Green Deal MSE Guide Discussion

Spookymooo

We had a green deal rep visit yesterday.
It all sounds great but can't get our heads around one thing.
We use oil to heat our house and any savings due to better insulation etc should reduce our oil bill (hopefully)

The insulation etc would not really reduce our electricity bill but we were told that the loan would be repaid by savings on our electricity bills. We were told that we should never pay out more than the average electricity payments from the last year.

How would we ever pay off the loan?

victor2

Spookymooo wrote: »

We had a green deal rep visit yesterday.
It all sounds great but can't get our heads around one thing.
We use oil to heat our house and any savings due to better insulation etc should reduce our oil bill (hopefully)

The insulation etc would not really reduce our electricity bill but we were told that the loan would be repaid by savings on our electricity bills. We were told that we should never pay out more than the average electricity payments from the last year.

How would we ever pay off the loan?

Complete carp from a sales rep, who is probably driven by commission incentives.
Maybe your combined oil and electricity bills would fall by the amount added on to the electricity bill by the Green Deal, but that would make his story a bit more complicated and require a little honesty.

Richie-from-the-Boro

#271 PartL Water Cylinder - off peak rate

- Cylinder type - direct - no timed on peak immersion heater, 2 x 27 inch :



A PartL should have two [ top & bottom ] heater bosses [ bit you screw the heater into stats into] The usual 30mm foam insulation that most non E7 standard cylinders are sprayed with has poor insulating qualities and [older] can give off poisonous gasses in the event of a fire and will naturally decompose in the greater scheme of things. Flexilag or equivalent used in PartL cylinders outperforms the polyurethane foam by up to 40%.

The element in the bottom will give you tank full of boiling water, the element in the top will give you only 10-gallon / 45 litres of angry bubbling boiling water if you are lucky. Whilst it is a truism that switched off is always cheaper than switched on, unless you are away on holiday I see no real meaningful savings in turning the timed E7 off peak water off, and in 35 years have never done so, even in the summer months. My PartL tanks were and are always given a really good extra jacket. I have in that same 35 years never used the 'on peak' top immersion heater ever. It just does not make economic sense you can have 365 days a year of boiling hot water by simply letting the correct spec tank & controller do its thing, after all heating the water overnight at the off peak rate would give me a tank full of hot for the same price as the 10-gallon / 45 litres tank of hot I would get for two hours on the standard tariff.

#271 PartL Water Cylinder - on peak rate

- Cylinder type - direct - no timed off peak immersion heater, 2 x 27 inch :

Looking at the same graphic above, using the "I'll only heat the bit I need" basis will heat only the top immersed element and give about 10-gallon / 45 litres [or less] of a tank of hot water. That hot water will cost more on two levels. The 'on peak' rate we will agree is at (1) least twice the off peak .. .. but .. .. it will also cost more because (2) the way convection works it will be heating water that cools 'inside' the tank then needs to be re-heated.

Liquid, such as water, is heated from the bottom, the layer of water closer to the heat source expands and hence becomes less dense compared to the water layer above it. Expanded water is less dense than the surrounding water and therefore it rises. The cooler regions of the water in the upper part of the flask, being denser, sink. This movement of liquid due to a difference in density sets up a convection current.

So the heated [ hot ] water pushes up and forces the cooler water down over the thermostat which in turn is heated until the whole volume of the tank reaches your pre determined setting then the stat switches the leccy off. Its a bit atomic science and the random motion of atoms and all that, but sufficient to say that's why the top down element is rubbish at heating a full tank of water.

NOTE01 : In addition to twin and single, there exists a~n~other kind of dual called usually a ermmmm dual which is a two-in-one element on an E7 controller that uses the bottom of its two elements in the off-peak mode and the top in the on-peak mode.

NOTE02 : 10-gallon / 45 litres can be very much more depending on the size of the tank fitted, obviously a 1500mm x 450mm is going to be less than a 900mm x 450mm.

NOTE03 : Information only. The new 2010 PartL spec is [Part L1A] or for replacement only [Part L1B], there will be old spec cylinders still in the supply chain.

