FAQs

Not that we know of. While some competitors may focus on providing individual solutions, Furbnow stands out as a one-stop-shop for all your retrofit needs. Here's how we differentiate ourselves:

Plan

We provide you with a customised whole-home retrofit plan designed to achieve your specific goals. Our team of experts analyzes your home's energy needs and tailors a plan that maximises efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

Install

Furbnow takes the hassle out of finding reliable installers. We connect homeowners with trustworthy professionals who have the expertise to execute the retrofit plan. We provide a detailed contract and warranty for the work, giving you peace of mind throughout the process. Additionally, a dedicated Retrofit Coordinator oversees the project, ensuring smooth execution and adherence to specifications.

Monitoring and Aftercare

We’re currently trialing this service with our customers - ask us to join our trial. We go beyond the installation phase by monitoring your home's energy performance post-retrofit. This allows us to assess the project's impact on your energy consumption and make any necessary adjustments. We also provide annual inspections of the completed work to ensure ongoing efficiency and performance.

Support

We understand that the retrofit process can be complex and overwhelming. At Furbnow, customer satisfaction is our top priority, and we strive to eliminate any pain points along the way. Our dedicated operations team is readily available to address any concerns or issues that may arise during or after the project, providing you with exceptional support and assistance.




At Furbnow, we take pride in our holistic approach, attention to detail, and commitment to customer satisfaction. We aim to simplify the retrofit journey and empower homeowners to create energy-efficient, comfortable, and sustainable homes.




Contact Furbnow today at hello@furbnow.com to learn more about our unique services and start your retrofit journey with confidence. Visit our website to get a quote for your Home Energy Plan to get started on transforming your home into an energy-efficient haven.

We appreciate your interest in Furbnow's services. However, at this time, our focus is primarily on assisting owner-occupiers with their retrofit projects. Regrettably, situations where homeowners cannot move into their houses or do not live in their homes are not within the scope of our current services.




If you have any further questions or require guidance on retrofit options for rental properties, we suggest consulting with professionals who specialise in retrofitting for landlords or seeking advice from local energy efficiency organisations that may offer specific programs or assistance for rental properties.

Typically, our RAs/RCs will hold accreditation with a specific scheme (such as Elmhurst or ECMK) as well as Trustmark.

A typical assessment for a 2-4 bedroom home can take from 2-3 hours to complete, depending on the size and complexity of your home.

To summarise what is done by an assessor as standard:

• Description of the building (location, orientation, construction, heritage, architectural features, etc).
• Any constraints.
• Location and severity of any existing defects.
• Review of existing ventilation (position and type).
• Review of main construction materials and their u-value.
• Measure of the dwelling’s ‘heat loss envelope’.
• Occupancy Assessment (actual usage).
• Significance Report which looks at any limitation to installation energy efficiency measures in the home
• What EEMs are possible/recommended.

Take a look at our blog to see what you can expect from a Furbnow home energy assessment.




This summary provides a general understanding of the standard assessment process followed by our assessors. For more in-depth information, you can refer to Section 7 of PAS 2035. To maintain high standards, we adhere to the guidelines outlined in this document.

A home assessment involves an accredited contractor spending 2-3 hours assessing your home and talking with you about your priorities for the home.

They’ll then carry out the assessment known as the Reduced Standard Assessment Procedure (RdSAP). This looks at how much energy your house is using to reach a specific level of heat. The assessor will also carry out a ventilation report, to see how your house handles damp and the like The information they compile will go on to form your Furbnow plan and details the jobs you need to be carried out, their cost, and the timeframes for putting them in place.

We do not initially include technical surveys such as thermal imaging in the home survey as they significantly increase the cost of the Home Energy Plan and are not typically necessary.




However, after the assessment day and once you have received your plan, our Retrofit Assessors/Retrofit Coordinators may recommend further investigations, such as boroscope inspections or thermal imaging, depending on the specific condition of your home. These additional investigations are typically carried out during the design/tender stages of the project. In some cases, the installer may conduct their own surveys, for example, a cavity wall insulation installer may perform a survey of the cavity before providing a quote. These additional investigations are not included in the initial cost of the Home Assessment.

You do indeed. If you can allow for between 2-3 hours, some of which the assessor will need to chat to you for that’d be ideal. The assessor will also need to access as much of the property as possible, for example the loft space and the cellar (if present). The Assessor is on a data gathering mission. They are not (usually) the Retrofit Coordinator assigned to you, who will be able to answer all your technical questions.

A whole house retrofit it important because:

- It often works out cheaper. For example if the scaffolding is in place for solar panels you can leave it there for the external wall insulation meaning you only pay the once for two jobs worth of scaffolding.

- It’s better for the environment. Making retrofit changes to your house can often result in emissions from the work itself as well as the release of carbon from the building materials. But by having workers only travelling one time to your house and combining certain jobs you can be sure to see a reduction in this.

- It’s less disruptive. Importantly it means you only have to have the installers in just the once, so you can have a month’s worth of work for a lifetime of lower bills and emissions. Rather than having them in and out of the house multiple times over the years.

Why not check out an example plan and see for yourself.

Bear in mind you will also get a consultation with your Retrofit Coordinator to answer all your questions and chart a path forward.

