Great 'Your Green Deal Tips - was it worth it?' Hunt

simondot_2

Was it worth it?? NO!!! What a waste of time and money!

I applied for an assessment after reading about the GD when it launched. I was mainly interested in replacing my F-Rated (borderline G rated) gas CH boiler which is starting to show its age. I'd already done some quick maths to see how much i could potentially save by upgrading to a new condensing unit and was pretty sure that if the green deal was as good as it appears to be would in theory work out.

Paid for an assessment with british gas and after waiting 6 weeks finally got an appointment. The assessor probably spent about 20 mins in the house rushing round taking photos and filling in a form, far from the 2 hours BG had advised but hey.

Report came though and guess what replacement boiler wouldn't qualify for green deal which seems bizarre to me given the saving that could be made. In fact hardly anything qualified apart from draft-proofing.

So i've put that down to bad experience and gone to plan b which now looks like i'll finance (at a lower APR) and get payback within 6 years.

mac2008

I heard that stats were coming, but obviously DECC held off until the spending review in order to try to hide the bad news:

"A flagship government scheme to make homes more energy-efficient has still not resulted in any actual home improvements.

The Green Deal, which was launched six months ago, was designed to provide measures such as home insulation.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said just four households have "pending" green deal plans."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23081896

What an utter disgrace. Steady increase eh? That would imply 4 more households in the next six months...probably not far off the mark.

ilikewatch

I have found the whole thing to be a complete waste of time, after 3 months of delays, missed assessment appointments and rescheduled assessment appointments; a very nice British Gas assessor came round and did the assessment. I really wanted some help getting my large single glazed rotten wood windows replaced, however instead the report recommended replacing my relatively new, efficient Vaillant boiler instead...

mac2008

ilikewatch wrote: »

I have found the whole thing to be a complete waste of time, after 3 months of delays, missed assessment appointments and rescheduled assessment appointments; a very nice British Gas assessor came round and did the assessment. I really wanted some help getting my large single glazed rotten wood windows replaced, however instead the report recommended replacing my relatively new, efficient Vaillant boiler instead...

This was, of course, nothing to do with the fact BG don't supply double glazing but do supply boilers...

Deee1

Hi,

I paid for a local company to do my assessment as they were advertised as doing the assessment and then selecting the deals for me to choose from. This was again repeated by the assessor.

My boiler is 35 years old yet does not qualify for funding, how is that? What does then get funding?

The firm are now saying they don't do anything more than the assessment and never stated anything else.

I looked at the green deal site yesterday and now there are no providers for my postcode, so what exactly is the point if nothing is available?

Waste of time and money, avoid!!!

rogerblack

Deee1 wrote: »

My boiler is 35 years old yet does not qualify for funding, how is that?

The guiding principle is 'the golden rule' - will savings made be able to pay off the green deal loan.

For almost all boilers - the answer is no.
The savings of all but the most inefficient boilers in the highest demand homes do not pay off.

zeupater

rogerblack wrote: »

The guiding principle is 'the golden rule' - will savings made be able to pay off the green deal loan.

For almost all boilers - the answer is no.
The savings of all but the most inefficient boilers in the highest demand homes do not pay off.

Hi Roger

If the average household uses ~16500kWh per year (source - http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Media/FactSheets/Documents1/domestic%20energy%20consump%20fig%20FS.pdf ), then raising the conversion efficiency of a 35year old boiler from a realistic ~60%(max) efficiency to somewhere around 90% would save in the region of 5000kWh(30%*16500) per year, which at say 4p/kWh seasonal average would represent annual average savings of around £200(5000*0.04).

Realistically, a boiler exchange should cost no more than £2000, even if there is a substantial amount of work to do (we replaced a substantial floor standing >30kWh boiler with a wall mounted A rated condensing unit a couple of years ago which included modified pipe runs, bypass circuit, brickwork etc. and paid far less than £2k !), therefore, the 'golden rule' should certainly repay over a 10year period as long as the scheme registered installers were not greedy and the scheme finance was low or even interest free ... this is exactly why the scheme is failing, it's not that people don't want to make improvements, it's the scheme design (who'd have thought it !), the expected scheme margins from consumers, coupled with unnecessarily high scheme finance rates .... a 'government supported' enhanced margin to all involved in the supply & finance chains then ...

In summary, both the 'Green Deal' and the 'golden rule' works, but the inherent greed of those tasked with managing the scheme has throttled the scheme .... another case of incompetent public sector employees being driven down a path by a competent private sector driven by vested interests .... the solution then is to sack (yes sack, not promote, move aside or make redundant) the obviously incompetent individuals involved, then tweak and re-launch the scheme based on an aggregated managed contract commercial basis, which includes the finance rates .... it's really astounding that no-one has considered the 'economies of scale' which would apply to a developer should also apply to individual improvements made under this scheme ...

