Carbon Neutral Team - Free cavity wall insulation / boilers

Under_the_Radar_2

I had a knock at the door earlier, normally I refuse to speak to anyone offering anything that is knocking door to door but they seemed pretty genuine - supposedly they are offering free cavity wall insulation / loft insulation and potentially replace the boiler as it is over 7 years old. Are these guys legit? Cavity is one thing but a free boiler seems a bit too good to be true? Just posting to see if anyone has any experience with these guys etc. Supposedly the money comes from a government fund generated from a 5% charge on all UK energy bills. Never really heard about it but seemed worth looking into - they have a surveyor coming to check out my property later in the week. Any advice?

matelodave

It's entirely up to you but as far as I'm concerned the last thing I'd do is accept an offer from a doorstep canvasser or let someone into my house to survey it and I certainly wouldn'd be giving away my name, address, phone number or any other info or signing any documents to someone I hadn't invited and had just turned up on my doorstep out of the blue..

They may be legit but I'd rather initiate stuff myself knowing who I'm dealing with. Just my opinion you understand.

Gerry1

Under_the_Radar_2 said:

they have a surveyor coming to check out my property later in the week. Any advice?

To check out your valuables, your home security, whether you have a dog that barks... ?

Under_the_Radar_2

Gerry1 said:

Under_the_Radar_2 said:

they have a surveyor coming to check out my property later in the week. Any advice?

To check out your valuables, your home security, whether you have a dog that barks... ?

Well they'd be sorely disappointed if that was their game, but yes I take your point. They also only wanted to check out the exterior walls so weren't looking for entrance to the property.

On further checking out whilst they have a rather convincing pitch the company has limited info so I'll tell them politely that we aren't interested - essentially it seems we quite probably would be entitled to a government grant to get most of the above done for free based on our circumstances (if the property needed it), as I said above it isn't usually in my character to be taken in by canvassers - they just appeared much more professional than the types we normally get knocking on the door. They quite probably are genuine, if we were entitled to the work to be done on a grant basis, and we weren't aware it is in both our interests for them to knock on the door and make us aware and hope they can complete the work and be paid by the government for it - but on a closer look there isn't enough info on the company for me to consider using them.

Thanks for the replies.

[Deleted User]

Under_the_Radar_2 said:

I had a knock at the door earlier, normally I refuse to speak to anyone offering anything that is knocking door to door but they seemed pretty genuine - supposedly they are offering free cavity wall insulation / loft insulation and potentially replace the boiler as it is over 7 years old. Are these guys legit? Cavity is one thing but a free boiler seems a bit too good to be true? Just posting to see if anyone has any experience with these guys etc. Supposedly the money comes from a government fund generated from a 5% charge on all UK energy bills. Never really heard about it but seemed worth looking into - they have a surveyor coming to check out my property later in the week. Any advice?

Do you qualify:

Accepted Income Benefits

• Child Benefit

• Child Tax Credits

• Universal Credit

• Working Tax Credits

• Pension Credits

• Income Related ESA

• Income Related JSA

• Disability Allowance

• Personal Independence Allowance

• Carer's Allowance

shibbyuk

We also had a doorstep visit from this "team". As you say, they appeared genuine so we allowed them to do the survey. The original salesman led me to believe that now all the means-tested households had had their insulation, there was money left in the budget for all the other households. This was not true.

A lady came to do the survey; she stayed outside and drilled/filled the walls. Then came the inevitable kicker - and this is quite shocking. She asked us to essentially lie to the council when they call and tell them our income was below the threshold in order to secure the funding! We naturally told her where to go

So, look out for this company and avoid at all costs unless your are genuinely eligible for the scheme. Even if you are, I suggest you go elsewhere.

jimjames

As above with qualification requirements, I'm not sure if it's still in existence but there was a scheme offering these sorts of products but paid for on a loan, supposedly covered by the savings made. They may try to tempt you into that if you aren't in the groups above but many people find the savings don't cover the loan - whether that is now different with higher fuel prices I don't know.

https://www.gov.uk/green-deal-energy-saving-measures

[Deleted User]

Had these guys turn up today. We had previously tried to use the Green Homes Grant scheme and they knew that. Said they were working with the council.

The story was that the council will cover all costs, which in turn will be covered by the government. Survey tomorrow.

Looking at cavity wall and maybe front door and windows.

If very much like it if this went ahead. We did qualify under the GHG scheme for covering the full cost. Our house is rated D so the rise in April will hammer us.

JayPay

@[Deleted User] did you have the survey from the Carbon Neutral Team, if so what was the outcome? (they are not on the Government's officially accredited list of Green Deal companies)

[Deleted User]

JayPay said:

@[Deleted User] did you have the survey from the Carbon Neutral Team, if so what was the outcome? (they are not on the Government's officially accredited list of Green Deal companies)

I didn't get a written survey yet. They said that they would do cavity wall insulation, and install some vents in some rooms.

I'll let you know when they get back to me. I want to know exactly what they plan to do, e.g. what type of insulation material they want to use.

Apparently doors and windows will be in the next phase, for now it's cavity wall.