Many, many heartfelt thanks to all of you wonderful people. I was feeling rather overwhelmed yesterday and now after reading all your replies I feel so empowered and ready to draft a long list of important and crucial questions to the company in question. Your advice, your time and kindness are so appreciated X

Posted by: @notanexpert

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Many, many heartfelt thanks to all of you wonderful people. I was feeling rather overwhelmed yesterday and now after reading all your replies I feel so empowered and ready to draft a long list of important and crucial questions to the company in question. Your advice, your time and kindness are so appreciated X

 

Knowledge is power!

Please feel free to run your draft list of questions past the forum members.  If you do decide to go ahead I recommend to get answers in writing and monitor the progress carefully.  Once they have left and got their money it can be very difficult to get people back, on the other hand until you have signed off the installation (which I believe you are asked to do) they will listen 'cos they wont get their money.

@notanexpert once you've drafted your reply, you're more than welcome to email it to me (editor@renewableheatinghub.co.uk) and I'll be happy to give it a quick edit to see if we can strengthen your message.

@jamespa, Yes, I definitely will do that. Even though I received mailshots from 'green companies' based in Liverpool, Chester, all over the UK in fact, if I do go ahead with this, it'll be with a local company. Just want to do my research and have the facts even if I just decide it's not for me.

@editor Thank you so much. Your advice has been invaluable. So glad I found your website 🙂

Some thoughts from me, having been through the ECO4 process:

Firstly, there are literally hundreds of companies out there trying to sign you up to ECO4. Some work on a referral basis and will refer you on. Most companies seem to follow the model I experienced, whereby the company I went with managed the project, but sub-contracted out the 3 main areas of work for ASHP/heating install, solar installation and insulation upgrades.

The 3 main areas where the scheme is likely to offer support / recommendations:

Insulation

Firstly they will look to upgrade the insulation in your property. It's hard to argue against more/better insulation as this will reduce bills and keep your home warmer or make it easier to heat.

What type of insulation you are offered will depend upon your property.

If you have a loft space, they will almost certainly check the level of insulation and top it up to the recommended level if required.

If you have cavity walls, I think ECO4 requires that they are filled, so if not already filled you can expect that to be done on the scheme.

If you have solid walls, they may offer solid wall insulation. This can either be internal wall insulation (IWI) fitted to the inside of the property or external wall insulation (EWI) fitted to the outside of the property. We had internal wall insulation (IWI) fitted, which was 50mm insulation backed plaster board affixed to the wall and plastered over. Main considerations here are (a) you will lose maybe 65-70mm off each external wall on the room dimensions, (b) they will need access to each external wall requiring each room to be cleared so involved major upheaval, and (c) some people have had issues where they have insulated over damp walls (if you have damp issues, these need to be resolved first, not hidden to come back to bite you). We had a significant amount of redecoration to do afterwards painting walls, ceilings, skirting boards and window sills, but were happy to do this given the significant benefits of the work done.

If you have suspended timber floors, they may offer underfloor insulation whereby they would lift the floor and place insulation boards between the joists before relaying the floor. Again, would involve major upheaval as the room would need to be cleared and carpet lifted and relaid afterwards, and probably not possible on hard floor types (tiled, laminates etc)

Heating system

The default is to get you off gas/oil and onto some form of electric heating, thus saving CO2 emission. An Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP) is the norm. Pretty much any residential property is suitable for an ASHP so don't believe the nonsense you read online. Our house is a pre-1730's stone cottage. It's now well (or at least better) insulated thanks to the IWI and we have no difficulty heating it with an ASHP.

This is probably the area where there is the most scope for things to go wrong, so lets look at the common mistakes and understand things that can help avoid them.

The first thing to understand is you are going to need a hot water tank (DHW tank). These things are large (look at pictures on the internet) and need a space the size of a good full height cupboard (think airing cupboard size), maybe a minimum of 600mm x 800mm at full height. If you cannot accommodate the DHW tank then you are immediately running into system design issues. In an ideal world, this may go at the same location as the boiler or water tank it is replacing.

Next up you need an outside location for the ASHP. Ideally the pipe run between the ASHP and the DHW tank will be 10m or less (although mine is closer to 15m). The longer the pipe run, the more heat you are losing, so try to keep it below 10m when thinking about where the ASHP and DHW tank can be sited.

