Green Deal or No Deal? - House of Commons Visit
By Reece Toscani - Fireplaceproducts.co.uk
Wednesday 26th February 2014. Today my colleague Arta and I are heading to the Houses of Commons in Westminster, London to attend the annual Green Deal or No Deal Meeting. This event is a great opportunity to meet with other likeminded companies working within the renewable heating sector.
It was a beautiful day in London, which made a change compared to the miserable weather we had been having recently. The event was being hosted in the Terrace Pavilion out the back of the Houses of Parliament which sits right alongside the River Thames, offering a lovely view of the river and the London Eye, and view not often available to the public.
After about an hour or so of networking and speaking with a few dozen people there was a presentation from nine companies all of whom are involved within the supply chain of the Green Deal, from the assessor to the provider, to the installer, to the supplier.
For those of you who are not familiar with the Green Deal, it is a government incentive that helps you make energy saving improvements to your home and find the best way to pay for them. The improvements that could save you the most energy depend on your home, but typically could include, Insulation, heating, draught-proofing, double glazing, renewable energy generation. The green deal is available to anyone that has an electricity meter (including prepayment meters) in England, Scotland or Wales.
Green Deal Step 1 – Get an Assessment
You must get an assessment of your property to use the Green Deal. You will need to contact either a local Green Deal Assessor, or ask a Green Deal Provider to find an assessor for you. Please Note that you will have to pay for an assessment, and the assessor should inform you of the cost upfront, as a guide this is around £70 - £90
What do you get for your money? Well firstly a green deal assessor will visit your home and talk to you about your property and your energy use and help you decide if you could benefit from Green Deal Improvements. You will be asked, if you own or rent the property, if it is a listed building, in a conservation area, built prior to 1900 or constructed in a non-traditional way. If there are access issues and to provide copies of your recent energy bills. You may also be asked how many people live in the home, the type of heating and appliances you use, how often you use your heating, what energy saving measures have already been installed.
After the visit you will receive a green deal advice report this will contain:
• An Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) that rates your home for energy efficiency,
• An occupancy assessment that measures how much energy your home is using,
• Suggested improvements from the assessor,
• Estimated monetary savings you could make on your annual bills,
• Whether the improvements will pay for themselves through reduced energy costs,
This advice report will remain valid for 10 years, or until you make changes or energy saving improvements to the property.
Green Deal Step 2 – Getting the work done
So you have decided that you wish to proceed and get some or all of the work done.
• You can at this point ask a green deal provider to arrange installation and pay for the work yourself,
• Ask a green deal provider to arrange installation and a green deal finance plan to pay for the work,
• Get your own installers and pay for the work yourself,
If you choose either of the first two options then you should give your green deal provider a copy of your advice report they will then quote you on the work that needs to be done and arrange installation for you. If you choose to get a green deal finance plan then this quote will include the repayment terms. Remember providers are independent companies and you can shop around and get prices from more than one provider. You may also wish to ask your installer if you can combine this work with any other schemes that are currently running, such as Energy Company Obligation (ECO) Feed-In-Tariffs & Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI).
Note you can only get a finance plan for improvements outlined in your green deal advice report.
Green Deal Step 3 – How to Pay?
There are two ways to pay, either in advance or with a green deal finance plan.
If you choose the finance option then once the work has been carried out the repayments will be automatically added to your electric bill. This will either be taken via a small amount every day if you are on a pre-paid meter, or on your monthly bill. This is because the Green Deal stays with the property. If you decide to move after taking the work out you will no longer benefit from the improvements that you have made and therefore you will no longer be required to pay for them.
It is possible to pay your green deal off early, but you might be charged a fee for doing so, check with your provider.
It was a very informative presentation and cleared up a few of the grey areas surrounding how each company work with each other. After this there was another opportunity to network. From our perspective it was very useful to speak to other companies involved in this process and hear about their experiences, so we can work out exactly where we fit in this process..
I also bumped into our previous Stovax & Gazco rep Alan Parker who was there with his new company Talk Green. It was good to catch up with Alan as I hadn’t seen him for some time and so was good to hear about how his new business was going and his experiences of Green Deal coming from a similar background of the fireplace and stove industry as we do.
As one of the sponsors of the event we had our name and advert on the bag that everyone who attended the event received. It was a particularly nice moment, seeing our company name on the side of a bag making its way through the city being seen by hundreds more people as everyone left. It was also funny to see how many of those people and bags made their way to the pub just outside the Houses of Parliament, where the conversations continued long into the night.
Something else that we are very excited to be involved with this year is the National Green Deal & ECO Rising Stars Gala Awards that is happening on the 29th May. We are sponsoring one of the award categories and below you will see myself and Arta with Gary who organised both the event today and the awards gala.
