Making your home greener isn’t all about saving money - it’s doing something positive for the future of the planet too. While it might sound complex, sorting out green funding for your home online is easy. Andrew Crowther from Strutt & Parker’s Resources and Energy department talks us through the various deals.
Making your home greener isn’t all about saving money - it’s doing something positive for the future of the planet too. While it might sound complex, sorting out green funding for your home online is easy. Andrew Crowther from Strutt & Parker’s Resources and Energy department talks us through the various deals.
There are three main deals - the Green Deal, the Green Deal Home Improvement Fund and the Energy Company Obligation. The first two are open to all homeowners, those in rented accommodation and landlords.
All three, especially ECO, tend to be targeted at poorer performing homes. These are likely to be the big, old, draughty homes - but it doesn’t mean that if you have a new build house you can’t apply.
While they’ll all help save you money, just how much depends on your house type and what measures you go for. Green measures can also add value to your home but again, it depends on what options you choose. However, as people are always looking for ways to reduce their bills, now it’s understood that any green measures can only be beneficial when selling a home.
The Green Deal
The Green Deal is the main, Government-run scheme. It’s a loan-based scheme that helps you make energy-saving improvements to your home and find the best way to pay for them.
No knowledge of your home is needed. The onus is on the contractor you have to visit your home. For the green deal, this would be an EPC assessor or, we recommend you go down the route of getting a green deal assessment. This would provide you with an EPC as well as a green deal report.
Other ways to check if your property could benefit from energy-saving improvements include using an online energy grants calculator or talking to Energy Savings Advice Service.
You will then be given a report with a list of recommended energy efficiency improvements tailored to your house. It’s not a generic report - it pinpoints exactly what you should be doing to improve the rating of your house.
Typical examples include:
insulation in your walls and loft
heating upgrades
draught-proofing
double-glazing
solar panels
heatpumps
The beauty of this scheme is that it operates on a Golden Rule system. This means that they won’t recommend any improvements unless they feel you can recoup the costs in a suitable amount of time. Make sure to check for the Green Deal mark from your supplier or installer.
Green Deal Home Improvement Fund
The Green Deal Home Improvement Fund is a pot of cash worth around £120m per year for householders to help them improve the energy efficiency of their homes.
The great thing about this deal is that it is grant-based, which means you don’t pay any interest.
It is split into two core offers. Core offer 1 is focussed on key energy efficiency improvements like condensing mains gas boilers, replacement warm airs units, cavity wall insulation, replacement doors. The second core offer is for external solid wall insulation.
Under this scheme you can get a maximum of £5,600 per property based on a £1,000 for core offer number 1 and £4,000 for solid wall insulation. You can also get the cost of your assessment back from that.
It was so successful that the annual budget was reached in July. However, the scheme will re-open on Wednesday 10th December, with an additional £30m until February 2015, and then on in quarterly payment windows. The fund is expected to be used quickly so being prepared is key, we recommend getting a green deal report now so you’re ready to go right away.
ECO
The ECO, or Energy Company Obligation, was introduced to reduce the UK’s energy consumption and support people living in fuel poverty.
It is aimed at hard-to-treat homes and people in fuel poverty. Under the scheme, the big six energy suppliers are required to help householders save on their energy bills and carbon emissions. It does this by funding energy efficiency improvements worth around £1.3 billion every year.
It will run until March 2015, supporting the installation of energy efficiency measures in low-income households and areas, and in properties that are harder to treat. It works alongside the Green Deal to give consumers support and funding for energy efficiency improvements in their homes.
If you have any questions about any of these schemes, please get in touch with our Resources & Energy team.