MSE News: Green Deal launches to help insulate homes

murphydog999

murphydog999 wrote: »

OK, so we are in the same boat as Jono2000, and about to renovate an old property, so my questions are (as I can't see 'the golden rule' applying)

1. With all the horror stories concerning CWI, we would prefer external insulation on our cavity walls - as we are timber cladding also - and interior insulation on the solid walls, but would we have to comply with the assessors assessment?

2. Do you have to take up the finance?

3. Can I not get my builder to fit the recommended products and claim back the difference? (I know you are all laughing at that one, but it would be easier, to get the same result!)

To Ecodave, did you miss my questions?

Ecodave

murphydog999 wrote: »

To Ecodave, did you miss my questions?

Hi Murphydog,

I have to hold my hand up to being unsure about timber framed properties, I will have to look back through my training pack to confirm, but I believe they should come under "hard-to-treat" properties, and as such may attract funding under ECO. I will check on this and get back to you. Ps the horror stories about CWI are not to be relied upon to decide not to have CWI. In itself, CWI is not usually the cause of problems, otherwise millions of homes would be complaining, and they aren't.

The finance is what the GD is about. You can get an assessment to get the view of someone who deals with these things every day, that will cost you £100. You could get a property surveyor around to give their opinion, might cost you £250. But if you are set on paying for it via another method, cash, loan, credit card etc, I would get an installer round to quote, and pick their brains first for free.

The measures can only be installed by accredited persons. I don't think I would want any old builder putting insulation on the outside of my timber framed house, its not a simple job, with lots of opportunity for things to go wrong, but if you think that is a good idea, its your house.

murphydog999

Hi I think you misunderstand, we don't have a timber frame house, most of it is single skin with a further double skin block extension. We are planning to partially clad with timber, it is currently rendered.

Ecodave

murphydog999 wrote: »

Hi I think you misunderstand, we don't have a timber frame house, most of it is single skin with a further double skin block extension. We are planning to partially clad with timber, it is currently rendered.

My apologies, if your house is single skin solid walled then you will definitely qualify for support for external insulation. I would get an assessment done ASAP, so that you would also have a chance of taking advantage of the governments cash back incentive. You may be able to request a finish that mimics the look of timber, or perhaps apply timber cladding on top of the insulation. I would look for an installer on the greendealorb website (you can search by specific measure) and give them a call. They may work with certain Providers, who then may have their own assessors, so the assessment that way might be refunded. You can still get a quote from your builder for comparison, but he won't be able to access the ECO funding for you.

Good luck.

murphydog999

Ecodave wrote: »

My apologies, if your house is single skin solid walled then you will definitely qualify for support for external insulation. I would get an assessment done ASAP, so that you would also have a chance of taking advantage of the governments cash back incentive. You may be able to request a finish that mimics the look of timber, or perhaps apply timber cladding on top of the insulation. I would look for an installer on the greendealorb website (you can search by specific measure) and give them a call. They may work with certain Providers, who then may have their own assessors, so the assessment that way might be refunded. You can still get a quote from your builder for comparison, but he won't be able to access the ECO funding for you.

Good luck.

Thanks for that. You mentioned cashback in the form of vouchers though, what does that entail? And is taking the finance a condition of this?

Ecodave

Yes, you can't get the cash back if you haven't had a loan, and is capped at 50% of your investment on any measure.
So (this is just by way of an example, the figures are completely made up!) if you had solid wall on GD, cost say £8000. ECO maybe pay for £5500? Cash back of £650 may apply. Then amount loaned is £1850. Probably over 25 years, though as long as Golden Rule still works, you could reduce the amount of years, and pay more each month.

murphydog999

Ecodave wrote: »

Yes, you can't get the cash back if you haven't had a loan, and is capped at 50% of your investment on any measure.
So (this is just by way of an example, the figures are completely made up!) if you had solid wall on GD, cost say £8000. ECO maybe pay for £5500? Cash back of £650 may apply. Then amount loaned is £1850. Probably over 25 years, though as long as Golden Rule still works, you could reduce the amount of years, and pay more each month.

Ah! The catch......:(

new_owner

Ecodave wrote: »

1) If you tried to sell your home with a Green Deal on it today, would you have any problems? Well, probably yes, the reason being is that people will not like something that they don't understand (you just have to read forums like this to work that out). But you won't be selling it today, or tomorrow, and by the time you do, it will be far more commonplace. Leasehold properties are already sold with service contracts built into them, nobody bats an eyelid, because they understand what they are getting for their money. If you go ahead with the Green Deal, keep all your old energy bills and future ones, to show how much of an impact they have had (and will continue to have).

Im sorry but;

No one is going to buy a house if there is a monthly payment of £50 on top of your energy bill, especially if it going to be over the next few years.

The first thing anyone is going to say is that needs to payed off or discount the cost of the house down. I dont think this can be compared to service charges for leasehold.

You are not getting (as a buyer) anything extra to justify the cost.

The other issue is gas/elec will keep increasing; I dont see how you could vaguely justify the old bills.

A personel loan, savings or off set via credit card is the way to finance home improvements. It should have been called wonga green deal

penrhyn

If these loans are going to be repaid over a very long term then the interest rate should not be more than bank base rate at 8% they are having a larf.
I just don't know who this scheme is aimed at.
I guess someone who will never move, and has 20 -30 years of life left.
The assessor role sounds just like the bloke who comes round and does an energy assessment when you are putting your house on the market. Took all of half an hour when I had it done. ( Do they still do this?)

grahamc2003

Ecodave wrote: »

Hi Graham,

Is this post directed at me? I can't see in the posts where anyone has become indignant about your comment regarding training.

No it wasn't directed at you.

Some other poster said he found my post insulting for some reason, and had a pretty poor attitude imv. His post appears to have been deleted (I didn't report it - I assume he must have requested the deletion himself). What is even stranger is that the quote of his post has also been deleted from my post. It does make the flow of posts a bit disjoint.

Regarding your insider view of the scheme is very informative. What I think it shows is quite a few people involved in getting any work done. That must work out relatively expensive, simply to pay the manhours for all the overhead. On a macro view, funding works which aren't really affordable on long term credit isn't really doing the client any favours imv. I just don't see the 'Golden Rule' often genuinely working, especially with a 7% interest rate, although I expect theoretical figures will adhere to the 'Golden Rule'. I'm very sceptical - not a criticism of you at all, but I have concerns of the efficacy of the system itself.