All in all it was a very productive day, we made some good contacts with other companies and came away reassured about the prospects of the Green Deal and what it has to offer home owners. If you would like more information on the Green Deal, please visit
www.gov.uk email us: sales@fireplaceproducts.co.uk or call us: 01268 200139
By Reece Toscani - Fireplaceproducts.co.uk
Wednesday 26th February 2014. Today my colleague Arta and I are heading to the Houses of Commons in Westminster, London to attend the annual Green Deal or No Deal Meeting. This event is a great opportunity to meet with other likeminded companies working within the renewable heating sector.
It was a beautiful day in London, which made a change compared to the miserable weather we had been having recently. The event was being hosted in the Terrace Pavilion out the back of the Houses of Parliament which sits right alongside the River Thames, offering a lovely view of the river and the London Eye, and view not often available to the public.
After about an hour or so of networking and speaking with a few dozen people there was a presentation from nine companies all of whom are involved within the supply chain of the Green Deal, from the assessor to the provider, to the installer, to the supplier.
For those of you who are not familiar with the Green Deal, it is a government incentive that helps you make energy saving improvements to your home and find the best way to pay for them. The improvements that could save you the most energy depend on your home, but typically could include, Insulation, heating, draught-proofing, double glazing, renewable energy generation. The green deal is available to anyone that has an electricity meter (including prepayment meters) in England, Scotland or Wales.
Green Deal Step 1 – Get an Assessment
You must get an assessment of your property to use the Green Deal. You will need to contact either a local Green Deal Assessor, or ask a Green Deal Provider to find an assessor for you. Please Note that you will have to pay for an assessment, and the assessor should inform you of the cost upfront, as a guide this is around £70 - £90
What do you get for your money? Well firstly a green deal assessor will visit your home and talk to you about your property and your energy use and help you decide if you could benefit from Green Deal Improvements. You will be asked, if you own or rent the property, if it is a listed building, in a conservation area, built prior to 1900 or constructed in a non-traditional way. If there are access issues and to provide copies of your recent energy bills. You may also be asked how many people live in the home, the type of heating and appliances you use, how often you use your heating, what energy saving measures have already been installed.
After the visit you will receive a green deal advice report this will contain:
• An Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) that rates your home for energy efficiency,
• An occupancy assessment that measures how much energy your home is using,
• Suggested improvements from the assessor,
• Estimated monetary savings you could make on your annual bills,
• Whether the improvements will pay for themselves through reduced energy costs,
This advice report will remain valid for 10 years, or until you make changes or energy saving improvements to the property.
Green Deal Step 2 – Getting the work done
So you have decided that you wish to proceed and get some or all of the work done.
• You can at this point ask a green deal provider to arrange installation and pay for the work yourself,
• Ask a green deal provider to arrange installation and a green deal finance plan to pay for the work,
• Get your own installers and pay for the work yourself,
If you choose either of the first two options then you should give your green deal provider a copy of your advice report they will then quote you on the work that needs to be done and arrange installation for you. If you choose to get a green deal finance plan then this quote will include the repayment terms. Remember providers are independent companies and you can shop around and get prices from more than one provider. You may also wish to ask your installer if you can combine this work with any other schemes that are currently running, such as Energy Company Obligation (ECO) Feed-In-Tariffs & Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI).
Note you can only get a finance plan for improvements outlined in your green deal advice report.
Green Deal Step 3 – How to Pay?
There are two ways to pay, either in advance or with a green deal finance plan.
If you choose the finance option then once the work has been carried out the repayments will be automatically added to your electric bill. This will either be taken via a small amount every day if you are on a pre-paid meter, or on your monthly bill. This is because the Green Deal stays with the property. If you decide to move after taking the work out you will no longer benefit from the improvements that you have made and therefore you will no longer be required to pay for them.
It is possible to pay your green deal off early, but you might be charged a fee for doing so, check with your provider.
I also bumped into our previous Stovax & Gazco rep Alan Parker who was there with his new company Talk Green. It was good to catch up with Alan as I hadn’t seen him for some time and so was good to hear about how his new business was going and his experiences of Green Deal coming from a similar background of the fireplace and stove industry as we do.
As one of the sponsors of the event we had our name and advert on the bag that everyone who attended the event received. It was a particularly nice moment, seeing our company name on the side of a bag making its way through the city being seen by hundreds more people as everyone left. It was also funny to see how many of those people and bags made their way to the pub just outside the Houses of Parliament, where the conversations continued long into the night.
Something else that we are very excited to be involved with this year is the National Green Deal & ECO Rising Stars Gala Awards that is happening on the 29th May. We are sponsoring one of the award categories and below you will see myself and Arta with Gary who organised both the event today and the awards gala.
All in all it was a very productive day, we made some good contacts with other companies and came away reassured about the prospects of the Green Deal and what it has to offer home owners. If you would like more information on the Green Deal, please visit
www.gov.uk email us: sales@fireplaceproducts.co.uk or call us: 01268 200139
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