Green Deal MSE Guide Discussion

costabom

Just started reading about GD assessments, cashback, etc. Am I right in thinking that the scheme has stopped, temporarily, for new applicants pending a re-launch in November?

DAK if there will be any cashback deals then.

Thanks

c.bom

Smiley_Dan

That's the Green Deal Home Improvement Fund. Whatever relaunches in November may or may not be called the same thing.

captainhindsight_2

captainhindsight wrote: »

There is an update in the software the assessors use to address this issue, the update i think is 2nd November.

It may be worth giving the assessor a call after this date to see if they can relodge this will mean you should be able to get support to upgrade existing double glazing with new double glazing

On Friday DCLG have changed the release date for the updated software from the beginning of November to the 7th December.

So this is going to ruin a lot of people's plans with the new cash back hoping to act quickly and take advantage of this in regards to updating old double glazing.

costabom

Smiley_Dan wrote: »

That's the Green Deal Home Improvement Fund. Whatever relaunches in November may or may not be called the same thing.

Just so I can properly understand this:

There were cash grants available for certain energy improvements, including boiler upgrades? A local assessor said grants of up to £1100 were available and, not surprisingly, were taken up within 2-3 months.

Were these grants available generally, or only to those on certain benefits?

These grants were different from the 'loan scheme' (@7% interest), where repayments were charged to your electricity bill and would equate to the savings that were identified by the GD assessment?

This is all driven by climate change obligations imposed by the EC?

Thank you.

c.bom

costabom

This is all driven by climate change obligations imposed by the EC?

I probably should have phrased this another way, i.e.

This is all driven by climate changes agreed with the EC?

captainhindsight_2

costabom wrote: »

Just so I can properly understand this:

There were cash grants available for certain energy improvements, including boiler upgrades? A local assessor said grants of up to £1100 were available and, not surprisingly, were taken up within 2-3 months.

Were these grants available generally, or only to those on certain benefits?

These grants were different from the 'loan scheme' (@7% interest), where repayments were charged to your electricity bill and would equate to the savings that were identified by the GD assessment?

This is all driven by climate change obligations imposed by the EC?

Thank you.

c.bom

Yes Cash back was available up to £7600 all non means tested meaning you do not have to be on benefits to qualify.

This is not a grant it is cash back ie you pay for the work in full then get cash back from DECC.

It is different to the loans scheme and does not need to be paid back and is not a loan.

It's driven by lots of things one of them being EU obligations

There are also non means tested grants with eco such as cero and csco which are available to everyone.

The only means tested scheme is hhcro or afordable warmth

We do not know all the details of this new scheme yet other than that £100m has been allocated to it

Briezzee

captainhindsight wrote: »

The problem here was Anglican not providing the correct paperwork or support, not the GDHIF.

That bit about the eu that's just if one individual receives upto 300000euros so a landlord with a few properties they will ask them to pay anything above that back.

Thanks for clarifying the eu bit. With regards to the rest the point is I was originally told to expect payment within ten days. I was then told my paperwork was fine, but payment may take thirty days. 4 weeks later I'm told my paperwork isn't fine after all. Finally got hold of an acceptable invoice, but 7 weeks down the line I'm still waiting for payment.i tried to clarify what was the correct paperwork before submitting it with the GDHIF help line (and was told what I was sending would be okay). How can any company, Anglian included, be expected to provide the correct paperwork if the fund administrators themselves don't know what it needed. It's no wonder applications are taking so long...

WoodbridgeRoad

I am posting this so that others in interested in External Wall insulation might learn from my experience. After starting to look at EWI in Feb 2013, we finally got the wall insulation fitted in August 2014. We had some complications that others will not have (eg conservation area), but the following may help. Sorry its long and a bit rambling but if you are interested in EWI, it may structure your expectations.

First – if you are interested in EWI speak to a few companies operating in your area. Get a rough idea of costs. Its expensive – we wanted to go ahead because we really like the house we live in but it has a rear extension which is single brick in places, so could not be kept as warm asthe rest of the house. The whole house is old, so its all solid walls (we have done what we can with loft insulation and double glazing). For various reasons internal wall insulation was not practical for the rear extension of the house.

If you happen to live in a conservation area - check with the planning department. They may have a conservation officer who will come and have a look and give you some informal advice (which for us went along the lines of ‘You can do what you like with the rear extension because it can not be seen from the road. You can not touch the front wall because you will significantly alter the view from the street. You can probably do the side wall as long as you cover the insulation with brick slips which are very close to the appearance of the current bricks.’ Speak to the EWI companies again and get an updated estimate if necessary.

