Almost half of all homes in Glasgow are 'cold' with poor energy performance

Some 149,000 Glasgow homes have been described as “colder” with poor energy efficiency, according to the council.

A meeting heard all those homes, which make up 46 per cent of the city’s properties, could benefit from retrofitting work to make them warmer and more affordable.

Thirty five per cent of households in Glasgow are in fuel poverty and the council is on a mission to increase energy efficiency in the city and drive a retrofit programme to make flats and houses greener.

A council official said the city’s “colder homes are disproportionally older properties, flats in mixed tenure buildings, pre-1919 flats and private sector homes – specifically owner occupied which are among the hardest to improve.”

Explaining how few of the city’s homes meet high standards she said: “Glasgow’s homes have a long way to go before they could be considered highly energy efficient. Only three per cent – 9000 homes – are thought to meet recognised retrofit standards.”

However more than half of homes have higher levels of energy performance according to EPC ratings.

Referring to energy performance certificate data, the officer said: “EPC data suggests 65 per cent of our homes are EPC bands A to C, which are the more energy efficient homes, which would broadly meet energy efficiency compliance.”

She told the net zero and climate progress monitoring city policy committee that 28 per cent of the city’s carbon emissions are from the domestic sector and 21 per cent stem from gas emissions.

The GCC official added: “82 per cent homes in Glasgow are heated by gas boiler heating systems, which is 272,000 properties. They require to shift to clean heat, such as a heat network or heat pumps, by 2045 at the latest.

“That would mean around 13,500 clean heat transitions every year between now and 2045. At the moment heat pump installations are around 150 homes per year in the city – just under 1000 heat pumps installed in total.”

She explained that heat networks “serve about 2,500 homes”.

The meeting heard more grant funding was needed to improve private and social housing properties and make them warmer.

The official provided a housing retrofit position statement to the committee last week.

Speaking at the committee, councillor Lana Reid-McConnell said: “Ultimately a lot of the barriers to this work are political. It is due to the pausing in legislation. It is due to poor grants that do not allow for the work that is required to be packaged appropriately.

“Overall there is a significant lack of funding for this space.”

Council plans for retroffiting for the next 12 months include the development of “first-step” pre-1919 tenement energy efficiency measures and working with stakeholders to progress the first phase of the acceleration of heat pump installations.

Other actions include enabling the “‘fabric first’ repair and retrofit of private sector housing through the administration of grant programmes,” according to a council paper.