Relaxed to band D

[MCS Renewables]

It gets worse .....

The best price we can find for DEA training is near £2k plus six days away from home, another £300 to get the non domestic registration as well and then from June 2012 another load of courses to get then green deal ticket.
So about £5k outlay so we can stay self sufficient.
No choice for us as I cannot see how subbing every EPC out will work.

Assuming outsourcing will cost £100 for each EPC the break even point is fifty projects or one a week for a year. We have done more than fifty since Christmas with the rate chasers/gamblers so it would have been worthwhile but if work slows up as predicted it is not so clear cut.

Basically it favours the bigger companies, the one man bands may not be able to justify the outlay.

My biggest fear is that I spend the money and stay on the train only to find later that the DECC change the destination again and again. On the plus side a lot of MCS installers may call it a day which would ease the market.

At a time when system prices and profits are reducing, investing at least another £5k into this area of our business is not without risk.

If anyone wants to do the courses perhaps we could all book together and try to get some discounts.

 

[SolarCity]

My biggest fear is that I spend the money and stay on the train only to find later that the DECC change the destination again and again.

This is also my biggest fear. The whole "We'll do what we like" attitude from Barker and co. is a sandy base for an industry to be built on, to say the very least.

Still not sure what to do about EPCs yet and I'm changing my mind hourly.

 

[SRE]

[email protected] this is the company we're using - 2k seems steep for the training I've seen it for under 1k on several sites, but I don't know what the quality of the training is like. I'm sure they do in-house training, you need a minimum of 4 people, a venue and a house to assess. Smaller numbers do make the learning process easier too. I'm sure they do weekend courses too.

 

[Gavin A]

Assuming outsourcing will cost £100 for each EPC the break even point is fifty projects or one a week for a year.

I don't think this is right as you've assumed the EPC won't cost you a penny when done in house.

In reality you'd still have maybe 2-4 hours staff time per EPC, plus the EPC registration fee, which probably means it's going to cost you around £40-50 per EPC even if done in house, so it's going to take a lot longer to pay back that your 50 projects IMO.

If you have spare in house capacity I guess that's one thing, but I realised we don't and I'd prefer my systems designers to focus on their core jobs instead of being diverted into doing 2-4 hours per quote of EPC work.

just my opinion mind, and I don't think there's going to be any one right answer here.

 

[MCS Renewables]

The £2k course is for six days and includes all five assessments needed, the final exam and the exam fee. The cheaper courses all involve ongoing homework and coursework assessments and exclude the exam fee.

Thanks Gav, I had forgotten the in house costs so that means 100 renewable projects to get outlay pay back. The majority of MCS companies have nowhere near 100 installs, so outlaying this money represents a massive leap of faith.

We were registered in April 2010 ( back when MCS registration wasn't free with breakfast cereal !) and will get our third assessment in seven weeks time and have over 300 systems out there. We spent nearly 10k getting the three MCS technology registrations with courses, MCS made easy etc etc but have easily recouped that outlay in the past two years mainly because the feed in tariff was attractive to customers.

However we do know someone who did the training and got MCS registration just before the December announcement and has not even recouped their outlay and they are now faced with this further headache.

With a less attractive feed in tariff, PV is going to be a harder sale without adding more cost to installers.

decisions decisions ....

 

[SRE]

The £2k course is for six days and includes all five assessments needed, the final exam and the exam fee. The cheaper courses all involve ongoing homework and coursework assessments and exclude the exam fee.

They must be providing you with 5 houses to do the assessments on - I suppose that's better if you haven't any energy efficiency background because you can share notes and ideas with others about the right way to do the 5 properties and you've got on site guidance too. I'd be surprised if there isn't some sort of homework though - the recommended reading list is quite extensive. The couse I'm doing would be £750 I think for the classroom training and £290 for the registration and exam - but you do save on accomodation expenses and can work through the day if there's any work to do

It's all horses for courses - I just couldn't justify a 2k spend with so much uncertainty.


This gives you an overview of the content of the course : http://www.abbeqa.co.uk/template2award.aspx?id=3&awardid=78&course=78&region=0

 

[MCS Renewables]

I have the Logic energy efficiency Part L certification which was a requirement for MCS heat pump registration.
Just had to do a MIS 3001 course to maintain the heat pump MCS registration despite the government shafting heat pumps with the lack of RHI incentive !

It seems this government likes teachers as everything requires a course !

I might do a chicken keeping course so I have loads of eggs to present to Greg Barker when he does his Ecobuild speech.

 

[Mattty]

You can get the DEA course for less than £1,000 if you shop around. Much cheaper than when I did it. The one thing I would say is make sure the course covers the new DEA upgrade qualification.

From April 1st (nice date) all DEAs/HIs have to have passed the upgrade qualification to continue to lodge EPCs.

The agreement I have with PV installers is that I will survey the property and send through a draft EPC and then (under the regs) I don't have to lodge the EPC for 6 months and don't need to revisit the property provided documentary evidence (and photos) of any upgrades are provided to me. At which point I will lodge the EPC.

The amount of time needed to survey a building to collect the data for an EPC obviously depends on the building's complexity, but you would be typically looking at 30-60 minutes, some can be done quicker. Lodging takes from 15 to 30 minutes and if you shop around you can get it cheaper than £8 lodgement.

