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

Zanderman

delmonta said:

I got my vouchers! I applied in the first few minutes, called so many times, complained, sent numerous quotes and IDs as they asked for extra stuff. Then my installer pulled out, had to find another one a week or so ago. 

I sent a very strongly worded email with my new quote to GHG, saying my local MP will get involved and I am looking into taking legal action. I dont know if this had anything to do with it, but got my vouchers today

1 for EWI and 1 for IWI. 

What a huge relief. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get either. Good luck to everyone waiting, what a nightmare

Well done! 
A complete contrast to my experience with them today, two phone calls plus an email exchange, all of which were utterly ludicrous and stunningly unproductive.  I won't bore you with the details (and I'm still too cross to write anything polite) but basically these people don't know their xxxx from their elbow!  .

Cb_man1

delmonta said:

I got my vouchers! I applied in the first few minutes, called so many times, complained, sent numerous quotes and IDs as they asked for extra stuff. Then my installer pulled out, had to find another one a week or so ago. 

I sent a very strongly worded email with my new quote to GHG, saying my local MP will get involved and I am looking into taking legal action. I dont know if this had anything to do with it, but got my vouchers today

1 for EWI and 1 for IWI. 

What a huge relief. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get either. Good luck to everyone waiting, what a nightmare

Well done !!  You got there in the end congrats 😃

A1ps

tek-monkey said:

A1ps said:

I've just been reading up on the absolute ridiculousness of this entire scheme and those who run it. Is it surprising? No. Was it expected? Yes. What am I going to do about it? Try and get my insulation done before it's too late! And this is where I need your help please guys. 

I have the oddest of things in my house. It's a timber frame build, built in 2003, It has 4 bedrooms. But 2 of the rooms just do not seem to heat up in winter. If one of those rooms heats up, the other is cold. If that other heats up, the first one is cold! The rest of the rooms and house are fine though! 

I have underfloor heating on the ground floor, which is fine. It;s just on the first floor and those 2 bedrooms where the issue is. 

In order to heat of the cold rooms, I need to set my thermostat to 3 - 4 degrees higher. So, if I want the cold rooms to each 21 degrees, I set the stat in the hallway to 24 degrees. Ouch, that hurts the gas bill. 

Can anyone please offer me some advice? As it's a new build (albeit, built by an independent) I doubt it could be the wall insulation. If it is, I'm in trouble! I've check the double glazing and the seals and they all seem to be ok. There are no drafts anywhere to be found. I even shut the vents on the windows, but that made no difference at all. 
Totally baffled. Maybe the place is haunted!!! In which case, i don't need insulation but an exorcist........

So both will heat up, but not at the same time?  And if you turn up the stat for the whole house you can get both warm?  I'm guessing those two rooms are next to each other?  If you turn off the radiator in one does the other then heat just like the rest in the house?

I'm not a heating engineer, just a geek with bluetooth thermometers in every room as I have a very poor heating system!  I'd guess that the cold rooms are on the end of your heating system, and the thermostat is near a heat source at the start, so that by the time the stat gets to the right temperature the boiler hasn't pushed enough hot water around yet to reach the last radiators.  Try turning down the radiator in the room you have the thermostat.

EDIT:  Just realised you have underfloor heating too, and I'm guessing in the room with the thermostat?  If your UFH is already on then the boiler has to do little work to raise the temperature to the level of your thermostat. 

Hi Tek-monkey thank you for your reply. 

My underfloor heating is only on the ground floor and it has 3 stats which control the living room, kitchen and hallway. It’s great and only comes on first thing I the morning and the house remains warm for the rest of the day. 

The first floor and second floor have rads with one stat controlling all of them. The 2 cold rooms aren’t together. One is at the front of the house and the other at the back of the house. The room at the back of the house has another room next to it, which heats up perfectly. The rads do heat up well, but the rad in the room at the back of the house is the last to fully heat up. The room next to it heats up quickly. 

I actually did turn down  rad in the hallway with the theory that if it’s low the temperature on the stat will remain low thus allowing the colder rooms to heat up. Alas this didn’t work. I even turned up the heat for the rads on the boiler itself - I think to 65 degrees. 

I did consider your idea of different tado stats in the upstairs rooms. Set the hallway stat to 20. And the colder rooms to 21. But before that I want to suss out why these rooms are so blooming cold!

A1ps

Zanderman said:

A1ps said:

.....Can anyone please offer me some advice? As it's a new build (albeit, built by an independent) I doubt it could be the wall insulation. If it is, I'm in trouble! I've check the double glazing and the seals and they all seem to be ok. There are no drafts anywhere to be found. I even shut the vents on the windows, but that made no difference at all. 
Totally baffled. Maybe the place is haunted!!! In which case, i don't need insulation but an exorcist........

From your description it sounds like a problem with the radiators in those rooms as suggested by tek-monkey above.  And/or with the thermostat being affected by the UFH downstairs.  Maybe fiddling with the balancing of the radiators throughout upstairs would help -  I assume, if it's recent build, that they all have stats on them?

