The alternative to Andy's approach is self-build. It has been very interesting seeing the construction of step-daughter's house. It is so well insulated that shall be surprised if they need more than 5 kW to heat their 200 m².

Very good point. Most self-builders have been shoving more and more insulation into their homes for decades now - very often along with insisting on decent airtightness standards and ventilation systems. It's much simpler and cheaper by far than having to retrofit it all later. Many will tell you it's a no-brainer - even if the extra costs are added to a mortgage the increase in monthly payments is easily offset by fuel savings. Yet most of the population don't have the wherewithal and inclination to go down that route - so end up with mass produced/speculative build housing that is just minimally compliant with building regulations. The government had the opportunity to bring building regs up to a much more reasonable standard back in 2016 but bottled out at the last minute - so over the last 6 years, at say around 200,000 new builds a year, that's well over a million new homes that aren't anything like as energy efficient as they could have been. So I do have a bit of sympathy for the view that government could do a lot better.

   - Andy.

AJJewsbury said:

Yet most of the population don't have the wherewithal and inclination to go down that route

You would probably have to go back a century to find a significant number of householders who bought a plot and had a house built. That said, in my immediate neighbourhood, almost all of the houses were built in this way up until the early 2000s even though the first land sale was in 1885.

Imagine 200,000 self-builders! Step-daughter and her hubby have been at it since 2015. Walls, floors and roof were put up by a builder. Plastering, plumbing and electrics have been done for them, but they have done the rest themselves. I'd say that there is a 50:50 chance of being in next year.

AJJewsbury said:

Yet most of the population don't have the wherewithal and inclination to go down that route

You would probably have to go back a century to find a significant number of householders who bought a plot and had a house built. That said, in my immediate neighbourhood, almost all of the houses were built in this way up until the early 2000s even though the first land sale was in 1885.

Imagine 200,000 self-builders! Step-daughter and her hubby have been at it since 2015. Walls, floors and roof were put up by a builder. Plastering, plumbing and electrics have been done for them, but they have done the rest themselves. I'd say that there is a 50:50 chance of being in next year.