Member Article

North East Companies Lift Family Out of Fuel Poverty

North East businesses Energy Friend and Whitfields Energy Solutions have transformed the run down home of Gateshead resident, Eileen Falcon, through the government registered Green Deal and Eco schemes.

Ms Falcon was advised of the Green Deal scheme when she contacted the Energy Advice Service concerned about the condition of her 1950s home. With a condemned, unusable fire, extreme heat loss through crumbling walls, un-insulated loft and inefficient back boiler Ms Falcon became increasingly concerned about the stability of her home and how she and her family would cope during the cold winter months.

It was the Energy Advice Service that put Ms Falcon in touch with Durham based company, Energy Friend, who carried out a full energy assessment on her property.

“In Eileen’s case a lot of work was required to make her home warm and energy efficient and at a cost of over £11,000” said Energy Friend’s CEO Colin Robinson. “Using the Government’s ECO scheme – which provides free energy efficiency measures to vulnerable households - we were able to find grants for Ms Falcon to cover £8500 of this cost. The remaining balance we were able to fund through a Green Deal loan, meaning there will be no upfront cost for Eileen to pay and, instead, a small charge will be added to her monthly electricity bills. The improvements made will significantly reduce Eileen’s outgoing bills, meaning the savings she makes will more than cover her monthly payments”.

Eileen works as a legal secretary and qualified for the scheme purely on the fact that her property is classed as a hard to treat home. Ms Falcon will also receive a bonus £1000 cash back from the government having been one of the first early adopters of the Green Deal scheme, money she plans to use refurbishing her bathroom, which, due to the thinness of her external walls she was previously unable to do.

“The Green Deal has been an absolute saviour to me. Before the work was carried out I had a constant cloud over my head wondering how I would ever afford to get the boiler and walls fixed. My health isn’t the greatest and living in a cold home was doing it no favours. The difference has been amazing, I don’t know what I would have done without it”, said Eileen about the improvements to her home.

Energy Friend and Whitfields are one of the first companies in the UK to deliver both the Green Deal and Eco scheme alongside one another.

David Goss, Commercial Manager at Whitfield’s Energy Solutions said of the partnership “It’s been our ambition at Whitfields to create a one-stop-shop for customers to access the Green Deal. Through our partnership with Energy Friend we’ve been able to put the whole Green Deal process under one roof and align it to the ECO scheme. We’re able to take customers like Ms Falcon through the assessment and advice stage, identify and obtain the appropriate funding and carry out the installation. It’s a much simpler and less time consuming model from the customer’s point of view”.

The work carried out on Ms Falcons home, which included loft and external wall insulation, a new energy efficient boiler, several new radiators as well a brand new electric fire has taken the building from an Energy Performance Certificate rating of an F through to a C, which is a huge improvement.

“What’s been really satisfying on this job is that thanks to Green Deal we’ve been able to go the extra mile, not only providing Ms Falcon with a free boiler through the ECO scheme but with a whole host of energy saving improvements to her property” added David.

The Green Deal and Eco are government registered schemes which aim to improve the energy efficiency of homes and business’ without paying out a huge lump sum. The green deal allows for paying back costs through savings in a properties energy bill whereby the Eco scheme enables energy saving improvements completely free of charge, depending on eligibility criteria.

Partners involved in the delivery of energy efficiency improvements included Edendene Construction, Infinite NRG and SPSenvirowall.

Whitfields and Energy Friend are based on the Meadowfield Industrial Estate in Durham.

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