New Green Homes Grant to give up to £5,000 in vouchers for insulation and double-glazing

funkygal

@jonah46 thank you, appreciate your knowledge.
@empeters yes, the same thing happened to me, no email confirmation. 

philupnorth1964

Trustmare installers are a rip off I was quoted £1280 to do my loft & I measured it myself & I need £98 worth of insulation from Wickes so they want £1182 labour charge

philupnorth1964

You have to pay 1/3 of the cost. I was quoted £1280 for my loft 7.5m x 5m so I would have to pay £426. I bought the insulation I need to do it myself for £98 from Wickes so beware they installation companies are a ripoff

A1ps

My gosh! I've just read through the 7 pages since I was last on here and my head hurts. 

If I've read correctly, in order to be eligible for most jobs such as heating and double glazing, you must also sort out insulation of walls and floors? If so, that does make a whole load of sense. 

My house was built sometime between 2001 and 2003 - would I be eligible? I need to insulate the walls (which are timber framed with a serious lack of wool insulation) with cellotex or kingspan type insulation. I also need new double glazing. 

Currently, in 2 rooms of the house, in winter even with the heating set to 24 these 2 rooms struggle to reach anything higher than 20 degrees. These rooms are like something out of a horror film! I just can't suss out whether it's the wall insulation or windows. 

I also need to find the time to fully look into this scheme and find the traders. It all seems like an absolute minefield! 

bobfredbob

If your rooms don't reach the temperature then perhaps your radiators are not adequately sized?  Or your boiler is turned down too low.

We replaced our radiators with ones from screwfix.  Search "type 22" on screwfix and there are ones with double panels and double fins that pump out a lot more heat.  Then search online for a "btu room calculator" and you pop in your room measurements and it tells you how much heat you need in BTUs or watts and you can compare that against the radiator specs.  For boiler, in winter, many people mistakenly leave it at a low "eco" setting all year round, but if your radiators are too small then you may need to turn it up higher or even max.  Your house should be able to get warm with that insulation you have.

We were pleased with the higher spec radiators: same size as the old one but a lot more heat.

(I'm assuming you've done the obvious things like bleed the radiators and have the radiator valves (TRVs) set correctly).

PieCake

I just enquired about getting my 30 year old boiler replaced with a ground source or air source pump. these would cost between 15k and 20k . the max grant i could get would only be 10k and some of that would have to be used on insulation. The money i saves on bill would take 20 years to recoup the expense of installation. The installer said I'm better off just getting a combi boiler and paying for it myself. These low carbon footprint heating solutions are just too expensive and i don't see how anyone can benefit from this scheme.

Lauraine87

So upset with this scheme
Worked my bum off to move out of my parents house before I was 30 and buy my own home, a 3 story 2 bed cottage which is desperate for room in room insulation.
Gov website says no installers in Cornwall. My closest is one in Plymouth then next 2 in Wales!
All installers inundated with requests. 
What a joke. Given up hope after 24hrs

A1ps

bobfredbob said:

If your rooms don't reach the temperature then perhaps your radiators are not adequately sized?  Or your boiler is turned down too low.

We replaced our radiators with ones from screwfix.  Search "type 22" on screwfix and there are ones with double panels and double fins that pump out a lot more heat.  Then search online for a "btu room calculator" and you pop in your room measurements and it tells you how much heat you need in BTUs or watts and you can compare that against the radiator specs.  For boiler, in winter, many people mistakenly leave it at a low "eco" setting all year round, but if your radiators are too small then you may need to turn it up higher or even max.  Your house should be able to get warm with that insulation you have.

We were pleased with the higher spec radiators: same size as the old one but a lot more heat.

(I'm assuming you've done the obvious things like bleed the radiators and have the radiator valves (TRVs) set correctly).

Hi Bob, thank you for such a helpful reply. 

I've got a five year old almost top-of-the-range Valiant boiler, so that definitely isn't the issue. I will definitely using your tips to see what I might need too.

The current scenario in my house is this: My room and my kids room have outward facing walls (there is no house directly next door). And it is these 2 rooms that have the issue of not heating up. And even weirder is this - when my room is at an OKish temperature (but still very cold) the kids room is absolutely freezing. But if their's is at an OKish temperature (but still freezing), then my room is freezing. Hope that makes sense! 

I had a plumber round a few months ago who was servicing the boiler and when he walked in to have a look at the issue his words were "b;**dy hell. You weren't exaggerating were you. Feels like no one lives in this room"! He checked the radiators and couldn't see any issue. Although he did say that maybe my room could do with a slightly bigger radiator. His thoughts were that it was to do with lack of insulation in the walls. 

SkintDarkknight

KerryJB72 said:

I've seen several posts about people struggling to get in touch with companies, so was dreading trying to call, especially as there was only one within reasonable distance. But, got through, they've taken details to check with DWP, said that will be back in 4 working days, then will call to arrange appointment to quote on Wednesday. They said they'd been crazy busy with requests, but were set up ready to go. So definitely seems to be quite different across the UK!

May I ask what part of the country are you?

kuepper

Farcical. Underfloor insulation would be my primary item with energy efficient doors as my secondary. Underfloor insulation isn't listed as a trade at Trustmark so I've spent a couple of hours going through trades/firms. None of the Trustmark firms within 20 miles of me has any reviews so I'd be wary, 2 of them said they weren't interested, 1 said they'd never heard of the scheme, 1 said I wasn't eligible as I wasn't on benefits, and 3 others said they'd send me a quote - without even visiting! I phoned the Simple Energy Advice to see if I could just get a Trustmark general builder to quote and they said no, it has to be a firm who are licensed to do the particular work  even though what I want doing is straightforward general building type work