Two more New Year green resolutions – Part Two
Following his blog last week Midlands green energy expert Ron Fox continues with two more of his New Year green resolutions for 2026.
Take care over insulation:
Firstly, residents looking to insulate their home and cut their energy bills should look for a trusted local company, says Ron.
He was commenting after a report by a spending watchdog found that two government schemes were botched on a vast scale and left tens of thousands of homes needing urgent repair work.
The National Audit Office (NAO) said that 98 per cent of homes, which had external wall insulation installed under an agreement set up by the previous government, have problems that will lead to damp and mould if not dealt with.
External insulation involves boards being fitted to the exterior brickwork of a house and then render is applied to make it waterproof. It goes wrong when rainwater becomes trapped behind it.
NAO said 29 per cent of the homes that were given internal insulation also needed more work doing on them.
“I am pleased to hear that the Energy Consumer Minister Martin McCluskey has said the homes would be fixed at no cost to the consumer as quickly as possible,” said Ron, of Noreus Ltd on the University of Keele Science Innovation Park. “But these home owners should not have had to suffer this extra heartache in the first place.”
The audit report focused on work carried out between 2022 and the start of 2025 on two specific schemes, ECO4 and the Great British Insulation Scheme.
In 2022 the previous government directed energy companies to spend billions of pounds, raised via levies on energy bills, on insulating homes across the UK, to help people on benefits and those in very poorly insulated homes.
However, the NAO, which monitors how public money is spent, found there were failures in the design of the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) scheme, which resulted in poor-quality installations.
The NAO, which monitors how public money is spent, cited an under-skilled workforce and uncertainty over which standards to apply to which jobs as some of the reasons for the substandard work.
It found that between 22,000 and 23,000 homes that had received external wall insulation, and up to 13,000 properties with internal wall insulation now needed repairs.
They added that more than 1,000 homeowners have been living in homes that pose an immediate health and safety risk, from faults such as exposed live electrical cabling or blocked boiler ventilation.
“I just hope the system is reformed so these problems can never happen again,” said Ron. “In the meantime, my advice to householders looking for insulation work is to ask their neighbours and friends for recommendations of firms who have done a good job locally.”
He pointed out that insulating the homes leads to a warm and cosy environment all year round, plus cheaper energy bills.
Take care on the beach:
People need to be more careful with their rubbish when on holiday, said Ron. He was commenting on the Marine Conservation Society’s State of our Beaches report, which showed that plastic litter had increased by more than ten per cent across UK beaches since 2023.
The ocean charity found that volunteers collected 764,451 pieces across surveyed coastlines, which is an average of 170 items per 100 metres of beach and a 9.5 per cent increase on three years ago.
Plastic fragments were the most common item, followed by single-use plastics such as crisps and sandwich packaging.
“It is too easy to relax when holidaying on the beach,” said Ron, “and to forget about taking your rubbish home. But there is now irrefutable evidence linking plastic pollution to the loss of lives of countless marine mammals, fish, seabirds and sea turtles.”
For those wanting more advice about green energy, insulating their home and protecting our environment, call Ron on 0845 474 6641 or contact him here
Part 3 next week.
Caption: Take care over insulation. Picture supplied by Noreus
