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RHI - Have the cowboys arrived in town already ?
John_Pierpoint
Posts: 8,396 Forumite
Here is a little re-enacted play, that is loosely modelled on a conversion I have just had. [I speak in blue and think in red]
Hullo can I speak to Mr Pierpoint.
Yes speaking.
Hullo
blah blah
I am phoning from the Energy Saving Trust to update our records, You could qualify for a grant to help with your heating. There are new regulations coming in and the government is putting in some money.
Do you live in a house of a bungalow?
What has that got to do with it? I don't like answering questions that seem irrelevant?
You don't live in a flat or a maisonette or rent?
No I live in a detached property and we own it.
The government is paying so you can have a report prepared for your heating needs and recommendations about grants available.
My friend was one of the early adopters who got a grant and the FiT for his PV installation - though he paid over £18 k before grant and 28 months later the price was down to £10k,
And the consultant and the report is all free?
Yes - can I say you are interested.
Sounds exciting.
Yes I can get someone to phone you back.
ONE HOUR LATER
Hullo ---Jennifer
blah blah
panels on the roof
I don't recognise what you are saying; aren't there two sorts:
Solar thermal to make hot water and solar PV to make electricity?
blah blah
Yes how much do they cost?
That very much depends on what the consultant advises.
Yes but a ball park figure ?
£3500+ for a (very small) system ?
Yes but how about a big 4 kilo watt system ?
£9,000+ but you might not have room on your roof for such a big system or need one so big.? [ and you need to inform the DINO]
Actually there is no room left on my roof because I already have a 3.6 kWp system up there and I a pleased with it.
If you lot at the EST had half a brain cell you could have checked the database and discovered that I am on it ?
What was that other idea you mentioned?
blah blah
Is that what I would call an air to air heat pump
Is that noisy and would it make the place look like a pub with an air conditioning unit from the days when smoking was still allowed ?
Whose equipment are you recommending Hitachi, Worcester-Bosch, Eco-air COLOR=Red]?? is that the switch sale - [I]"it is like a Golf"[/I][/COLOR .
How about other "wet" possibilities such as an air source or a ground source heat pump.
Yes he could recommend those too but they are considerably more expensive.
Can I arrange a half hour appointment for the consultant to make out a report; it is called a SAP. What ever you decide to do it will be yours to keep. COLOR=Red]how much of my taxes are being paid for this[/COLOR
I don't think half an hour would be long enough for a SAP report to be prepared on this place. It does not sound long enough to prepare one of those energy report things you need to be allowed to sell you house ? COLOR=Red]The last EPC I bought was part of a HIP that cost £150 and the surveyor (a redundant estate agent) got paid £45 for it[/COLOR.
COLOR=Red]If someone can point me at a suitable web site I would happily feed in details of my modest hovel all day and get a realistic SAP in metric units - I've looked for something like that but keep on getting USA based ones.[/COLOR
I could book you in for a double appointment.
Yes two people own this house and the other one is not here, having two people to explain the findings to would take at least two appointments?
Can you phone me back on say Wednesday and that will give me an opportunity to discuss the chances of us both being here?
OK.
Great.
1471
Number withheld surprise surprise
Obviously that is a precis of the conversation.
Anyone else got any thoughts:
Hullo can I speak to Mr Pierpoint.
Yes speaking.
Hullo
blah blah
I am phoning from the Energy Saving Trust to update our records, You could qualify for a grant to help with your heating. There are new regulations coming in and the government is putting in some money.
Do you live in a house of a bungalow?
What has that got to do with it? I don't like answering questions that seem irrelevant?
You don't live in a flat or a maisonette or rent?
No I live in a detached property and we own it.
The government is paying so you can have a report prepared for your heating needs and recommendations about grants available.
My friend was one of the early adopters who got a grant and the FiT for his PV installation - though he paid over £18 k before grant and 28 months later the price was down to £10k,
And the consultant and the report is all free?
Yes - can I say you are interested.
Sounds exciting.
Yes I can get someone to phone you back.
