General Chat

After yesterdays demonstrations on the M25 about insulating your home to help combat climate change and the chaos they caused in blocking the roads, i have just heard on the traffic news on R2, they are again demonstrating on the M25.

Whilst im not against peaceful demos, this is a major motorway. People were prevented from getting to work and what about the emergency services??

They should have removed them from the road and charged them! How could they allow them to sit infront of furious motorists and prevent them from going about the daily lives?

One demonstrator was interviewed on the Jeremy Vine show who admitted that she didnt actually know anything about insulation or how it works!!!!


Florence in the hebrides

Wonder whether the motorists could sue these individuals for loss of earnings :-0

Many of these protestors and demonstrators are only there to cause problems for the police etc, they have no interest in the cause otherwise why hold up motorists who are then contributing to higher emissions the very thing they are supposed to be protesting about. and, yes, the police should be moving them on.

Good point, AnnG :-0

I just dont know how the police cannot round them up and clear the road. They manage to do this at other places?

One man was late for his oncology appointment, another was travelling from Wales to London to actually insulate someones home and had to cancel the job...rediculous.

In my last house, the landlord had this free insulation put upstairs thinking it would make the bedrooms warmer.But the velox windows in the walls were old and leaking and not double glazed. So unless you upgrade your windows if they are very old, then insulating the walls will not help or make the rooms warmer.

These companies offering "free insulation" beware because having had first hand experience of them, they did a rubbish job and created a dreadful mess and no my heating bill did not reduce but stayed the same.

In the rural areas particularly up here, fuel prices went through the roof a few years ago and the price of heating oil was horrendous. So people went back to cutting peat from the moor and heating the home with an open fire in a bid to save money.

Many have multi fuel stoves that heat the water and the radiators too.

Its a bit of a catch 22 situation really isnt it?

They dont give free grants to replace your windows so anyone thinking free insulation will reduce their heating bills think again.
As for solar panels. They actually only last about 15 years and probably takes 10 years to pay for them so not sure where the savings are with that.

We can and are im sure all doing our bit to save the planet but really its not a new thing.When I was about 8 or 9, i used to go over the beach after tea with my grandad when the tide had gone out and we would collect drift wood for the open fire.Presents were wrapped in brown paper and string which was reused many times. We took string bags to buy the shopping not plastic carrier bags.

Reuse, reduce and recycle is nothing new. We all have been doing it for years.We just have to educate the next generation which most of us families do anyway.

Blocking roads will not make people take notice at all. I think it will have the opposite effect.
I was once told, that if i went on strike over my pay, then i would almost certainly lose my job!
Do these demonstrators actually have "proper jobs" and if so why are they not in work?

Florence in the hebrides

AnninGlous...yes absolutely agree with you.

One word describes folk like these Anarchists :-|

Florence, when we moved in here in 1988 we asked about solar panels and were turned right off because we were told it took 20 years to pay at which point they would need or have already needed some maintenance. That, along with the hefty cost at that time put us right off. They are cheaper now but we have not bothered as OH says we need a new roof before we get solar panels installed - and at our age, I can’t see much point.

Why would you block the M25?

The traffic doesn't move on it much anyway.

Some time ago ( on 2 different occassions ) we qualified for FREE insulation in the roof space.

It never happened because our roof space is low & one can only access on ones knees, not actually stand up in it, we were told if a worker cannot stand up then they can & will refuse to do the work!
Because of that it never got done!

Perhaps we should have demonstrated about it!

Joan.

We got ours free Joan. Several years ago, someone knocked at our door and said we qualified because of our age. At the time, I wondered whether some enterprising company had somehow obtained pensioners’ addresses from our LA but I decided that it was highly unlikely to be that so I believe the LA had got in touch with installers. **

We have a low-pitched roof but the two guys covered every inch of it. After that, my OH boarded along the higher-pitched middle section where at least I could stand straight (I am small, by the way) but not OH.

It is a fine dumping ground!

**. I came to this conclusion because after I reached retirement age I also had a phone call from AGE, asking me whether I needed help with anything. I worked for a couple of years over retirement age so when I told them I was still working they made a note of it.

Hi JoyLouise.
Ours came about the first time via the Scottich Government which gave us free Central Heating where in order to qualify for the heating we HAD to agree to the insulating at the same time, but when they came to do the insulating the men refused to do it because of the lack of height in the roof space!

The second time we applied was when were contacted re another SC government scheme, we were elligible to get roof space insulation installed for free so we went for it!
The same thing happened, the space was inspected & qualified to be done but the workers wouldn't do it, both times because they couldn't stand up to do the job!
So it has never been done.

Joan.

That’s a shame, Joan.

I’d love free central heating, by the way.

The free C heating was at the time a Sc government scheme a long time back, it was for Home owners without C heating who had reached the age of 60.

It didn't last long when they realised that many many folk in Scotland didn't have & never had C heating at all, the cost became too much.
Now when the scheme has been re introduced from time to time, only those home owners who are on certain Benefits qualify now for free C heating etc.

Joan.

I bet the protesters won’t be found to be responsible for the pile up at junction 9 even though they are protesting at 8 & 10.

Joan, you were lucky.

There was an item in last week's local rag about someone who started a company and cold-called elderly folk in the area offering central heating, double glazing and new boilers for next to nothing. The balance was to be covered by a government grant.

The grants no longer exist and the goods offered were pure imagination. There were so many complaints about the constant cold-calling that Trading Standards investigated and the woman concerned was fined £150,000.00 for fraud and sundry other things!

No one ever asked us if we wanted free Central heating, double glazing and new boilers - everything we had to pay for ourselves, like thousands of others. :-S

We were lucky & it was most welcome as we would never have been able to afford it ourselves.
Though in saying that we had to pay for 2 extra radiators as they only allowed 5.

In 2015 we had to get some money together to get a new boiler, because the boiler we had (exterior oil ) gave up & the Sc government didn't help with replacements etc!
Near £4,000 at that time!

After

Apparently the idiots glued their hands to the road????
Let them rot there awhile until they need the loo,bet they will soon get up then

Florence in the hebrides

Water Cannons should be brought out, that would shift them soon enough, & those that are glued to the road certainly wouldn't enjoy it!

Joan.