Boilers - Old buildings ''six times more expensive to heat than new-builds''

05/11/2007

Older buildings cost up to six times as much to heat as new-builds, it has been claimed.

According to John Slaughter of the Home Builders Federation, the absence of energy-efficiency regulations for homes built over 100 years ago, means that owners are frequently hit with higher utility and heating bills.

He said: "Data that has been collected in recent years would suggest that if you compared a house built today with one built a hundred years ago it might be four to six times more energy efficient overall.

"So there are factors like that which will mean that a newly built home will be less expensive to run than an older property."

However, owners of older properties - especially those which are listed, thus limiting the scope for significant energy-efficiency improvements - can still cut their energy bills by fitting a modern boiler, such as those from Vokera or Trianco.

Trianco recently claimed that the outlay to purchase one of its class B boilers is recouped by the investor within two years as a result of lower heating bills.