ECO funding for hard to treat homes - external wall insulation etc

Gavin A · Aug 13, 2012

Hi All,

I thought we needed a thread specifically about the ECO funding that's supposed to be becoming available for external wall insulation for hard to treat homes - ie solid wall houses.

If anyone has information / useful links on this topic if they can please post them up and I'll add the links to the opening post to keep them all together in one place.

I've had a dig around, and can't seem to find a lot of info about it, so if anyone knows the answers then specific areas that I'd appreciate any information on are:-

What qualifications / experience criteria are needed for installers
How a company would go about getting accredited to install EWI under the ECO scheme, and who with.
How a householder / landlord with multiple properties would go about accessing the ECO funding, and how they then choose an installer etc.
Anything else relevant would be useful.

I'd suspect this could be of a lot of relevance for those in areas with a lot of solid wall properties that are failing to meet band D requirements... so those who've got a list of these properties from solar quotes would be in a good position to go back to them and offer a free EWI installation, plus the solar install they'd originally asked for a quote for... to turn a negative into a positive.

It's all a bit of a different skill set to PV, and it does take some care and attention to get it right, but compared with some of the muppet companies around who I've heard of completely ballsing it up, I reckon most on here would have the ability to work it out. There are also potential costs sharings with PV such as the scaffolding, and a lot of the tools needed are the same, so potentially worth considering IMO.

Energy Saving Trust info on ECO "Details of what this obligation will look like are yet to be confirmed"

SRE · Aug 14, 2012

This is anecdotal so don't take it as gospel but a local green builder that I've known for quite a long time is trying to decide whether he's going to train his guys to install solid wall insulation. His latest quote for training is 9k, they are a small firm with maybe 15 - 20 employees, got MCS for everything, do quite a lot of green building stuff and meet at the same events that I've been going to about Green Deal - they aren't jumping in for training yet and their potential market is huge because they regularly secure social housing contracts.

Not anecdotal - I was takling to someone at Scottish & Southern and they are saying that they doubt whether solid wall insulation is going to hit the golden rule for individual customers even with ECO. It may hit the golden rule with ECO on largish social housing contracts where economies of scale can be achieved but it's doubtful elsewhere.

On our latest surveillance visit our inspector commented that Green Deal requirements were going to be more rigorous than current MCS.

As I understand it this is the process - landlord would have Green Deal assessment (at the minute no-one knows who will pay for this) the customer would then need to go to a Green Deal Provider. The GDP would sort out the finance and source contractors - so this is where you would need to be fitting in. Either becoming a Green Deal Provider or linking with one that will pass work back to you as a sub-contractor.

Becoming a Green Deal Provider is complicated and maybe more importantly you need serious contingency funds to maintain cashflow - this is something I hadn't realised. The finance companies don't pay for months until everything is written off to their satisfaction but the Green Deal Assessor & contractor needs to be paid for their work within 30 days to keep them on board and maintain working relationships. This is one of the reasons why the Mark Group (and another I can't remember the name of possibly Amey) have dropped out of the Birmingham bid and we were hearing that one of the biggest building contractors in the country looked at becoming a Green Deal provider but with a £200+ million turnover they thought they were going to be too exposed.

There are lots of models for Green Deal Providers, none have been fully fleshed out as far as I can see because everyone is waiting for clarification from the government and they are keeping their cards close to their chest.

At our last event one of our bigger builders £120m turnover last year was keen to become a GDP and was asking for support from local businesses to sub contract but no-one was taking them up on it - all to frightened they were going to take work from them.

Finally, there's no guarantee that if you make a referral to a GDP that you will get your work back, it's going to depend on price etc I'm sure that the GDP has to get multiple quotes for the same job or prove why they couldn't get them. I'm sure that Ted & Worcester will put me right where I've gone wrong

I'm trying to keep up to date with what's happening locally and I'm involved in a knowledge group with the local uni but it'a mostly to keep on top of what's happening on the slight chance that there's something in it for us. There isn't so far!

Gavin A · Aug 14, 2012

Is the ECO process not different to Green Deal though?

btw the reason for the question is we're finalising a pv contract with a management agent with 400 properties on their books, and they've mentioned they're wanting external wall insulation on virtually all of them, and have one guy training up to do it under ECO funding, but there'd be some cost savings if we were to do both together.

So we've got a fair chunk of properties to approach someone to fund depending how it all works out.

SRE · Aug 14, 2012

Yes it's seperate but for landlords it's probably a better option to combine both. Have you looked for a Green Deal Provider? What used to happen with CERT (current utility company offering) is that you go through stringent tendering procecedures and if you get through those the utility company will allocate you work for as long as you keep to the terms of your tender. If you generate work you'll get it back.

Sounds to me like you should be looking for Green Deal providers that you can trust - not easy but your management agent would love your for it - all that work for nothing! Landlords are one of the few people that I can see will benefit from Green Deal - one of our houses would be ideal for it, just not sure my conscience would allow me to attach costs to the meter for the tenant who is genuinely hard up.

TedM · Aug 15, 2012

I think the problem for GD Installers is that if they initiate a GD (via a request for an assessment) there is simply no guarantee that they will end up being the installer who does the work. In fact once an Assessor has advised a customer the customer is then free to choose which GD Provider they use - they might not be all offering exactly the same finance terms. The GD Installer might not even get to know which Provider is chosen.

These are the 2 key docs for GD at present:

http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/...n-deal-and-energy-company-obligation-cons.pdf

http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/...-green-deal-domestic-endtoend-process-map.pdf

But note that the process map is from February and I haven't found a more recent version.

Gavin A · Aug 15, 2012

Is the ECO scheme being run on exactly the same basis as Green Deal?

I was under the impression it was different, and it's specifically the ECO scheme I want to focus on in this thread as there are other threads for Green Deal info. Fair enough if it is exactly the same as Green Deal though.

SRE · Aug 15, 2012

Its not the same but expected to run in parallel.

As I said in my last post you need to go through stringent tendering procedures with the utility companies, (this is likely to be happening now) each one will be different but could provide work in your area if you want to go to the expense of the training. Last time some of the utilites wanted bonds from their installers in case anything went wrong - don't know if that's the case now. The first stage would be getting through the PQQ, once you've done that if you're successful you'll be invited to submit a full tender and then that will be evaluated and contracts awarded - just the usual process really.

I suspect they will be looking for experienced EWI installers so it's the usual chicken and egg situation, made slightly better by the fact that you've got a load of potential houses on the books. I seem to remember that most of the EWI has to be targeted at fuel poverty in specific areas but I could be wrong and privately rented houses are usually a priority unless they are in affluent areas.

You usually get work generated by for ECO back from the utility company their criteria will be different to that of Green Deal but as I understand it GD & ECO are going to do much of their work together.