Demand for insulation heating up

As well as insulating walls, floors and ceilings, heat can also be saved by double-glazing windows, installing heat pumps and wrapping hot water cylinders. Photo / Herald graphic

People hoping to insulate chilly homes with Government help this winter may find themselves out in the cold.

Thirty-three companies are approved to install Government-funded insulation but many said they were already "rushed off their feet".

The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority will take applications to approve more companies before an expanded package of funding kicks in on July 1.

A spokeswoman for the authority said it would be late September before most new companies were approved.

Government funding for a new $323.3 million insulation and clean heating programme is available to owners of pre-2000 homes who install ceiling and floor insulation but only if they use an approved contractor.

To ensure the quality of installation, it checks the work of companies which want to be approved. Under the new scheme it is also likely to check their financial soundness, their prices and their ability to deliver a certain number of houses a year.

The authority and several insulation installers said they were already dealing with phone calls from people who believed they were entitled to the subsidy of a third of the cost of ceiling and floor insulation up to $1300 now.

Only low- and middle-income earners in some areas of the country are entitled to funding before July 1 under the existing scheme.

The Weekend Herald spoke to half a dozen installers approved under the existing scheme. All said they were busy. Two were already planning to take on more staff.

Authority spokeswoman Jane O'Loughlin said it would be up to installers to manage demand.

Tenants in chilly rental houses could reap some of the benefits of the new scheme. Ms O'Loughlin said most landlords earned too much to get a subsidy at present but from July 1 there would be no income cap.

Andrew King of the Property Investors Association said about a third of members had taken up the Government's existing offer of a 60 per cent discount on insulating rental properties for low-income tenants in the past three years. He thought more would insulate once a discount was available to those with higher-income tenants.

But Mr King thought uptake would be higher if people were allowed to put in the insulation themselves.

Angela Maynard, from the Tenants Protection Association Auckland, said a lack of insulation was a problem.

She welcomed a suggestion by the Business Council for Sustainable Development of a "star rating" system that would tell tenants and potential home buyers at a glance whether a house was well insulated.

But Mr King said star ratings were arbitrary and might make people uncomfortable about having a poorly rated home. A spokesman for Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee said it was unlikely a "huge" number of homes would be insulated under the new system this winter. More details of the scheme will be announced on June 18.