If you are still interested get your Green Deal survey / assessment done. I know its costs money (unless you are lucky enough to get one paid for. We got one paid for because the local county council wanted to ‘kick start’ the Green Deal back in the spring of 2013).

Assuming the Green Deal survey says what you expect it to (like recommending either Internal or External wall insulation, plus various other things) then its time to get serious with estimates / quotes. I was quite uncomfortable with the Green Deal provider / installer set up, so as well as getting an estimate from a regional Green Deal provider, I got an estimate from a local installer. Get at least 3 estimates. I really suggest that you check if there is a local plastering company in your area who is already carrying out EWI and is a Green Deal accredited installer. There was one in our area, who had done many EWI installations for council, Housing associations etc plus some individual houses. This company is long established (most of their trade is conventional plastering) and their base is 5 miles from my house. They were quite happy to come round to answer queries etc. They use Weber products and the guarantees are the same as other Weber installations. I decided to go with them. They had to liaise with a GD provider to get an estimate of the amount which would be claimed from the ECO scheme which was in place at the time.

Because our house in in a conservation area, we had to apply for planning permission to fit EWI. The planning application is easy enough to do, costs £172 and takes about 8 weeks. Our permission was subject to us using a specific brick slip (I probably was a bit too keen to get a good match and provided sample of a specific brickslip - it ended up costing us lots of extra money).

The next six months was the most frustrating. October 2013 and we are all systems go – except the installer now has backlog of EWI orders. Depending on exactly what you are having done, some of the work can not be done when there is any risk of frost, so by November we are wondering if the work will get done before April. We got our answer quick enough because the government panicked and allowed the energy companies to abandon their ECO obligations in the short term – we did not want to go ahead without getting at least some contribution to costs from somebody.

We spoke to the installer we had accepted the quote from and they said there probably would be a ’government scheme’ but they did not know when and how much. Eventually the Green Deal Cashback scheme was announced, I applied for a £4,000 voucher and the job was back on. Unfortunately its Spring 2014 and the building trade was now going full steam ahead and the lead time on the brickslips had changed from 6 weeks to 40 weeks – and the ones we wanted were not produced any more! Installer spends hours sourcing the correct bricks which are also not produced any more but are still available from stock at buildersmerchants etc and gets a quote to get them transported across the country, cut to slips. Expensive – ouch!

We agree a start date for the work but the week before thework is due to start, the installer contacts us to advise us of the Green Deal Home Improvement Fund being launched which offers £6,000 and did we want to postpone? As this is going to balance out the extra costs with the brick slips becoming unavailable and having to be transported / cut specially, we said yes.

One advantage of the GD HiF is that as long as you have a Green Deal Assessment reference number recommending the process, you and an accredited Green Deal Installer can sort it out. You do not need to involve a Green Deal provider. Unfortunately the scheme as initially launched seems to be open to fraud as there is no easy way for DECC/GD HiF to check claims (it would have been so easy to ask for a copy of the Building control certificate to be sent with the claim etc but it appears they did not think it through). I think this is part of the reason why the vouchers suddenly ‘ran out’ and why the claims are taking a bit longer than expected to be paid out.

We were advised that we needed to have the work inspected by the Building control section of the council. Another £150, but at least you have some reassurance that the work has been completed to a reasonable standard and you do have paperwork to prove the work has been done. They visit before, during and after the job.

The work starts – unless you have a house with very few items on the walls (external pipes, external wiring in conduits, external walllights etc) all these have to be taken off and put back on after the insulation goes on. Parts of the work can not be done in rain. So its takes longer than you might expect.

Finally the claim to GD HiF. The installer came round to thehouse, gave me the final bill and all the paperwork to submit to the GD HiF. I submitted the claim by post at the end of September, got an email acknowledgement within two days. Within two weeks I had an email advising that the claim would be paid within a further 10 days. The £6,000 was actually in my bank account within 5 days of receiving the email. I had found the people to be really helpful when I rang to check I could cancel my Green Deal Cashback voucher and apply for the GD HiF voucher.

I’m just hoping that the house is more comfortable this winter – otherwise it’s been a serious waste of time and money!

CatCrazyLady

I have recently moved from a 3 bed terraced where I was paying a total of £66 for gas and electric. I am disabled and not working so money is tight, hence I really try to be careful with my usage.
I have just moved into a 2 bed terraced where the landlord told me that due to all the recent home improvements my bills would be "much lower".
However, yesterday he informed that through the Green Deal Scheme I am to pay £99. I told him that I couldn't afford this but all he said was that I could use more energy if I wanted to! The thing is, I don't want to, I just want low bills.
Can anyone help please?
Thank you.

RajaStyle

is there a new external wall insulation grant scheme or a current one that anyone is aware of ? Home improvement one has now ended I believe. Thanks