You have to keep all your records for 15 years. At least 1-2% of your EPCs get audited, where by you have to send all your site notes and photos to your accreditation scheme and they have to reproduce your report to unsure you doing it right and not taking short-cuts. If you are 5% out you fail, if you do something that affects the recommendations you fail. Failing means you get a higher percentage of your EPCs audited for a set period. Fail any of these and you have to retrain or get struck off (although accreditation schemes do have some discretion). All the accreditation schemes now communicate with each other, so if you get struck off by one. It is unlikely you will be able to sign up with another.

On top of this you now have to ask the client to fill in a new questionnaire. Nothing wrong with that in principal, until you actually read the mandatory questions.

And you also have to keep a CPD record and do at least 10 hours per year (not a lot really), but the schemes can be a bit funny about what can be included. It's one of the reasons I read forums like this. I can put a small proportion of the time down as CPD.

Does the EPC matter?

Short answer yes.

It is a legal document and valid for 10 years and you can't legally sell or rent a house without one. My local authority won't allow F or G rated properties to be rented to their tenants.

DEAs have already been successfully sued by people who have purchased a property where there were mistakes on the EPC. Such as EPC says 100% double glazed, but in fact it was older single glazed in upvc frames. Silly mistake, but the DEA's insurance had to pay out for new double glazing.

I am also aware of a situation where an EPC has been used as supporting evidence in a dispute with an energy company and a household, over bills that were way too high.

On top of this from April 1st the EPC is Green Deal compatible and can be used to calculate domestic RHI payments (If/When either of these schemes come in)

and you already know a property needs to reach a D rating to be able to claim the full FIT payment.

I'm not saying don't train-up. The industry needs as many good quality DEAs as it can get. I am saying make an informed decision.

 

[SRE]

2k seems steep for the training I've seen it for under 1k on several sites, but I don't know what the quality of the training is like. I'm sure they do in-house training, you need a minimum of 4 people, a venue and a house to assess. Smaller numbers do make the learning process easier too. I'm sure they do weekend courses too.[/FONT]

Thought some of you might be interested in an update on online training. I've done online training before the usual format is access to online data, support from a tutor, dummy exams, assessments and finally exam/portfolio. I'm not sure this is the norm for the DEA course - I asked the question and this is the answer I got:
Send out to you an ECMK Rdsap Manual and software login details.
You would then study this manual in addition to the other reading material which will be made available to you.
After reading the manual and practicing on the software you would then attempt an exam paper which we would then mark and provide feedback
You would also undertake a written assignment task which would confirm your knowledge of RDSAP methodology
You would then submit your own property as your first EPC as a part of your portfolio with all relevant documentation, again we would make available the portfolio contents page so that you follow a prescribed order.
On receiving feedback for the 1[SUP]st[/SUP] property you would then be advised to submit the remaining 4 properties together
The upgrade required in April isn't included but seems to be free with most registration bodies - but it is extra work on top of the online course. Si it doesn't appear to provide the mentoring support that I'd assumed would be included - it seems to be read a manual and have a go. I reckon that with my experience, this is going to take me most of March to complete including the 5 portfolio properties. In that time I could be marketing and generating work .... as we have currently nothing on the horizon I'm reconsidering and thinking that time spent generating leads even if I lose a few is better than being able to hang on to the leads but not having them in the first place because I've spent so much time training myself so that I can hang onto my non existent leads - if you know what I mean

Chris - I'm in your boat - changing by the hour!! What made the difference this time was my partner not understanding why with my experience I can't make a judgement when I visit a house - he's dead right I can do it already just not formally with an EPC.

 

[The Solar King]

There are lots of DEAs out there with an insufficient workload. Most are doing other things as well.

I will be entering in to an agreement with one DEA to do all assessments at a fixed fee. Initially the customer will have to pay for the assessment which will not be lodged in the first instance. If they subsequently sign up with me I will refund the cost of the EPC. If they do not the EPC will be registered at that point, other wise it will be registered on completion of the installation.

Part of my agreement with the DEA is a system of Chinese walls. There will be exclusivity of data. This will be legally binding to ensure my prospects do not get passed to a third party. These guys are likely to get harassed and bribed by the lead generating companies, so be warned.

It is possible to give some guidance to prospects as to what kind of minimum levels of energy efficiency are required to meet D. The obvious ones are cavity wall insulation, double glazing, loft insulation and an A rated boiler. The difficulties start with sold wall houses etc, as it is still possible to achieve D in such a property. The other big issue is that there has to be evidence that measures have been implemented. This is either receipts for the work undertaken or visual evidence. If you have neither (eg insulation hidden in a dormered roof), it can not be taken into account in the EPC. This also gives scope for cheating.

We will undoubtedly see the scumbag end of the market yet again bringing the industry into disrepute. I wish I had answers as to how we could get rid of these people. They may ultimately do the job DECC are trying so hard to achieve and terminally wreck the industry.

 

[Noshocks]

As with others I am still undecided about getting trained or outsourcing, I almost signed on the dotted line on Friday but the course dident have enough numbers to run, now I am undecided again, indemnity insurance is also required I believe, this is something else to take into account.