And, getting back to the thread subject, I really doubt there's a problem with your wall insulation on a 2003 build so I doubt the Green Homes Grant Scheme can help. The only obvious option, under the GHG, would be loft insulation.  Which may help solve the problem in your cold rooms upstairs.  But a 2003 build may already have 270mm insulation (as that standard came in about then) in which case I don't think you'll get any more.  

Hi zanderman, thank you for the advice. I also thought the UFH could be affecting the stat In the hallway. But the thing which confuses me is why one room heats up well but the other remains cold and vice versa. When one is hot the other is cold. And when the other is hot the other one is cold! 

My loft was always a room from when the house was a built. So never was a lot. And even that room is warmer than the 2 exorcist  rooms! 

My new build was built by a cowboy from what the neighbours told me. It was rented out for 10 years before I bought it. He built a mirror image house next door. One day the neighbours were getting some work done in their garden. The workman digging hit an electric cable which threw him across the garden. The builder handnt put the cabling as low down as it should’ve been. 

delmonta

Zanderman said:

delmonta said:

I got my vouchers! I applied in the first few minutes, called so many times, complained, sent numerous quotes and IDs as they asked for extra stuff. Then my installer pulled out, had to find another one a week or so ago. 

I sent a very strongly worded email with my new quote to GHG, saying my local MP will get involved and I am looking into taking legal action. I dont know if this had anything to do with it, but got my vouchers today

1 for EWI and 1 for IWI. 

What a huge relief. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get either. Good luck to everyone waiting, what a nightmare

Well done! 
A complete contrast to my experience with them today, two phone calls plus an email exchange, all of which were utterly ludicrous and stunningly unproductive.  I won't bore you with the details (and I'm still too cross to write anything polite) but basically these people don't know their xxxx from their elbow!  .

Ah sorry to hear that. Well it seems that even if they pull the scheme, it won't be until April, so you have over a month and if you have a valid application, it seems things are speeding up now. The pressure has been on them to sort it out I think. Phoning is useless, those people can't help. But putting things in writing may help

Good luck, report back

MP129

Everyone, please be wary of cavity wall insulation. I nearly fell for it, then I looked it up online. The cavity is there for a very good reason - damp proofing. If you fill the cavity it's only a matter of time before your house has a damp problem. Apparently the insurance industry is braced for this to be the next PPI disaster...

tryingtogetmyheadaround

Can anyone give me an idea.
As I never get any straight info from them, I have to chase a couple of times a week! As I never seem to get told about the info that is required.
I sent a quote in to be told it was too high and it need more detail, so I had this done. I then got told I need other quotes as its so high. I then gave 2 more quotes.
Been told over the phone they have them and has been approved its just waiting on a auditor to approve the voucher.
I have no idea what's the truth / lye or even were I really am. Can anyone give me any light on how much longer they think I will be waiting!

tek-monkey

tryingtogetmyheadaround said:

Can anyone give me an idea.
As I never get any straight info from them, I have to chase a couple of times a week! As I never seem to get told about the info that is required.
I sent a quote in to be told it was too high and it need more detail, so I had this done. I then got told I need other quotes as its so high. I then gave 2 more quotes.
Been told over the phone they have them and has been approved its just waiting on a auditor to approve the voucher.
I have no idea what's the truth / lye or even were I really am. Can anyone give me any light on how much longer they think I will be waiting!

I don't think the people you call/message actually have a clue TBH, I'm not even sure they can see it's progress.  I've been told I've passed all checks and it's now with the auditors, yet I know I haven't supplied something as I had a query in asking for more info.  It's all a joke, they're making it up as they go along.

Zanderman

MP129 said:

Everyone, please be wary of cavity wall insulation. I nearly fell for it, then I looked it up online. The cavity is there for a very good reason - damp proofing. If you fill the cavity it's only a matter of time before your house has a damp problem. Apparently the insurance industry is braced for this to be the next PPI disaster...

Please be wary of incomplete information. 

Cavity wall insulation is fine if installed properly.  

A google search brings up lots of legit info on it from people like Which, the Energy Saving Trust etc - all saying it's fine.  Which it is, if done properly.  And the Green Home Grant Scheme, for all its faults, is using proper installers, not cowboys.

At the top of that same google search you'll find some sponsored ads telling you it's not ok.  But those are people trying to sell you their cavity wall insulation removal services (so they would say that wouldn't they!).

MP129

Zanderman, I got my information partly from a friend who's in the property development business and who is routinely in contact with insurers. If the Insurance companies are worried, I'll walk away.

Two other points. If builders leave a gap to prevent damp, how can filling that gap be sensible? And secondly, there are plenty of horror stories around about the job not being done properly - loft insulation being simply dumped over the electrics in a loft etc.

I freely admit I'm not a tradesman, but I hear some alarm bells and I'm just trying to make people think carefully about these apparent freebies. After all, I think even Martin says that if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.