HTH
Z

Deee1

zeupater wrote: »

Hi Roger

If the average household uses ~16500kWh per year (source - http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Media/FactSheets/Documents1/domestic%20energy%20consump%20fig%20FS.pdf ), then raising the conversion efficiency of a 35year old boiler from a realistic ~60%(max) efficiency to somewhere around 90% would save in the region of 5000kWh(30%*16500) per year, which at say 4p/kWh seasonal average would represent annual average savings of around £200(5000*0.04).

Realistically, a boiler exchange should cost no more than £2000, even if there is a substantial amount of work to do (we replaced a substantial floor standing >30kWh boiler with a wall mounted A rated condensing unit a couple of years ago which included modified pipe runs, bypass circuit, brickwork etc. and paid far less than £2k !), therefore, the 'golden rule' should certainly repay over a 10year period as long as the scheme registered installers were not greedy and the scheme finance was low or even interest free ... this is exactly why the scheme is failing, it's not that people don't want to make improvements, it's the scheme design (who'd have thought it !), the expected scheme margins from consumers, coupled with unnecessarily high scheme finance rates .... a 'government supported' enhanced margin to all involved in the supply & finance chains then ...

In summary, both the 'Green Deal' and the 'golden rule' works, but the inherent greed of those tasked with managing the scheme has throttled the scheme .... another case of incompetent public sector employees being driven down a path by a competent private sector driven by vested interests .... the solution then is to sack (yes sack, not promote, move aside or make redundant) the obviously incompetent individuals involved, then tweak and re-launch the scheme based on an aggregated managed contract commercial basis, which includes the finance rates .... it's really astounding that no-one has considered the 'economies of scale' which would apply to a developer should also apply to individual improvements made under this scheme ...

HTH
Z

Thanks for the link but do you have any regarding oil boilers, we have no mains gas here.

Thanks

zeupater

Deee1 wrote: »

Thanks for the link but do you have any regarding oil boilers, we have no mains gas here.

Thanks

Hi

Don't know much about oil heating or your own requirements, but have an idea that a Worcester oil boiler equivalent to our gas unit would have cost around £1k more when we were looking to buy, therefore assuming that your oil store etc doesn't also need replacing then I'd guess a budget to work on as being about £3k(ish). With an oil price around 7p/kWh (? depending on when you buy etc.) then the savings, based on the same efficiencies/usage etc , would reasonably be expected to be around £350(5000*0.07), so a slightly better payback of 8.5years(3000/350) oil as opposed to 10years(2000/200) for gas .... take the 'Green Deal's' amortised ~8% finance or considerably higher installation costs into account and, as Roger correctly highlighted, it's not even worth considering from a purely financial point of view ....

Lower cost finance (/savings at current poor returns ?) and serious price negotiation would make a difference, but that would be well outside the 'Green Deal' remit .

HTH
Z

jpfbov

Sorry first post and its a bit of a rant.

I was interested in the replacement boiler, as the rest of the house is pretty good, and we have an ugly back boiler. I did some quick sums using the SEDBUK website and it predicted savings of around 20% on my 70% rated boiler.

Thinking based on my gas bill I would save around £20 a month this would cover the majority of the costs based on a 12 year loan. So I called British Gas as thinking they would have an interest in a replacement boiler job if the numbers worked. I had 4 quotes for replacement boilers before the survey so I knew roughly how much it would cost,3 from green deal suppliers.

The chap came out and didnt spend too long in the house, and couldnt be bothered to work out my figures as the bills were across two suppliers and different amounts so he guestimated based on my annual costs and said he expected £15 a month savings. less than I expected but thought ohh well somewhere near to my estimate.

6 weeks passed no report, chased said they would look into it, nothing, chased again , they then tell me the report is available on line and always has been. Why the assessor didnt tell me this I dont know, they said they would get the report mailed to me as well. Well I viweded the report which said I would save £9 a month by going from a 70% efficent boiler to a 90% efficent boiler, so 20% gets you £9. I asked to speak to the assessor as this was not waht he said, after two chased calls he finally phoned and could not explain how a 20% more efficent boiler could only save me 11% in bills. He tried to say that if i implemented all his recomendatinos then the boiler saving isnt as much, however his recomendations could only save me £155 a year, so I said if I replace the boiler the SEDBUK says I can save 25% somewhere in the region of £200-£300 but if i implement all his recomendations at more expense i can only save £155. He was talking nonsense. He could not explain how after entering the details in his software a 20% more efficent boiler can only save me 11%. He said this is a DECC supplied software package and he just enters the number, in other words 'computer says no' he did not have a clue, and said no one at british gas would. I should have known this was hogwash and stayed well clear. He said I could still access finance but the most I could get over 12 years would be around £1000. The quote from British as for a new boiler was £2500, a local plumber quoted me for the same work £1500. Why would i pay British Gas £1500 and then finance £1000 over 12 years when I could just pay £1500. If my savings are only £9 a month as he says then it would take 25 years or so to pay for the boiler and if the boiler lasted 25 years I'd be quids in:j. Think I'll be sticking with my ugly back boiler.