ONE HOUR LATER
Hullo ---Jennifer
blah blah
panels on the roof
I don't recognise what you are saying; aren't there two sorts:
Solar thermal to make hot water and solar PV to make electricity?
blah blah
Yes how much do they cost?
That very much depends on what the consultant advises.
Yes but a ball park figure ?
£3500+ for a (very small) system ?
Yes but how about a big 4 kilo watt system ?
£9,000+ but you might not have room on your roof for such a big system or need one so big.? [ and you need to inform the DINO]
Actually there is no room left on my roof because I already have a 3.6 kWp system up there and I a pleased with it.
If you lot at the EST had half a brain cell you could have checked the database and discovered that I am on it ?
What was that other idea you mentioned?
blah blah
Is that what I would call an air to air heat pump
Is that noisy and would it make the place look like a pub with an air conditioning unit from the days when smoking was still allowed ?
Whose equipment are you recommending Hitachi, Worcester-Bosch, Eco-air COLOR=Red]?? is that the switch sale - [I]"it is like a Golf"[/I][/COLOR .
How about other "wet" possibilities such as an air source or a ground source heat pump.
Yes he could recommend those too but they are considerably more expensive.
Can I arrange a half hour appointment for the consultant to make out a report; it is called a SAP. What ever you decide to do it will be yours to keep. COLOR=Red]how much of my taxes are being paid for this[/COLOR
I don't think half an hour would be long enough for a SAP report to be prepared on this place. It does not sound long enough to prepare one of those energy report things you need to be allowed to sell you house ? COLOR=Red]The last EPC I bought was part of a HIP that cost £150 and the surveyor (a redundant estate agent) got paid £45 for it[/COLOR.
COLOR=Red]If someone can point me at a suitable web site I would happily feed in details of my modest hovel all day and get a realistic SAP in metric units - I've looked for something like that but keep on getting USA based ones.[/COLOR
I could book you in for a double appointment.
Yes two people own this house and the other one is not here, having two people to explain the findings to would take at least two appointments?
Can you phone me back on say Wednesday and that will give me an opportunity to discuss the chances of us both being here?
OK.
Great.
1471
Number withheld surprise surprise
Obviously that is a precis of the conversation.
Anyone else got any thoughts:
How long before the 'Cowboys' currently selling inflated price solar PV installations move in to this area?
0
Comments
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To a degree if you simply sit back and wait for others to do the marketing or for consumers to do the research and decide they want your product then you'll starve before you make a sale. However I'm usually suspicious of cold callers on the basis that its a relatively badly directed and therefore inefficient means of generating worthwhile leads, which in turn suggests that they can only afford this by ripping people off.
It is very frustrating that as far as most green technology goes, there is very little reliable independant advice whether its relating to LED bulbs right through to ASHP systems, which means we are left to sharing experiences on sites like these to try to muddle through the maze.Adventure before Dementia!0 -
John_Pierpoint wrote: »
John, is this any good? I haven't tried it, or even tried to register, but it might be the sort of thing you are looking for (or not!).
http://www.microgenerationcertification.org/mcs-standards/installer-standards/mcs-heat-pump-software
Have fun.
MartMart. Cardiff. 8.72 kWp PV systems (2.12 SSW 4.6 ESE & 2.0 WNW). 20kWh battery storage. Two A2A units for cleaner heating. Two BEV's for cleaner driving.
For general PV advice please see the PV FAQ thread on the Green & Ethical Board.0 -
I just hate these calls so usually hang up.
This is the sting with the Green Deal... The govt has !!!!ed off most companies thanks to the MCS and RHI fiasco that a lot of the good companies I know are not going to bother with the Green Deal as that involves even more certifications and paperwork to jump through.
Expect overpriced solutions from cowboys and large firms...
Green Deal = Crock of !!!! 0 -
The green deal is only going to be useful to sombody with a bad credit history. If you can get a home improvement loan of upto £15k from tesco for 5.7% why would you get a green deal at 8 or 9%?
Also a great way for a landlord to get his tenants to pay for upgrading the property if you're into that kind of thing (i'm a tenant, say no more).
