ACE Report - Chilled to Death: The Human Cost of Cold Homes

[ALEO Admin]

The Association for the Conservation of Energy (ACE) have released a new report which states that cold homes kill more people than alcohol, road accidents or drug abuse.

According to the figures, their were an estimated 7,400 "cold homes" deaths in England and Wales in 2013 - more than the 7,059 deaths from alcohol abuse and five times the 1,574 deaths from road accidents.

The report found that, since the coalition Government came to power in 2010:

• 155,720 Excess Winter Deaths have occurred in the UK over the last five winters
• Around 46,700 of these deaths in the last five winters are due to people living in cold homes
• This winter will have seen the highest rate of Excess Winter Deaths and cold home deaths in the last five years. We estimate that there will have been 46,100 Excess Winter Deaths this winter, of which around 13,800 are due to people living in cold homes.
• The average number of Excess Winter Deaths over the previous five years is 27,830, of which around 8,350 are due to cold homes. So this winter has seen an increase in Excess Winter Deaths of 66% above the average.

Investing just three percent of the infrastructure budget in making homes highly energy efficient, alongside existing energy efficiency budgets, could bring two million UK low income homes up to a high standard of energy efficiency (EPC Band C) by 2020. The Energy Bill Revolution is calling for all six million low income homes to be brought up to this standard by 2025.

For more information and to download the full report, visit:
http://www.ukace.org/2015/03/chilled-to ... old-homes/