Green Deal MSE Guide Discussion

Redemlyn

Hi does anyone know if you can benefit from the green deal if you have a minuscule Cobb grade 2 listed home? It's cold in winter but have no access to gas or mains sewage (the last probably doesn't count but I put it in anyway). Heating is by wood/coal, which is getting ridiculously expensive, and has to be rationed at times. I have electric heaters but they are too expensive to use.
Because of the listing I am not allowed double glazing or solar panels on the roof. I am not sure if you can insulate Cobb walls?

John_Pierpoint

Is the roof thatch?
How thick are the walls?
Would the electric heating be economy 7 ?
You could get away with this sort of double glazing as it just sticks on. Special cutting for seriously out of square windows can get expensive though.
http://www.magneglaze.co.uk/index.php

It is looking like there might be a glut of ash logs to burn soon?! :eek:

radiofan

NaughtySpot wrote: »

We have our Green Deal assessment this week, booked through British Gas at a cost of £99.

When I booked this I was quite positive about this, but it has had a real slating in the press in the last 10 days

We live in a large three-bed semi with single pane windows front and side, and a 20+ year old boiler. We are on a service contract for the boiler so I don't worry about repairs, but I am aware it's probably far from economical to run. My old house was much smaller with a new boiler so I'm not sure how much a new boiler will reduce energy costs.

Our windows are very draughty and are a condensation problem unless I put the cling film on them. It does help with the draughts, but they are still there when compared to the double glazed units at the back.

Cavity wall and loft insulation was done 3 years ago.

We are unlikely to ever have the cash to do all these things in one go, so this could be a golden opportunity to get the house more efficient. This is our forever home unless Bad Things happen, so the loan attached to house part doesn't concern me.

I am very interested to see what this assessment yields as when we bought the house these home reports weren't being done.

I will post again when the assessment has been done with my thoughts and hopefully will have more facts to share.

Have had British Gas assessment went all OK but when I got the report back it works out that I would have to pay towards a new boiler that we need as we are not on any benefits, and as I do not have the money it seems that I will not benefit from any of the Governments great plan !!!!

Coulsdon_Town

Hi John,

There were reasons for exaggeration under that CERT scheme but i don't think it directly boosted the 'surveyor's' income. I did a lot of loft surveys last year and a few for cavity walls. The scheme allowed a maximum square meterage for a property with a given number of bedrooms, and also different amounts if it was terraced, detached or a flat etc. This is a crude method and not every 3-bed semi say, would get the whole loft covered. The householder had to pay for the excess even if they qualified for the basic job to be free. Some householders would therefore turn down the whole job, so the temptation for the surveyor was to add an extra bedroom to boost the allowance of free (or subsidised) insulation. If the whole job was lost the surveyor would probably receive nil payment for going there.
As for walls, similar allowances applied, so you might add a bedroom. However if the area was comfrtably within the allowance you might not bother measuring accurately. This could mean the installing team would run out of material i guess, but i can't think of any other problem - i'm not aware that the funding actually recorded square metres insulated although it may have done. Correct me if i'm wrong anyone?

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

Ofgem to investigate energy firms for missing home efficiency targets

Regulator to look at why British Gas, SSE and Scottish Power failed to reach carbon reduction targets

UK energy firms have not fully met their efficiency goals under the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target scheme. [Photograph: Heatseekers].

British Gas, SSE and Scottish Power are among six energy firms to be investigated by the energy regulator Ofgem after failing to deliver enough energy efficiency measures to UK households.
Under the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (Cert), legislation which was in place until the end of 2012, the big six energy companies had to introduce measures such as installing insulation or switching a household's heating fuel from oil to gas to help reduce UK carbon emissions.
Under a separate smaller scheme, the Community Energy Saving Programme (CESP), the same suppliers had to deliver more complex energy saving measures to people in the most deprived areas of the country.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2013/may/01/ofgem-investigate-energy-firms-missing-efficiency-targets

Now we know why there was a "gold rush" of "free" insulation last autumn. I remonstrated with my installer about over egging on the size of my property - Would I be right that he was being paid by the dimensions insulated on the paperwork and no "surveyor" bothers to measure the size of the windows, when insulating the cavity walls?

Thursday 30 August 2012 15.15 BST:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/blog/2012/aug/30/free-loft-insulation-british-gas

bluesky09

Hi everyone, I've setup this website to help filter out the good green deal companies from the bad ones - if anyone has had a green deal assessment done or used a provider or installer could you please review them on our site- this would really help people in the future in a similar position to you once were.. The website is greendeal-compare.co.uk If you can't find the company you used please email info@greendeal-compare.co.uk and we will try and get them on the site. Cheers, Ross!