I'm quite surprised the EST are doing this kind of thing, what's it supposed to acheive? If they just launch the RHI installers can get to marketing it, at the moment we have a load of very interested customers and ZERO conctrete data to present to them. :mad:
The EST have a rough estimate of the EPC on their site somewhere, just need to input a few details on the construction, glazing etc...0 -
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...rogerblack wrote: »Now, re-do the figures, with a 20% chance of moving out in 5 years.
... and as mentioned before, if I was considering the purchase of two similar properties I would be far more likely to purchase the one which had the owned asset than one with a long-term liability. I would be pretty sure that the conveyancing process would lead to advice highlighting this as being a cost issue.
To put this into context .... two identical cars (mileage, colour, condition etc) are for sale on a garage forecourt, one is for sale outright, but the other is for sale with an included additional liability of having to pay-off the original purchaser's finance loan ..... would both be marked up at the same price ? ... which one would you buy ? ... would you negotiate the price on the one with the liability to well below that of the other to compensate for the additional hassle ?
HTH
Z"We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act, but a habit. " ...... Aristotle
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I telephoned the Energy Saving Trust this afternoon and conversed with an adviser called "Peter", [He night be as knowledgeable as someone manning the help lines at HMRC].
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-great-hmrc-telephone-ripoff-revenues-failure-to-answer-the-phone-costs-taxpayers-136m-a-year-8422934.html
- The EST will not phone you unless you have asked for a call back.
- The government is subsidising a sort of SAP for those people needing to borrow the money under the Green Deal - rich folks who can afford to buy the improvements outright are on their own.
- The rate of RHI payment, for renewable energy produced, has yet to be fixed, so we currently have just the indicative proposals of :
06.9 thru 11.5 pence for air to water heat pumps.
12.5 thru 17.3 pence for ground source heat pumps.
[he seemed to think these would be deemed figures, does anyone else have a better understanding of what the real unit of measurement for the generated energy is ?]
The renewable heat premium [a grant] will run alongside the RHI for installations before the end of March - it is £1,250 for a ground source heat pump.
[The same thing happened when the Feed in Tariff was announced - in the event the installed price of the systems fell much further and faster after the cancellation of the grant]
We also had some confusion over the FiT rate after the end of March for those failing to have previously installed Photo Voltaic electricity generating panels on their roof. My figure is 15.44 pence per generated unit plus 4.5 pence for the 50% deemed to be exported; where the unit of measurement is the kWh. [Anyone have a changed figure following the increases in electricity prices that make these figures look like "net metering" ?]0 -
...
... and as mentioned before, if I was considering the purchase of two similar properties I would be far more likely to purchase the one which had the owned asset than one with a long-term liability. I would be pretty sure that the conveyancing process would lead to advice highlighting this as being a cost issue.
The liability depends on the terms, and the purchasers desires.
If they were unlikely to do any major work - then hey - cheaper bills - yay!
It greatly reduces later energy flexibility however.
Then there are the unfortunate parts.
If I was designing this, all parts would have to be able to achieve significant payback in terms of total financial savings - _before_ the guarantee wears off.
Ground or air source heatpumps - great.
If they were warrantied for 20 years.0 -
Hirogerblack wrote: »The liability depends on the terms, and the purchasers desires.
If they were unlikely to do any major work - then hey - cheaper bills - yay!
It greatly reduces later energy flexibility however.
Then there are the unfortunate parts.
If I was designing this, all parts would have to be able to achieve significant payback in terms of total financial savings - _before_ the guarantee wears off.
Ground or air source heatpumps - great.
If they were warrantied for 20 years.
The point being made was that the liability for the product financed through the 'green deal' would result in the purchaser specifically having higher energy bills applied to that particular property until the loan, and all contracted interest which will be applied, is fully paid, where the home with the asset would be paying the standard energy price and will have lower running costs ...
As for the warranty, well there's a pretty simple solution ... inform the manufacturers that scheme certification will not be awarded unless the product warranty was in excess of the scheme loan/repayment period .... surely the manufacturers with the highest belief in their offering would back their own product with their reputation ...
HTH
Z"We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act, but a habit. " ...... Aristotle0
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