warm your body up and have you stripping off the layers.
Read more about Friends of the Earth’s Warm Homes campaign
Related:
Too poor to heat the home, or living beyond their means? Human Beings need to get over the antiquated notion that Reproduction is a Right, or a modern Lifestyle is a Right. Let them be cold. Perhaps those families should move in together, and share expenses. Perhaps they should emigrate to a warmer climate. Perhaps they should not reproduce. When Human Beings have used up all the oil, natural gas and wood, what good will a Right, or Demand be. Human Beings are the most short-sighted animal on the Planet.
A new law is NOT going to change anything.
What Friends of Earth fails to understand is the reason poor people can’t heat their homes is because central banks around the world are printing money which leads to higher prices.
Bankers are nothing but thieves, stealing money from the poor through their inflationary monetary policies.
People around the world need to wake up and revolt against the banking elite.
So Friends of the earth want to restrict the supply of housing unless the property conforms to some form of energy standard…..
What happens when supply is restricted? That right the price goes up. All you are doing is moving the cost from the fuel bill to the rental costs. I would be amazed if this does anything but increase total cost to the improverished.
FAIL
“We’re now campaigning for a new law to make it illegal to rent out the coldest health-hazardous properties until they’re improved.”
===================================
. . . thereby reducing the number of properties available for rent. Yeah, that should help.
The previous four comments above are all great. Take that hippies.
Although for reference, you only get central banks when you get governments, so blame them.
Who are you kidding with this kind of poppycock?
The stench of misanthropy in this hit piece for the benefit of the energy industry, and the so called establishment is beyond belief. Four and half million families in UK are facing fuel poverty, that is in addition to being destitute and experiencing food poverty and basically all around poverty itself, however that is not of any concern, instead “Friends of the Earth” (and by default enemies of the humanity) is campaigning for “warm homes”;
Not by alleviating the poverty in which these four and half million families are living in.
Or restricting the price hikes of the greedy energy companies, and their insatiable appetite for even more profits.
Not by stopping the VAT hikes, Fuel duty increases, etc.
Or curbing the rampant inflation which is is yet another tax on the poor, whose meagre income is not keeping up with the price rises, and or to stop the value of their meagre savings from rapidly turning to chump change.
But hang on ……. Enemies of the Humanity are planing to introduce laws to alleviate the fuel poverty of these families, by making them homeless. For sure any homeless person will not worry about the fuel bills any more, and alfresco living will help their constitution to get stronger.
This kind of corrupt and bankrupt naval gazing of the Friends of the Earth, and their Friends is reminiscent of the famous remark of the past ; “why don’t they eat cakes, instead?”
There’s alway’s that little statement. if we invest now we’ll make huge savings in future, err like condensing boilers and wind farms. No thanks, I’ll save my cash now and switch off the central heating. If my parent’s and grandparents could live without it so can I. Now where did I put that candle and terracotta plant pot.
what happened to the decent homes prog.according to them we all live in luxury
I doubt a law that ensures landlords provide accommodation that’s warm and well insulated would reduce the amount of properties on the market. Renting, even to low income households, is highly lucrative, esp in Hackney. What FOE seem to be proposing would mean landlords ensure their property is comfortable to live in with adequate heating and insulation. Seems like a sensible idea…. it certainly won’t end the tyranny of the banks – but it may keep some people warmer. Odd that it attracts such raging comments. An interesting campaign group working on banking reform is: http://www.positivemoney.org.uk