Not shown in the example plan which you will also get are write-ups of the existing condition of the building detailing any existing defects, a review of existing ventilation (position and type), and a review of main construction materials and their u-value.

The Home Energy Plan will give you:

- An overview of where your home is now in terms of bill costs and energy efficiency, and where it would be if the plan is undertaken.

- A breakdown of each recommended job, the associated cost and the time it will take, it lays out each job as a step to follow.

We can then take on the work for you, or you can look for your own contractors.

The hardest part of making your home more energy efficient is knowing where to begin. Our plan gives you all the information you need to improve your home’s warmth, and reduce its emissions and running costs, like energy bills. Our plan shows you the current state of your home’s energy efficiency, it tells you what improvements could be made (broken down by cost, time and disruption), and lays out step by step guidance to carry out those jobs. It’ll show you how much your bills will be after the work is carried out, the new value of your house and its new energy rating. The Home Energy Plan makes starting your retrofit journey simple.

The plan will be put together by our trustmark accredited assessors who are expertly trained and follow government regulations to the highest standard. In the making of the plan we use BRE accredited software (so the industry standard) and regularly perform internal quality assurance to ensure that all plans are fully accurate to the home’s they’re for.

The cost of Home Energy Plan includes the time taken for an accredited Retrofit Assessor to survey your home, produce your bespoke Home Energy Plan and the 1-2 consultations you receive with your Retrofit Coordinator to discuss the recommended energy efficiency measures.

The price of your Home Energy Plan varies depending on your location to account for transportation and supplier costs.

For UK homeowners in the East of England, North West, South West, West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber, Bristol, Bath and Durham, the Home Energy Plan costs:

No. of bedrooms
Price (inc VAT)
1-2 bed
£420
3-4 bed
£540
5+ bed
£720

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For homeowners in London and South East England, the Home Energy Plan costs:

No. of bedrooms
Price (inc VAT)
1-2 bed
£550
3-4 bed
£750
5+ bed
£950

We periodically offer discounted prices (hint: sunshine) for our plans, so do check out our website or sign up for our email lists so you can be informed!

We help homeowners with the following upgrades and many more:

- Double and triple glazing - Heat pump installation - Cavity wall insulation - External wall insulation - Internal wall insulation - Loft insulation - Solar PV - Underfloor heating

We also offer monitoring and aftercare to ensure your new energy efficiency measures are working to the best of their ability

This is no problem and can be helpful. We recommend you always get jobs done together which means the scaffolding is already up for some jobs, it’s more environmentally friendly and you only have to have people working in and around your home just the once. We can liaise with any other builders or architects you might be working with to ensure our work is carried out to compliment theirs. Just let us know and we can adapt to suit your needs.

That’s absolutely fine, we want to give you as much flexibility as you want. We can let you source your own, we can also offer advice on who to pick if you want it, and we can provide all the contractors for the jobs. It’s up to you.

All our contractors are supervised by a Retrofit Coordinator who’s responsible for quality assurance in all the work that we carry out. We also ensure that we vet all contractors and provide the onboarding and training needed to deliver high quality upgrades to your home in the smoothest possible way.

Yes! We do buildings of all shapes and sizes. The UK has the most varied housing stock in the world so it’s important we can adapt to all its different properties. However, we mostly work with older properties that tend to be less efficient.

We sure can. We do buildings of all shapes and sizes. The UK has the most varied housing stock in the world so it’s important we can adapt to all its different properties.

We’ll always talk to you upfront about the savings your upgrades will make to your energy bills and the payback time it takes for those upgrades. We also show the value your property will have before and after the work so you can see how much it increases before the work gets carried out. We can also provide monitoring after the work has been carried out if you would like to ensure the upgrades live up to expectations.

Our retrofitters are all responsible for quality assurance and we vet and onboard all our contractors following a proper procedure so that everything goes to plan. In the unlikely situation that something does go wrong all installers will have professional liability and public indemnity insurance. All individual measures will have collateral warranties associated with them which will warrant their performance. Furbnow will work on your behalf to aim to rectify any issues with the installer.

We collaborate with your architect to incorporate energy efficiency enhancements into your renovation plan, ensuring a cohesive home improvement project.

Once the architect submits draft drawings, Furbnow reviews them to ensure all energy efficiency measures are included. We also review any obvious clashes between the recommended energy efficiency measures and planned alterations / extensions. We then hold a meeting with you to discuss any questions and make necessary adjustments. This gives us a chance to review any discrepancies, along with certain customer decisions that need to be made.

Furbnow invites their network of vetted contractors to tender, reviews the tenders with you, and appoints subcontractors for specific energy efficiency measures. We ensure that the installers of any energy efficiency measures work in conjunction with the main contractor, ensuring that works are carried out methodically.

We manage the installation of energy efficiency improvements, coordinating with your architect and contractors to ensure everything is installed correctly and on schedule. We also provide regular updates to keep you informed. We would take on the role of an Employer's Agent who acts on behalf of the customer to protect their interests, whilst acting as an intermediary between the customer, designers, and contractors.

Combining our expertise in energy efficiency with your architect's design vision ensures a high-quality, efficient, and aesthetically pleasing result. The collaboration leads to a holistic approach to home improvement, saving time and reducing project risks.

Yes, our whole-house approach allows us to seamlessly integrate retrofitting with renovation, addressing all aspects of your home improvement needs comprehensively.