Complying with Part L1B - 15 year payback exemption

[Louby68]

Hello, new to the forum and still finding my way around so apologies if this has been covered before.

We are starting to renovate a house built in around 1800, which is not listed or in a conservation area. The exterior brickwork is crumbling badly all over on one side (possibly not assisted by application of regular masonry paint in previous years). We thought of repointing with lime mortar and then rendering the whole house with a lime based render, but then I looked at Part L1B - insulating render is out of budget, insulating internally not practical.

Part L1B effectively has an exemption if the cost of the work wouldn't pay for itself in reduced heating bills over the following 15 years. My query is how would the heating costs be calculated - the only heat source in the house is a wood burning stove fuelled by wood cut from the fairly sizeable garden, so effectively, the heating cost is zero! There is one gas fire in the kitchen, which along with the cooker, runs off LPG, but it is never used.

Many thanks.

 

[noseall]

Hello, new to the forum and still finding my way around so apologies if this has been covered before.

We are starting to renovate a house built in around 1800, which is not listed or in a conservation area. The exterior brickwork is crumbling badly all over on one side (possibly not assisted by application of regular masonry paint in previous years). We thought of repointing with lime mortar and then rendering the whole house with a lime based render, but then I looked at Part L1B - insulating render is out of budget, insulating internally not practical.

Part L1B effectively has an exemption if the cost of the work wouldn't pay for itself in reduced heating bills over the following 15 years. My query is how would the heating costs be calculated - the only heat source in the house is a wood burning stove fuelled by wood cut from the fairly sizeable garden, so effectively, the heating cost is zero! There is one gas fire in the kitchen, which along with the cooker, runs off LPG, but it is never used.

Many thanks.

Had to laugh at this one.

What if the next person who moves in happens to be a tree hugger and refuses to burn wood?

What if you or the next owners become disabled and can no longer gather wood and require a more convenient form of heating?

What cost would you put on maintaining a wood burning stove and chimney, cleaning out the stove and gathering (storing and drying) wood for the next fifteen years?

 

[tony1851]

Presumably it would be the cost of running the most usual system for c/h, which would be gas.

But what's the problem? Why be concerned about building regs?
Just point or render as you want - you will not be making the thermal characteristics of the property any worse.

 

[Louby68]

Noseall, you make two incorrect assumptions - that we own the property, and that we live in it. The present occupant has been happily chopping wood for - well, longer than the place has had mains water, for one thing. If they ever did sell, I doubt if the top priority would be marketing the place to a "tree hugger", specifically.

After a bit more reading, L1B makes reference to using SAP 2009 to work out the energy costs of heating, and SAP 2009 assumes that a habitable room with no fixed heat source will have a portable electric heater for the purposes of energy calculations.

So, perhaps question answered.