Anybody looked into this yet ?
Seems like an opportunity to encourage some 'fabric first' energy efficiency improvements to housing
(England only)
some info here
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/quality-assurance-at-heart-of-new-2-billion-green-homes-grants

and

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-8595921/Thousands-eligible-Green-Homes-Grant-scheme-qualify.html

Posted By: Fred56another round of bandwagon outfits springing up doing utterly rubbish quality work at exploitative price

Agree, but the REAL problem is:

until the politicos get their thick heads round the REAL GREEN SOLUTION, viz. INDUSTRIAL HEMP, then nothing will ever change !

https://canex.co.uk/could-hemp-insulation-play-a-role-in-the-green-homes-revolution/

gg

Someone asked today what proportion of the grant money will go on admin/assessors/project managers etc?

Posted By: Fred56Last time I looked at it hemp had excessively high carbon emissions caused by its processing.

Do you have a reference for that? Compared against EPS, or PIR? Or even recycled newspaper?

Does anyone know much about the Trust Mark scheme they are using for quality assurance of the Green Homes Grant? Doesn't seem to have very many installers registered on it yet. Will they be able to assess enough installers in time to get them spending the grants?

Will , looks like you need to register via trade body such as FENSA , NICEIC etc.
just been looking at
http://www.niceic.com/media/news/niceic-and-elecsa-issue-updated-guidance-to-regist

James, I share your feeling. My couple of phone calls to Trustmark suggested they are perhaps not entirely geared up to the amount of interest they are getting.

I know one sole proprietor who is signed up, but for me (works are not 100% of my workload) I don't think I could deal with the increased work. I would imagine a lot of people feel the same.

The irony is that a lot of us who 'do this stuff' are not going to be able to do the grant-aided work. I had the same situation with the ill-fated Green Deal. Clients were bombarding me with requests to do GD work, and as I had not 'engaged' I couldn't. Much the same this time.

The timescale is surely much too short as well.

I just did a search for Trustmark ASHP installers near me. It says there are two within 15 miles and then everything else is over 150 miles away! And one of the ones within 15 miles isn't an installer at all, it's the trade organization OFTEC :(

Sorry FT for the very late reply. I haven't been signing in much lately.

You asked: ''What wd have to happen, to make it possible and attractive for you and other backbones of a possible upgrade industry, to gear up?''

(I assume that was addressed to me and James, although I have never been called a 'backbone' before! - Been called a lot of other things....)

Anyway, to answer seriously...

For me, I think it is too late. I am trying to wind down the hands-on work as my skeleton seems to object more and more so I am looking to stop site work relatively soon and will concentrate on the survey/consultancy/'hand-holding' side (which has always been part of my 'mix').

It seems to me that the Green Homes scheme, PAS 2035 etc, are not geared towards sole proprietors. I gave up counting my total weekly hours many years ago but it's a lot. I appreciate there is always scope for 'efficiency savings', but to take on the costs and administrative burden of this new scheme would, I think, be the straw that finally breaks the much-abused back of this ageing camel.

I have no problem with the elements of the scheme (and other schemes) which seek to ensure consistent quality and adherence to safety standards, but when those are judged not by a general adherence to good practice but by another layer of administration, recording and record-keeping simply to adhere to the rules of a scheme this adds another layer of work for a sole proprietor to take on.

Lots of people have already asked me if I would do work for them under the GH scheme and I have had to disappoint them.

It would be interesting to hear other small contractors' views on this.

If anyone wants I will look back through my notes and see if I can find the approximate costs I have been given.

And, to get back to FT's query, what else?

- Less burdensome 'paperwork'? (bear in mind this is a gut feeling based on minimal knowledge of the scheme)
- Much clearer info on 'launch'. My understanding is that the Chancellor launched this as an economic recovery measure and then said to BEIS 'make this work'. It is no wonder that no-one knows (knew?- I haven't searched for info for a couple of weeks) anything much about the details. So some of the reticence may be due to uncertainty because of lack of info.

One EWI contractor I spoke to had a torrid time with ECO/Green Deal and has no intention of repeating the experience, so he will not be 'engaging'.

I'll leave it there for now and would welcome others' thoughts.

Nick

Yep, last I heard there were very few Retrofit Co-Ordinators, a role which is part of PAS2035 and was specifically referred to in early press releases. I'm off to search 'Green Homes Grants.

Edit: AECB is to introduce some add-on units so that people who have their on-line CarbonLite Retrofit qualification can 'upgrade' to full Retrofit Co-ord'r status, but that's not, AIUI, due till later this year (and the grant end deadline is 31/3/21, again AIUI).

Posted By: tonyWe simply don’t have the manpower On any level to deliver at scale

Exactly - that's why on
http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=16690&page=1#Item_3
I asked

Posted By: fostertomWhat radical methods could, or would have to be, taken to rapidly train the new workforce, and indeed to train more trainers, on a sufficient scale?
For example would GBF be seen as a national-emergency resource of fairly clued up people who would be coerced or incentivised into joining the training effort?

Govt is creeping towards the kind of incentivised retrofit programme that we on GBF have been demanding for ages. It's unimpressive if all we can give is cynicism. We should debate a practical contribution.

Daft