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Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

binghamton.edu

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Re: Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

#51

Post by Nextgrid »

ghaff wrote: post #4

How many renters would even want to replace appliances, get new insulation installed, get all their lights replaced, etc.? I had a bunch of work done after a kitchen fire in my house and it did genuinely cut my electrical bill. It also cost a lot of money and is something I wouldn't have done by choice especially in a rental property.

I've done upgrades in rented apartments at my own cost because finding a rental with said upgrades already done was either outright impossible or would've cost even more in rent than the cost of the upgrades spread out over the leasing period.

Re: Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

#52

Post by tehjoker »

tpmoney wrote: post #49
tehjoker wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there were no landlords we would have a robust public housing program. The government would build out housing then lease/sell it to the public and then they would be obligated to sell it back to the government when they finished with it - eliminating the market and preserving personal liberties to use the property.

So without landlords, we'd still have landlords, they would just all be named Donald Trump?

Does your landlord stand for election? That's a huge huge difference. The landlord is only out for themselves, but the government can potentially make decisions that benefit society as a whole and are rational.

The basic problem in America today is an absolute lack of democratic control of the government and our capitalist class. I can go into this in some detail but it is a large digression from the topic at hand. But I will add, that even Donald Trump is afraid to directly cut popular programs, or at least has some limits.

Re: Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

#54

Post by lesuorac »

0x1ch wrote: post #41
ghaff wrote: post #4

How many renters would even want to replace appliances, get new insulation installed, get all their lights replaced, etc.? I had a bunch of work done after a kitchen fire in my house and it did genuinely cut my electrical bill. It also cost a lot of money and is something I wouldn't have done by choice especially in a rental property.

Many. My entire apartment is filled with large single pane windows. There's zero draft sealing at any of them, nor the front door. I likely pay an additional $100 in electricity a month due to this. It was noticeably reduced when I took the time to 3M wrap all my windows one winter, but I didn't want to do it again.

Could try making inserts for the windows so you can remove them in spring.

Re: Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

#55

Post by maccard »

jvvw wrote: post #37

In the UK if you sell or rent out a house it has to have an energy certificate with a rating (specified by a letter). I'm pretty sure that you aren't allowed to rent out properties with less than a certain rating and that rating which is higher than you might expect.

This is true. The rating is actually pretty low though - they only need to be a band E on the EPC. It’s soon to be C though.

One of the… problems with that is that a lot of our housing stock is very old, and honestly not ever going to reach that. The grading don’t take partial improvements into account so if you do internal wall insulation on half your house it means absolutely nothing on the EPC. The means to get to C for older properties basically require insulation (not practical in pre cavity wall buildings without an ungodly amount of work) and renewable installs. That’s not to say we shouldn’t try but it’s a tall order to ask anyone to rip everything back to brick and build cavity walls in th pre 1930 stock (which there’s absolutely craploads of)

Re: Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

#56

Post by maccard »

jen20 wrote: post #47
jvvw wrote: post #37

In the UK if you sell or rent out a house it has to have an energy certificate with a rating (specified by a letter). I'm pretty sure that you aren't allowed to rent out properties with less than a certain rating and that rating which is higher than you might expect.

Currently “E” without an exemption.

It’s changing to C in a few years. But the ratings are odd - only fully completed items count so if you insulate the rooms as you go, you won’t get the EPC benefit until everything has been completed. There’s no partial credit

Re: Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

#57

Post by groundzeros2015 »

robotburrito wrote: post #21

Most times your land lord won't let you make anything nicer. They basically want the place to degrade around you so that they can low key force you to leave causing you to abandon your rent control.

Wouldn’t this be a negative unforeseen side effect of the rent control?

Re: Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

#58

Post by mayneack »

reactordev wrote: post #43

This is a silly study. Home efficiency matters to people who own a home, not renters. Renters only care about making rent and being able to eat. They don’t have the luxury of thinking about energy saving appliances when the landlord hasn’t fixed the appliances they do have. Renters are trapped with capped wages and increasing rents.

Renters often pay for utilities.

Re: Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

#59

Post by lostlogin »

ggm wrote: post #32
Glyptodon wrote: post #19

Nobody has incentives or cashflow that will change this. At best if we built more housing it's something landlords might face competitive pressure over. In which case it might change. But currently cases where someone has a choice between two equivalent rentals and can try to pick the efficient one are pretty few and far between. Most people just try to balance as low of a monthly rent payment as possible with their…

You're describing a problem which regulation is designed to fix. People argue about how effective that is, and post counter intuitive outcomes, but I think the central point remains: there's little evidence a deregulated housing market fixes it either. Corporate landlords probably have more motivation to repect enforced obligations. So the ultimate corporate landlord is some level of government, and then we've arrive…

New Zealand recently brought in some minimum requirements around insulation.

It’s a low bar, and even lower when you know how poor the average house quality is within New Zealand.

The average European house is ludicrous hot inside compared to NZ housing.

Re: Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

#60

Post by genter »

reactordev wrote: post #43

This is a silly study. Home efficiency matters to people who own a home, not renters. Renters only care about making rent and being able to eat. They don’t have the luxury of thinking about energy saving appliances when the landlord hasn’t fixed the appliances they do have. Renters are trapped with capped wages and increasing rents.

Except a lot of renters (including this one) pay their own utilities.
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