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Comment by SilverBirch | Hacker News Reader

Here’s a funny story: the Uk has the worst insulated homes in Europe and we stopped most of the incentives to improve them in 2010 because “we couldn’t afford it” and now we’re on the hook for billions.

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It is basically never cold enough to die of cold in the UK. Winter death "surges" are just death by NHS. Anyway insulation is only worth bothering with if you give up on ventilation (excepting expensive heat-recovery mechanical ventilation very few people have in any country) which is far more important - being a bit chilly is easily fixed with tweed but lack of fresh air really fucks you up. Turn off the heat, open a bloody window and put a jacket on!

I for one am grateful the UK managed to keep loads of nice Victorian townhouses because the Luftwaffe weren't that great at their jobs. They're nice, proper high ceilings and woodwork.

I agree with you that the government energy subsidy we have now is appalling. Should be dumped immediately. I'm paying £15/mo less than I did before - this is the most stupid use of national debt ever devised, I would rather pay what energy actually costs than be forced to be complicit in this.

Wow, this sounds like some exaggerated British stereotype. “You don’t die from it, it’s fine.”

Sadly people with this viewpoint are in government, which is really going to screw over people who live in the real world.

There is nobody with this viewpoint in government. Quite the opposite, the government are running up huge debt subsidising the hell out of people's gas consumption, incentivising them to gobble it, which raises the risk of it running out as mentioned in the linked article. Why do you prefer this? It seems much more disruptive.

Heat recovery ventilation is standard in new construction housing here. Retrofitting decentralized heat recovery ventilation is not that expensive, units starting around €300 with €1000 for the really nice ones. With current gas prices you can earn back the cost of insulation and ventilation changes in less than 5 years.

Ironically, you have to keep rooms quite hot to have anything to recover - and you're committing quite a few kWh to run the ventilators. If your house is new enough to seal properly and you really do want to be hot indoors, it's definitely more economical. Some big "if"s there. But skipping the heat and ventilating naturally is free :-) Can't beat that. It wouldn't be a practical plan in places that regularly get serious cold, but Britain is not one of those places, barring a few Scots mountaintops.

Just to be clear, it's not just "I literally froze to death" thousands of people die in the Uk each year due to the cold, and that was before the cost to heat your home more than doubled. Whilst you appreciate the architecture, the rest of us will appreciate not freezing to death.

Tosh! Thousands more people die in winter, not from cold, probably because they're stupid enough to see NHS doctors. They don't actually die of cold in a country where uninsulated old houses rarely even form ice on the inside of the windows these days. Even that isn't harmful; you should try it, it might make you realise you are much less fragile than you believe. In mentioning the architecture I was merely referencing that Britain having less-insulated houses than some countries is not some moral failing but an historical accident - but if I could trade all modern houses for beautiful ones I would do so in an instant. Even without heating they do not get cold enough in winter to kill you; if you transplanted them to Poland they would, of course, but we don't do that.

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