The recent Ofgem price hikes may well prompt UK people to sell their homes and move to smaller or more energy-efficient places this year.
Housebuilder Redrow asked UK homeowners how they were feeling about their energy bills and found that 26% of them were considering a house move to reduce this expenditure.
More than half of UK homeowners increasingly worried about rising energy costs
More than half (58%) of the UK’s homeowners say they’re more worried about the rising costs of energy than they were during the previous year. Younger homeowners, in the 18-34 age bracket, were twice as likely to think about moving to a more energy-efficient home than older groups.
Finding an energy-efficient home is becoming more important to UK residents, with just over two thirds (67%) seeing it as a bigger priority than it was a year ago. Almost a third (31%) of Redrow’s respondents said that their current property’s low EPC is a major cause of frustration to them.
Go green or up sticks?
As many see energy price rises (29%) and sudden maintenance expenses (20%) as the main frustration points in their home, lots of people are wondering how to go greener in order to save money.
However, some people (29%) believe that the cost of retrofitting energy-saving measures into their older properties isn’t worth it so they’d be better off by moving to a leaner, greener home.
It may be cheaper just to move
The expense of retrofitting a home with greener features can be somewhat off putting, especially to the third (33%) of respondents who say they’d rather just move to a more energy-efficient place. Just under two fifths (39%) of Redrow’s respondents say they’d look specifically for a new build house as it’d be more likely to have built-in green features.
Homeowners still thinking about some greener measures
Despite some of the UK’s homeowners thinking about moving, others are wondering whether staying put and installing heat pumps or solar panels. Just over one fifth (21%) say they’re more likely to think about heat pumps than they were a year ago and 14% said they were considering solar panels.
More familiar energy-saving measures such as double glazing (76%) and loft insulation (68%) were still very popular among the homeowners asked about energy concerns. LED lighting is looking tempting to half of the UK’s households (50%) who want to reduce their electricity bills.