JonShatford1974

I recently booked my Green Deal, after doing loads of research and speaking to British Gas, explaining the position are house is in. We have on our own back improved the efficiency of our home, other than adding new Double Glazed Windows, our current ones being 30 odd years old, and as effective as single glazing. The operator on the green deal line at British Gas said it was worth having a look at. We have just had the assessor out who spent an hour in the house, only to say that as the windows were pre 2002 they would not save us any money by changing them. He then proceeded to try and sell me a new boiler for 6K to save £80 per annum, or to add under floor heating at a ridiculous cost. I could also have them fit solar panels to our roof. But the windows would not help save energy.

Prior to the British Gas Visit, as we were already sceptical we had three firms of double glazing firms, 1 national 2 local and they each independently pointed out that we could on average save around £30 per month by adding new windows to our property. These companies were not told what the others said.

On the day of the visit the chap commented on the 5mm gap of windows, and asked if I thought it was a cold house. One has to ask whether Windows would have been an option if British Gas sold windows.

I have today written to British Gas demanding a refund of my fee, and have copied in my MP and the Green Deal Ombudsman.

Either the Green Deal doesn’t work or the “Independent” assessors aren’t that independent.

Coulsdon_Town

Minxie61 wrote: »

Hi
We recently had a Green Deal Surveyor turn up on our doorstep - and went through the FIT and sell back tariffs etc. However, although it all seemed great - we kept asking about the repayments on the loan and how it all worked. It now transpires - that a credit check was applied to the homeowner and bank details taken to pay back the loan - the loan was with a finance company and not through the electricity provider. we were told that the investment we were making would make us a healthy profit in the long term - we asked for the figures but 7 days later nothing as appeared save to say that we have now cancelled this in writing since the only way the assessor would continue was to carry out a credit check. In addition, the loan was with the home owner and not the property and we were told that the solar panels could be removed and taken with us for a £200 cost.
We would own the panels not the house - so in effect - if we moved house, we would have to repay the loan or pay £200 to remove them or ask the new home owner to take on the loan ... All sounded a bit of a scam to us ... so i think one needs to be very careful with what is out there and go via the energy providers ...

Hi Minxie61,
your description sounds like it was a solar salesman pretending to be doing a Green Deal Visit. Did you book his visit, and if so on what expectation or understanding?

Coulsdon_Town

amcg67 wrote: »

i am in Scotland, went ahead 4 weeks ago and paid 120 pound for a green deal assessment, recommended external wall insulation as I have solid walls. I was told by assessor this could be paid for through a combination of green deal through utility provider and eco funding as is costly. however energy saving trust Scotland are telling me that NO government funding is yet in place for this and they have no idea when it will be. they have a huge list of people waiting on a call back and presumably this just keeps growing. I am unable to find a provider of external wall insulation in Scotland at al nevermind trying to get any company to give me a green deal quote. so green deal so far has just left me £120 out of pocket. surely this cant be right. I don't even know who to complain to about this as there's no info on the website? anyone in Scotland having similar problems?

Hi,
I'm not sure if this would be appropriate action for you at this stage, but try this Ombudsman. http://www.ombudsman-services.org/green-deal.html
Their website doesn't specify England, Wales etc so i presume they serve Scotland too.

Ken68

Me_fishy_u_chippie wrote: »

COME ON THREADERS - MONEYSAVINGEXPERT is the name of this forum!!!!!!


This is my bible for energy conservation, a whole chapter somewhere on window shutter treatment. The name Shurcliffe comes to mind.

http://www.builditsolar.com/index.htm

Coulsdon_Town

lstar337 wrote: »

You are finding the same as me, only our assessment is done and was free.

Still, the whole document looks like it has been fiddled to make it look like double glazing doesn't pay. If that really is the case, then why was there such a push for them in the past!?

Like me, your windows are in bad condition, but the assessment doesn't take that into account. They use a very simplistic value for single glazed windows which obviously does not take into account poor windows like ours.

This put simply, means that the figures they quote for savings are much lower than they would be for you or I in reality.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cardew
'Push' is an appropriate term!

Double Glazing salesmen did the pushing to make commission.

The savings from double glazing are indeed low. Also after x years they 'blow' and the glass units need replacing.

It wasn't all salesmen pushing though, I remember all the council housing stock being compulsory upgraded. Somebody must have thought it was worthwhile.