Richie-from-the-Boro

bluesky09 wrote: »

Hi everyone, I've setup this website to help filter out the good green deal companies from the bad ones - if anyone has had a green deal assessment done or used a provider or installer could you please review them on our site- this would really help people in the future in a similar position to you once were.. The website is spam.co.uk If you can't find the company you used please email info@spam.co.uk and we will try and get them on the site. Cheers, Ross - the spammer!

- spam - using Martins site to make referral money from forum users
- its against forum / Moneysupermarket's rules Ross

John_Pierpoint

May be spam but it might be useful:

http://greendeal-compare.co.uk/news

Anyone with capital will not clog up the legal situation on their house at the time of sale with surcharges on the electricity bill - they will use their own capital. Why make banks rich?

So now we have a big question mark over the integrity of the "captured" so called assessor/surveyor, who might be getting £50 for the "free" report?

He who pays the piper calls the tune.

Richie-from-the-Boro

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

May be spam but it might be useful:

http://spam.co.uk/news

Anyone with capital will not clog up the legal situation on their house at the time of sale with surcharges on the electricity bill - they will use their own capital. Why make banks rich?

So now we have a big question mark over the integrity of the "captured" so called assessor/surveyor, who might be getting £50 for the "free" report?

He who pays the piper calls the tune.

- you've just re-spammed for the spammer, you could have made your comment without re-posting the URL

Green Deal Compare, is a trading name of Dreamchaser Limited, their stated aim is to "advertise and promote businesses through the Website in specified categories of Green Deal trade in specified geographical areas. There's nothing wrong with their 'aims' as such - that's their business model, using Martins site however for self-promotion of another site is as you know against the Forum rules and exactly the reason newbies are not allowed to post URL's, there is also a potentially direct conflict in competition to Moneysupermarket for the 'compare' provision.

Every single click on the site is to book a 'paid for service' after collecting your personal details. Its a click for pay service .. .. piggy-backing the MSE forum for business. Why don't you look and see for yourself. Other parts of the site are even more exciting, you can buy bamboo trainer socks, or a brolly to protect your washing line, or other 'green gifts'. Essentially the site captures personal info or sells you things for money.

Coulsdon_Town

johnnyhardcore wrote: »

Has anyone had any experience with "One Green Place"? I was trying to get some information/an assessment booked with them back in March and they couldnt have been harder to deal with. Messages unreturned, promises for callbacks not reliable etc. Nice people but I have just given up on it.

We were hoping to use this to get very out of date/problematic/drafty metal frame DG windows and doors replaced (also hoping to make the house look nicer to boot) but from comments in this thread it seems DG isnt worth doing on GD???

Sorry if I have missed comments in the thread covering what I'm asking. Some of the posts are a bit "Wall of Text" or indecipherable to me.

Can't help about One Green Place except to say that green deal seems to be a mess, and this may be why lots of businesses are behaving like that - it may even be beyond their control at the moment.
I wouldn't say DG 'isn't worth doing under green deal', but the scheme just couldn't do it, because there's no way the GD 'golden rule' would be met - the energy savings wouldn't be big enough to offset the high cost of DG (plus the interest). This means that after the new DG your energy bill plus repayments would be higher than you energy bill was before the new DG. There's nothing stopping you making that choice, except that the GD scheme isn't designed, or allowed, to let you make that choice. The way you might be able to do your glazing under GD is if you also need loft and/or cavity wall insulation work. This has a far lower cost for the energy savings, so if you have a GD package of both insulation and DG, the sums may add up as per the 'golden rule'. (If your house has solid walls rather than cavity, they can be insulated but the cost is high, so i don't think you could use that to 'leverage' your DG work under green deal).
Some on here say DG isn't worth doing, end of. I think you need to decide if that point of view is based on more than the facts that DG is usually overpriced (but seems to be negotiable) and that the benefits can be exaggerated by DG salesmen. I've heard of DG being haggled down from £16,000 to nearer £3,000!

Cardew

Coulsdon_Town wrote: »

Some on here say DG isn't worth doing, end of. I think you need to decide if that point of view is based on more than the facts that DG is usually overpriced (but seems to be negotiable) and that the benefits can be exaggerated by DG salesmen. I've heard of DG being haggled down from £16,000 to nearer £3,000!

Agreed, I don't think I have seen any responsible organisation claim DG is an economic proposition.

Another aspect of DG that gets little mention is the long term cost when the DG units start to 'blow' as they inevitable will.

I had my house built 25 years ago and after a lot of research specified the what was considered to be the best on the market with hardwood frames.

After about 20 years the odd unit needed replacement and I have spent several hundred pounds already on replacements with, inevitably, more expence to come.

Friends of mine have had units from the 'popular' DG firms blow after 6/7 years. In an annex of mine, a large Velux window needed replacement after about 10 years.

In retrospect I suspect that fitting thick single plate toughened glass would have been the better long term proposition.