Keep it simple. The more complicated the system, the more scope for it to be less efficient. All you really need is an ASHP attached to your hot water cylinder and radiators (or underfloor heating) and maybe a volumiser tank. You don't need a buffer tank or low loss header or any heat exchangers. I would question anyone specifying any of these in the system design and walk away.

The two keys to getting an efficient system (cheap to run) is (a) the cost of electricity and (b) the flow temperature the heating runs at. Ideally you have a Smart Meter for your electricity and can consider some of the smart tariffs that offer cheaper rates. To get the flow temperatures low you need large emitters (radiators or underfloor heating). If you have radiators, you want to get the largest radiator (double panel K2 style) into each room that you can. The larger the radiators, the cooler you can run them and the less it will cost. Installers should perform a room by room heat loss survey so each radiator is correctly sized for the room. You can ask them to send you a copy of the survey and radiator design, post it here and we can look over it, but push to get those radiators as large as possible (I feel this is really important). There are various tricks they can employ to squeeze a larger radiator into a tight space - for example, most radiators are 600mm high, but they don't have to be and come in all shapes and sizes - if there's no space to put in a longer radiator, go with a slightly taller one to maximise the use of the space. Same under windows, we managed to replace radiators with slightly taller ones. We replaced all of our radiators, and in most cases we were able to accommodate a radiator that was a little longer and/or a little taller and now we are able to run our heating at 35C flow temperature in winter which is really efficient and keeps our costs right down.

As most of the new/replacement radiators were fitted to external walls, there was no additional redecoration as this all needed doing anyway following the wall insulation that had been installed. If you have cavity walls, redecoration may be a consideration.

Solar

The final thing the ECO4 scheme offers is solar to help offset the increased electricity costs of the new heating system (above). South facing roof is best, otherwise an East / West split is possible (unshaded is obviously better). The installer will work with what you have. The more the better is the rule here. The restriction the installer will be working to is a maximum of 3.68kW (G98 limitation), so it would be great if you can get this amount. Ideally you want a 3.68kW inverter (to convert the solar to AC power the house can use), and around 4kWp of panels (it's common to slightly over-specify the panels). This would typically involve 8 or 9 panels (typically ~1.76m x 1.1m). If they are offering less than 3.68kW, I would be asking why.

I guess the big risk here is they damage your roof and you end up with a leaky roof. Hopefully your roof is in a good state of repair before the installation, as otherwise you'd have to remove the solar panels (and reinstall again afterwards) before any work on the roof can be carried out (so fix the roof first). Other than that, one hopes you'd end up with a reasonable solar install given it's free. They are always going to use cheap Chinese solar panels and inverters, but generally the stuff just works and you've not had to pay for it.

Generally you cannot pick and choose what you receive. For example, you cannot have just insulation upgrades and solar, but not a heat pump (one of the main drivers behind the scheme is to get heat pumps installed). The installers will pretty much offer their standard package and there is little scope to change that or specify other things. My installer was very accommodating on radiator sizing where I just specified the biggest radiator possible that would fit the space, but I couldn't have requested a different brand of heat pump, for example. When the guy came to do the survey, we measured every single radiator and determined the maximum size that would fit the space and he was good at identifying how they may be able to accommodate a slightly larger size. I probably could have done better on my solar install as they could have squeezed on another panel if they'd been on the ball and I only got a 3.0kW inverter instead of 3.68kW, which they probably would have done if I'd asked. The key is to know roughly what you want, know your red flags, and reject any company that isn't ticking the boxes for you (and try another company).

Finally, don't be afraid to talk to multiple companies and get multiple quotes before agreeing to anything (I think we went through 6 companies, some pulled out as the job wasn't the easiest and with others there were red flags). I'm happy to put you in touch with the company that did ours, although it's not a recommendation as they use 2 or 3 different sub-contractors and you may not get the firms we got. I'm sure others will have other thoughts, but these are the points I think are important. The more you know beforehand, the more probing and sensible questions you will be able to ask during the various visits and surveys they undertake before you reach the point they want you to sign on the dotted line.