Istar 337,
You've hit the nail on the head - green deal uses a simplified assessment called 'RdSAP' or Reduced data Standard Assessment Procedure, and it's a compromise at best.
Double glazing is often worthwhile, but not to the extent of paying for itself over the lifetime of the glazing, which means the green deal 'Golden Rule' can't work and you can't have a G.D. loan to do it on its own. But if at the same time you do high-saving work such as wall / loft insulation, the whole lot together could work as a G.D. package.
Re CARDEW, only sometimes do the units 'blow', and i've found that replacement of the glass 'sealed unit' is far cheaper than the original cost of the whole window so not that bad.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Agreed, Coulsdon Town .. .. ""Double glazing is often worthwhile, but not to the extent of paying for itself over the lifetime of the glazing""

My starting point is the UK-GOV has agreed a legally binding target of an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050. The GOV I]he who wants[/I target, is at odds with the I]he who pays[/I householder target. There have been constant rolling grant funded upgrades to the 'low hanging' insulation and double glazing all the way from 1996 to 2009/10 the name of the last one if my memory serves me well was the Affordable Warmth Programme. This 'low hanging' fruit has largely been picked with grant aid funding, leaving the harder to reach 31% of hard to treat and very considerably more expensive 'solid wall construction' desperate for retrofitting of the thermal performance of its 'fabric', see - #267 - to comply with the 80%/2050 the UK needs to be retrofitting one dwelling per minute, every single minute on minute.

All previous initiatives whether block initiatives of 500 dwellings by Housing Associations, or individual single one-off man in the street applications have been 'grant aided' with an 'inclusive and transparent % per £ carrot. In this scenario the 50%+ saving of double glazing was always an essential part of the carrot. This is no longer the case so translating the current Green Deal model to the street level improvement plans is now much harder. It was always the case in the pre-2012 model that one way or a~n~other the taxpayer and householder paid for any improvement under the current Green Deal' model this same scenario continues, however :

- the 50%+ saving from double glazing has been artificially reduced, its illogical to the householder - so its a lie
- the householder is forced into a debt agreement - it walks like and quacks - so is a lie
- the dwelling becomes unsaleable - so its 100% against what every one on this island has worked for - so is a lie
- the 7% interest [GDFC] charged for forcing the householder into a debt is unreasonably high - so is a lie
- 5% of the 7% goes to the industry doing the work, but that same work can be done locally for half the price - so is a lie
- the carrot is now all stick, the GOV camouflaged its CO2 emissions targets pre 2009/10, the Green Deal is now exposed - as a lie !

The GOV is saying to its people, you, in this time of megga austerity should pay your hard eared to assessors / installers / manufacturers and greedy bankers all this money, and we the GOV will benefit with better CO2 emissions, increased employment, increased profits for manufactures installers and bankers. Those who would benefit most from these improvements the disabled and poor of course will benefit least, the disabled and poor are being smashed into financial meltdown with a combination of cuts and restrictions on means tested and non-means tested benefits. The very people that could most benefit from the Green Deal are that very section of society that can't even consider the offer.

CaronR

We moved into a another house last August knowing that we would need a new boiler. The house was built in the 70's and still has the original boiler. We found out about the green deal last year and applied through British Gas hoping we could benefit from getting a new boiler fitted. We applied November last year and an assessor came round in January. We had to pay an upfront fee of £100 towards the energy performance certificate which was slightly annoying as we already had a copy of one from when the house was still for sale. Anyway the assessor said we would receive a report in about 4 weeks and then we could ring up to get someone round to give us a boiler quote and get the work done. We eventually got the report back which didn't seem accurate to us considering our boiler is over 30 years old and completely inefficient, the report suggested we could save around £170 per year which seemed a low figure considering the age of the boiler. Anyway on receipt of the report the letter said to call this number to take the next step towards getting the work installed, this was in February and we have called several times and keep getting fobbed off about the finance not being available from the government yet so we are stuck. We have also rang some other companies listed on the green deal scheme and they say the same thing. This is getting very frustrating, its like we have hit a brick wall. Why are British Gas doing the assessments and taking £100 off customers when the scheme is not even in place yet it seems. Anyone else having similar problems?