Relieved or Depressed?

[SRE]

Finished our last job yesterday but we've got a mountain of paperwork to go through. The 2 jobs that I thought were coming through for March have now decided not to go ahead so I have no outstanding quotes or jobs. I don't know whether to be relived or depressed.

I keep telling myself that I've got the time to get the paperwork finished now - although there's little motivation when you haven't anything on the horizon. I've got about 3 weeks of training to get through so lots to do, bit of cash in the bank to keep me going but I just don't have a good feeling about the next few months....

How is everyone else doing?

 

[synergy power]

Same Here, Mountain of paperwork to get through but no Jobs booked! I have the same relieved depressed feeling

I placed an ad in my local paper to try and get some interest for march but resulted in no more hits on my website compared to usual and only one call.... Not looking promising at all!

 

[Somecamel]

I feel your pain as well, I don't think the No EPC requirement until 1st April will result in a new rush up until that date as I don't think people really understand the implications.

Moving forward we are moving into retail premises next month and diversifying our business model to include a host of new products.

Will be at EcoBuild this month to see if anything there takes my fancy.

I do genuinely feel a tad depressed and frustrated but believe that by having a positive attitude we will get through this.

 

[Gavin A]

We've got a few jobs in for March, and a few inquiries trickling in, so I don't think we'll be entirely quiet, but I'm also not looking to be doing another big rush.

IMO the key thing now is to gear ourselves up for the EPC requirements, which will involve reworking all our paperwork, quote system, website, payback calculators etc etc. Then focus on getting as much work in as possible for the 3 months to the July cuts - those 3 months are the key here IMO, not the next 4 weeks (although obviously it would be nice to at least be ticking over in that period).

 

[SRE]

Are you thinking that you will include any upgrades necessary to achieve band d into your payback calculations? I hadn't thought about doing that - it would help the figures stack up a bit better. Starting the re-work of the paperwork next week :-(

 

[Earthstore]

I also am both, I have my irons in a few fires, not as though any are earning me much, but I feel I am well placed for the future, but there is the problem, what is the future?
More people are aware of energy savings/Renewable Energies, most are ill informed, and they need people like us to guide them through it all.
The government has more to answer to than just the FIT's shambles, as we also have RHI, EPC's, The Green Deal, and even the planners and building control are in a mess.
I am sure some of us will find a way to work within the rules/tariffs etc, they just need to make a decision and stick with it.

 

[babba]

well im fed up with stop start rubbish, switching on the leads later today so we will see if there is a market place left.
Im sure we will be up against a price driven market. I have noticed noone is buying quality its price price price...china here we come..

 

[SolarCity]

Depressed. It is going to take a big effort to get geared up for the new EPC rating nonsense and we've got more cuts to look forward to after that.

I don't think there is going to be far less work out there than a lot of people think. I hope I'm wrong.

 

[BruceB]

SRE, Can we tap into your knowledge of EPC stuff as you said you have done it before? Even at my age I can still learn stuff and pass exams, so what is the minimum cost I am looking at to do a course [online?] in EPCs, take an exam and register with someone? And what is the annual ongoing cost? I am with Napit for Part P/MCS if that makes a difference. PM if you prefer.
Regards
Bruce

 

[SRE]

I did the DEA course 4 years ago when I was running an energy efficiency advice centre. I didn't take the exam because I hadn't any intention of doing the EPC's but I wanted to be able to monitor the quality that my staff were producing. I've also got my C & G 6176 in Energy awareness and ran several large energy efficiency projects - so I had a background in it.

To be honest none of it is rocket science but it's a bit of a hassle and it's really quite boring. I've just booked an online course at a cost of £450 the training provider wanted proof of my previous work which I thought was quite funny at first but is also quite reassuring that they want to provide decent quality training. The online course is really just for people who've done it before and need to brush up. If I was starting from new I'd recommend going to the training course even though it's more expensive.

Everyone has to take the exam £290 + vat and registration of each job seems to be between £5 - £8 for each EPC you do. I haven't found any other ongoing costs yet. In addition to the training you have to produce a portfolio of 5 properties - all different - to prove you've understood the requirements of the course. This can take a bit of time.

I've also just ordered £70 of books.

So - not cheap but I'm planning to offer a more integrated service in the vain hope that I can hang on to my leads.

Hope that helps.

 

[BruceB]

Thanks for that.
So you do not have to join a club and be assessed annually?

 

[SRE]

When you do your exam, you register with an organisation it's part of your exam fees. I'm going with ABBE. You can be assessed but I'm not sure how often and I've reada couple of posts somewhere else about every job that had been assessed had been of really poor quality - so there doesn't appear to be any stringent quality checks and certainly nothing like MCS. It coudl all change though - and I could be wrong!!

 

[Markc]

Finished our deadline one Monday just gone and have one more for next week. After that, that's it. Leads have dropped off big time, website hits and survey requests are zero almost and the only calls for PV are sales crap.

I'm quite relieved to he honest. It will be good to be out of it for a time. I haven't looked at the QMS since last September and don't intend to. Our registration is until July this year, same for REAL. Unless we see calls coming in and these being turned into work we will not be renewing. As for EPC training, no way. Not for me. As far as I'm concerned it's up to the client.

Our core business isn't PV, and a good job to, so we will concentrate on the contracting side and add some products to this which we have been looking at for some time. And needless to say none of them have any government influence.

 

[Gavin A]

Are you thinking that you will include any upgrades necessary to achieve band d into your payback calculations? I hadn't thought about doing that - it would help the figures stack up a bit better. Starting the re-work of the paperwork next week :-(

I think so, and tbh as most of the more basic energy efficiency measures needed tend to have under 5 year paybacks anyway, and we ought to be able to do most of them ourselves relatively cheaply, I reckon it could even improve the overall paybacks in some situations.

I think we'll be doing 2 quotes and paybacks for none EPC D rated houses - one with just the PV, and payback using the 9p FIT rate, the other with the cost and paybacks of energy efficiency improvements to bring the house up to EPC D rating on top of the PV, with combined paybacks for both with the FIT rate at 21p. I doubt many will be going for the 9p FIT rate option at the moment, but may be more likely after the July FIT cuts, and/or for larger systems or places where getting up to a D rating would be prohibitively expensive.

We've been doing stuff like upgrading loft insulation where it really needed it anyway, so it's not a major hastle for us (although we have been using the subsidised insulation for this work, which isn't always avaialble all year round which could be an issue). We also have a gas safe engineer on our team, and are qualified for solar water heating etc so can do stuff like upgrading the heating system controls, fitting thermostatic radiator valves etc as well that will add a few points to the EPC and significantly reduce heating bills in most cases.

It does mean that these jobs will take longer though, so we may look to sub some of it out, or even take on extra specialist staff ourselves to leave the PV teams doing PV... not quite sure of the best approach yet.

Will probably know more after I've met with the guy I'm hoping to team up with for the EPC's on Tuesday anyway.

 

[trevor79]

Bloody hell, just seen a crew drive onto an install at 4.00pm down our street.

How will they get that finished along with registration with Ofgen and supplier before midnight?