“It’s very draughty and cold,” said Rahimah Baccass, 68, who lives in one of the hundreds of three-bedroom semis built in the 1930s after a slum clearance in Upney, east London. Recently her gas heating broke down for three days and she was “absolutely freezing”, wrapping up in layers of jumpers and hot-water bottles.
The retired civil servant is one of millions of people living in interwar housing – from Blackpool to Barking – which the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has identified as in urgent need of overhaul. Many homeowners have already tried to fix the problems with uPVC double glazing and loft insulation, but the biggest problems – uninsulated walls and cash- and carbon-guzzling boilers – are harder to crack.
“We have double glazing, but it’s difficult to keep warm,” said Baccass. “I tried to go for cavity wall insulation but it was too expensive.”
With rising gas heating and food bills, she is now considering switching the heating on only once instead of three times daily. More worryingly, she is having to rethink what food she buys, a particular problem as she is diabetic.
“I was always able to buy good value food that is good for my body, but now I am tempted to buy some of the rubbish.”
In Kingstanding in north Birmingham, the largest council housing development in Europe when it was created in the 1930s, Lee Mason, 80, has also decided that insulating his walls – the source of about 50% of heat loss in many cases, according to the RIBA – was too expensive.
He installed solar panels on the roof and insulated the loft, but was told it would cost several thousand pounds to insulate his walls, which were built without cavities.
“We’re very economical, we can’t do any more to be honest with you,” he said. “We only heat the lounge and the kitchen during the day. And our fuel bills are reasonable at the moment. But getting the walls insulated is a lot of money.”
Nearby lives Sharon Merryweather, 62, who has felt the benefit of insulating the loft of her 1937 home before Christmas, to save money before the energy price rises come in.
“Without insulation it can be quite draughty, but luckily we haven’t had a bad winter this year,” she said. “The bedrooms are much warmer since we’ve had the [loft] insulation put in though.”
Tam, 39, a mother-of-two living in an interwar home in Dagenham, said it was long past time that the government tackled insulation. She said her “penny-pinching” landlord refused to insulate the walls. There are draughts around doors and a 5cm gap in one room between the skirting and floorboards that lets cold air stream in. She is already paying £80 a month on her gas meter and is regularly in her emergency credit.
“It’s hard to keep it warm, but I need it warm,” she said. “I can’t have my children going cold.”
