Poor Green Deal Advise??

[Deleted User]

I live in a solid walled property, built in 1902 with 100mm of loft insulation. I had gas installed to the property last year and paid to have central heating, including a new combi boiler.

An accredited green deal assessor (who works for a provider/installer) came to my home this morning to carry out a free assessment. He told me that it was not worth him carrying out the assessment as I had a new boiler installed and that any measures he suggested including installing solid wall insulation would not be covered by the green deal as savings would not outweigh the installation costs.

He also told me that as I have over 50mm of loft insulation, I would not be eligible for a top up.

I asked about the ECO (energy company obligation) as I was under the impression that to be eligible, you needed to belong to one of the following groups:
1. - low income household
2. - living in a deprived area
3. - living in a 'hard to treat' property (which I thought mine was)

He told me that the ECO was means tested, even for solid wall insulation (although I'm sure I read that it wasn't). I phoned another assessor, who's number I got from a friend and he told me the same thing (although he also told me that he had been trained and used to work for the same company as the first assessor). The assessor who came to my property actually said "this green deal scheme is rubbish really, it's not worth bothering with".

Can anyone tell me if the information I was given is correct, as I'm on a relatively low income (£19000 and supporting a wife and 3 kids) and I'd like to try and get funding for solid wall insulation. There was no mention of anything else i.e. solar panels, wind turbines, floor insulation, etc.

I'm disappointed with my initial experiences of the scheme to say the least. I don't really want to pay for an assessment if the advise I get next time is similar to this so don't know what to do now. Thanks.

Fire_Fox

Have you seen the MSE article?
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/green-deal

Johnandabby

And speak to the Energy Saving Trust about the ECO eligibility. Unfortunately there is still so much confusion over it all.

I'm surprised that external wall insulation wouldn't be eligible under the Green Deal, but ironically that may be due to you having paid out for gas and a new boiler, and being too efficient!

rogerblack

The golden rule means that savings have to be paid back out of reduced energy costs (perhaps after the grant element of up to 50% kicks in)
If you have 10K of work done, then your savings would need to be around 1200 (assuming it's repaid over a 14 year term as I understand is possible with larger loans).

This would mean you would need to be spending over 2400 on energy per year, and are assessed that solid wall insulation would halve your bills.

Ecodave

Hi Deleted_User,

You seem to have been given some pretty poor advice. You clearly have done some homework on the scheme, so this must be particularly frustrating for you. Are you sure the individuals that you have dealt with we're qualified GDA's?

Solid wall insulation is not targeted at any particular group, its available to anyone with a solid wall. It may be that the energy companies are currently focussing their attention on projects that deliver more substantial 'carbon saving' returns, and are reluctant to deal with individual householders who wish to just have a solid wall insulated.

I would press on with getting assessed. Your EPC would state a recommendation for SWI, and a Green Deal Advice Report would have this as the no.1 recommendation. If, subsequently, you can't get a Green Deal Provider to provide a quote or the work, I would then be contacting my MP to ask what was going on.

Ecodave

rogerblack wrote: »

The golden rule means that savings have to be paid back out of reduced energy costs (perhaps after the grant element of up to 50% kicks in)
If you have 10K of work done, then your savings would need to be around 1200 (assuming it's repaid over a 14 year term as I understand is possible with larger loans).

This would mean you would need to be spending over 2400 on energy per year, and are assessed that solid wall insulation would halve your bills.

The Golden Rule won't come into the equation in this instance, as ECO funding is designed to step in in circumstances where measures such as SWI don't meet the Golden Rule. So, however much is required to be grant funded to make the Golden Rule work, then this needs to be made available.

rogerblack

Ecodave wrote: »

The Golden Rule won't come into the equation in this instance, as ECO funding is designed to step in in circumstances where measures such as SWI don't meet the Golden Rule. So, however much is required to be grant funded to make the Golden Rule work, then this needs to be made available.

Ah. I thought that the grant was a maximum of half the cost of the measures - am I thinking of some other aspect - or have I gotten the completely wrong end of the stick.

monstereyebrows

Moneysaver here goes Just to confirm to all I am not a SALESMAN I said I would not post but have decided to answer your question.

Everyone with a solid wall property is eligable for ECO funding (even if you dont receive benifits)

How it works is the Green Deal Assessor carries out an assessment on your property called an EPC when completed a calculation is done to find out what carbon saving you make per year lets say 1 tonne that is times by the lifetime of the wall insulation (36 years) therefore the lifetime carbon saving for EWI would be 36 tonnes this is then x by the value of carbon (what a utility pays for carbon) say £100 per tonne.

So 36 x £100= £3600. Therefore ECO funding will give you a contribution of £3600 to have your external wall insulation. So lets say it cost £7000 there is a short fall of £3400 you can either pay the £3400 from your back pocket or you can fund it by taking out a Green Loan and pay back £3400 plus interest for a period upto the lifetime of EWI (36 years or could be less) In addition if you took it now you would also get £650 cashback as an early adoptor of the Scheme reducing loan to £2750.

Now you still have to meet the golden rule ie your repayments must be be equal or less than the saving you are making in energy. Lets say the estimate energy saving for EWI was £250 per year therefore to meet the golden rule (payments equal or less than saving) you could have a loan from one Green Deal Provider say 20 yrs at £21 per month added to your elecric bill another Green Deal provider may give 30yrs at £16 per month in the second example you would pay 12 x £16 = £198 year repayment therefore you would save at least £52 in first year but remember as fuel costs rise your saving would be greater say in 5 years you may save £100 per year (rising from £52 due to energy cost rise) the Green Deal loan would stay at £198 per year. But also remember its not just about saving its about making your home comfortable!

Just to add if your property was electric heating your carbon saving would be higher and in some cases the value of your lifetime carbon may be more than the cost of EWI you then would get it free (and no requirement for you to benifits to be free).

This ECO funding is available to everyone so long as you can find a Green Deal Provider that has been given funding on this scheme.

Finally you said that Green Deal Advisors have told you cannot have this funding or its not worth it. This is not the case they do not understand ECO funding. I am working with 8 Green Deal Advisors and they dont understand it I am trying to educate them.

Sorry its complicated but hope it makes sense.

[Deleted User]

Thanks to everyone for their input. Thanks monstereyebrows, you've cleared up a lot of questions I might have had. Think I'll probably crack on and get an assessment done if I can find a better assessor.

It's a shame that the assessors I have come across so far seem to have such a poor knowledge of the funding available from these schemes. They were all certified GDAs. Hopefully standards will improve as this scheme goes on.

rogerblack

monstereyebrows wrote: »

Moneysaver here goes Just to confirm to all I am not a SALESMAN I said I would not post but have decided to answer your question.

It's all so simple when explained like that!
(Not really, but I think I get the basics, and thanks for the effort!)
I don't suppose there is anywhere a nice tool which lets you compute what you may be eligible for?

Ecodave

I am sure if you google the subject you would find something, or if you have access to apples AppStore, you could get the Stroma app which is a free trial version of the app that a GDA would use. I think you get a week to play around on it before you must register as a GDA with them. This will allow you to produce a dummy EPC for your home, and should generate accurate recommendations, subject to you inputting all the data correctly.