Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades

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

#41

Post by 0x1ch » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 12:34 AM UTC

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.

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

#42

Post by gruez » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 12:36 AM UTC

burnt-resistor wrote: post #26

foxglacier wrote: post #5

Could be solved with more free markets. What a funny phenomenon this is: "reluctance to make even basic upgrades" -- landlords don't care because they have too much market power and aren't even attempting to compete with each other. Imagine if car makers didn't bother with fuel efficiency because buyers had almost no choice and any car is better than nothing. We'd say that market isn't functioning well. Perhaps the p…

Deregulation led to Enron. Next bright idea?

This is as shallow of a response as "regulation led to the Soviet Union. Next bright idea?"

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

#43

Post by reactordev » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 12:36 AM UTC

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.

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

#44

Post by taeric » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 12:36 AM UTC

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.

More directly, how many would want to pay for it to happen? Easy to say they would want the upgrade. Hard to say they would want increased rents.

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

#45

Post by tpmoney » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 12:37 AM UTC

mystraline wrote: post #3

[flagged]

Landlords also contribute to educational and class mobility. Students can study at distant but better schools because they don't need to buy a home before they can move and they can return home or anywhere else much easier because they don't have to then find a buyer for the property to cash out. Job seekers can take a job across the country and not need enough spare cash to make multiple flights back and forth across the country to house hunt first. Landlords allow people to take vacations and trips to places they would otherwise never see because they don't live there. Landlords allow small businesses to launch without first needing to buy commercial real estate.

I spent 15 years living in my current state before I bought a home. In that time I moved on average every 2 years often due to changing jobs or changing living circumstances. There is no way I could have afforded to buy a home when I first moved here, and even if I could have, I didn't know anywhere near enough about the area or where I would be in 5 years let alone 10 or 20 to have made a good choice for where to buy that home. I love my home but owning this home has cost me well over 50k in repairs and maintenance in the 15 years I've owned it. That is absolutely money I would not and did not have when I first moved to this state and it would have financially ruined me to have bought and owned a home when I first moved here.

Have I had some crappy landlords? Sure. I've also had some great ones too and have very fond memories of some of the places I've lived over the years. None of which would have been possible without landlords in general.

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

#46

Post by Nextgrid » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 12:37 AM UTC

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.

But surely a higher rating would generally commend higher rents meaning either way it's the landlord pocketing the savings and the tenant is no better?

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

#47

Post by jen20 » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 12:38 AM UTC

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.

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

#48

Post by tehjoker » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 12:38 AM UTC

gruez wrote: post #36

immibis wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A landlord is a parasite by definition, since they don't produce anything, and charge money for producing nothing. But they perform important functions in our society, like providing housing. Even though landlords don't actually produce housing, without landlords there would be no housing and that would suck.

>A landlord is a parasite by definition, since they don't produce anything, and charge money for producing nothing. No, they provide capital. In modern society it's hard to picture what "capital" actually is aside from some wall st bankers in suits, but at the most basic level it's forgone consumption. Every dollar invested in a company or a house is a dollar that could have been spent on an iPhone or a nice steak, a…

This is a clever perspective, but you have to again ask where that foregone consumption is coming from. It is coming from mainly workers and renters and the sums are concentrated into a single parasitic entity.

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

#49

Post by tpmoney » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 12:38 AM UTC

tehjoker wrote: post #34

immibis wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A landlord is a parasite by definition, since they don't produce anything, and charge money for producing nothing. But they perform important functions in our society, like providing housing. Even though landlords don't actually produce housing, without landlords there would be no housing and that would suck.

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?

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

#50

Post by tharkun__ » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 12:40 AM UTC

gruez wrote: post #40

tharkun__ wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car makers really don't care about fuel economy and have to be made to care about it by regulations and even those they try to skirt.

>Car makers really don't care about fuel economy and have to be made to care about it by regulations The fact that people buy EVs and hybrids at all, despite their higher upfront cost, suggests that at least some care about fuel efficiency.

Not talking about consumers. Car makers, as that's what my parent posited. "The market made car makers do fuel efficiency all by itself!". Yeah, no.

Which traditional car maker actually cared about EVs before Tesla came along?

(Even Toyota, which was sorta "caring about it" did not believe in going "all in" and for a very very long time would only do Hybrid and nothing more).

Every other established car maker did not invest in this until "forced" by Tesla so to speak. And then spurred on by things like the EU regulations to no longer allow any non-EV new car registrations by ... was it 2035? Which I hear they're now thinking about undoing.