Home Assessment
How long does a home assessment take?
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.
What happens during a home assessment?
A home assessment involves an accredited contractor spending 1-3 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.
What’s the difference between an online assessment and a home assessment?
Online assessments use existing online data such as your home’s Energy Performance Certificate (EPC). Or if
EPC
data
isn’t available for your home, neighbouring properties will be used as a basis to determine your home’s
energy
performance.
A home assessment involves an accredited assessor visiting you and your home to give an inspection, and chat
with
you to
find out your priorities for improving your home’s energy efficiency.
How much is a home assessment?
We offer two options - online only (you fill out our questionnaire and we use publicly available data to
assess
your
home) or a visit from an accredited Retrofit Assessor.
Our pricing structure is simple:
- Online - £290 + VAT
- 1-2 bed £350 +VAT
- 3-4 bed £450 +VAT
- 5+ bed £600 +VAT
Do I need to be in for a home assessment?
You do indeed. If you can allow for between 1-3 hours, some of which the assessor will need to chat to you
for
that’d be
ideal. This is so we can really get a sense of what you’re looking to do with the property.
Why is a whole house approach best?
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.
Home Energy Plan
What’s in a Home Energy Plan?
You’ll get:
- 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.
- The problem areas observed by the Retrofit Assessor
- 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. Or you can just hold onto it
if
you
like.
Why should I get a Home Energy Plan?
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.
How can I trust the Home Energy Plan is accurate?
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.
Retrofit Work
What work do you carry out?
The retrofit work we carry out includes:
- 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
How long does each job take?
It always depends on the type and size of your property, and occasionally the area you live in. But for a
2-4
bedroom
house you can expect:
- Double and triple glazing: about 1-3 hours per window
- Heat pump installation: 2-3 days (most of this work takes place outside so minimal disruption in your
home).
- Cavity wall insulation: 2-3 hours
- External wall insulation: 5-7 working days
- Internal wall insulation: 3-5 days
- Loft insulation: 2 hours
- Solar PV: 2 days (most of this is taken up by putting scaffolding up which is why it’s great to get this
done
when
you’re already having other work done).
- Underfloor heating: 1-2 days
What if I’m carrying out work with other contractors already?
This is actually ideal. 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
to
compliment theirs. Just let us know and we can adapt to suit your needs.
What if I want to find my own contractors to complete the Home Energy Plan?
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.
How do you ensure your contractors are reliable?
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.
Do you do new build properties?
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.
Can you do older properties?
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.
Aftercare
How do you show a return on investment?
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 also provide monitoring after the work has been carried out so you can see how the upgrades live up to
expectations. You can read more about this on our monitoring and aftercare landing page.
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.
How do you measure energy efficiency?
We use smart meter data to record the energy efficiency of your home, we also use EPC records to show
improvements.
What grant funding might I be eligible for?
There are a number of grants and schemes available directly to members of the public (as well as to
organisations who then distribute money towards projects).
There are grants towards upgrading your boiler to a heat pump (Boiler Upgrade Scheme), there’s also the
Home
Upgrade Scheme (HUG) if you earn less than £20,000 per year.
You can read our blog post on different funding options here.
