Sticking with your current energy provider could be costing you

July 27th, 2010 HIP-Consultant.co.uk Posted in Energy Saving 1 Comment »

When you moved into your current home, did you stay with the incumbent provider? If so, you could be £345 a year worse off on average according to recent research.

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Grant Shapps to change Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) delivery?

March 4th, 2010 HIP-Consultant.co.uk Posted in EPC, Energy Saving 16 Comments »

Energy Performance Certificates are required before marketing can commence for both rental and sales of properties within the UK. Anyone who has recently sold their house would have had an EPC carried out as part of the Home Information Pack.

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New green strategy to overhaul Britain’s homes

March 2nd, 2010 HIP-Consultant.co.uk Posted in Energy Saving, Press Releases 5 Comments »

Today the Department of Energy and Climate Change have released the following information on their green strategy.

Paving the way for ‘pay as you save’ green finance to make energy efficiency pay from day one.

  • Up to 7 million British households to benefit from eco upgrades by 2020
  • Up to 65,000 jobs in the green home industry
  • Energy companies and local authorities to join forces to help consumers
  • New standards for social and rented accommodation to be proposed

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Interview with Brian Scannell of NHER – part 2

February 10th, 2010 HIP-Consultant.co.uk Posted in EPC, Energy Assessors, Energy Saving, Home Information Packs, Interview 4 Comments »

Brian Scannell of NHER and managing director of National Energy Services (NES) Ltd continues with further thoughts towards our questions in part 2 of the interview.

Q10 Do you support the current HIP legislation and if it was ‘scrapped’ what impact do you envisage it will have on your members?

I certainly support the original aspirations of the HIP – ensuring that reliable information on a property was available at the time of marketing. It is an absolute tragedy that the most directly beneficial component to consumers – the Home Condition Report – was made voluntary and, to all intents and purposes, killed.

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Interview with Brian Scannell of NHER – part 1

February 8th, 2010 HIP-Consultant.co.uk Posted in EPC, Energy Assessors, Energy Saving, Interview 6 Comments »

Brian Scannell of NHER and managing director of National Energy Services (NES) Ltd joins us to answer our questions in a two part interview.
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Training as a Community & Housing Energy Advisor

November 11th, 2009 HIP-Consultant.co.uk Posted in EPC, Energy Assessors, Energy Saving 14 Comments »

The new qualifications; Housing Energy Advisor (HEA) and Community Energy Advisor (CEA) are intended to enable individuals to provide advice on energy efficiency to both individual households and the wider community. It is envisaged that these advisers will help the government reach environmental targets.

Home Energy Adviser (HEA), too good to be true?

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Upgrade your boiler and heating system for the winter?

October 20th, 2009 HIP-Consultant.co.uk Posted in Energy Saving, Home Improvements No Comments »

If you have a boiler and heating system older than about 10 years you really should consider upgrading the boiler and hopefully the following will provide some food for thought.

As gas and electric prices continue to rise with recent reports that they could possibly be 60 % higher by 2020 if not sooner. Now is the time to look at both your consumption and the efficiency of your heating system.

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Grants Shapps – Strong Foundations or Weak Understanding?

October 9th, 2009 HIP-Consultant.co.uk Posted in EPC, Energy Saving, HIP News, Home Information Packs 5 Comments »

With the conservative’s conference now finished and the focussed rallying of political troops coming to a natural lull we now see further reflection of the speeches and recently published papers.

Grant Shapps always provides some interest though feel he often lacks solid reasoning and/or alternatives to areas he dislikes. He is undoubtedly advised on certain areas though in regard to Home Information Packs and Energy Performance Certificates he just seems to be taking a ‘party line’; stating what he hopes the nation wants to hear.

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EPC data access to be given to Energy Saving Trust EST

July 24th, 2009 HIP-Consultant.co.uk Posted in EPC, Energy Assessors, Energy Saving No Comments »

The Energy Saving Trust (EST) is close to be given access to the data gathered from Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) and this was recently outlined in the summary of responses to ‘The Next Steps: EPCs and the establishment of the Green Homes Service consultation.’

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Is now the time to repay your mortgage early?

July 6th, 2009 HIP-Consultant.co.uk Posted in Energy Saving, HIP News, Mortgages, Property Market 2 Comments »

Repaying your mortgage early can save you substantial amounts in interest payments and could be a great financial investment at present. With interest rates at their lowest in decades now maybe the time to increase your mortgage repayments or consider paying off a lump sum.

Before you arrange to make overpayments it is important to check a few details, do your homework and understand the pros and cons whichever type of mortgage you have and/or are considering.
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Prevent you energy bills rising to £5k a year

July 2nd, 2009 HIP-Consultant.co.uk Posted in Energy Saving, News 1 Comment »

Shocking research has shown gas and electric prices could rise to such an extent your energy bills could rise to as high as £5,000 per year.

The research recently published has been carried out by uSwitch.com and forecasters concluded that on current trends that energy bills could reach £4,185 by 2020, in comparison to £1,243 at the moment.

In addition to the above, the Government plan to implement smart meters in homes, which it is anticipated will cost taxpayers an extra £548 a year. Therefore, equating that the cost for gas and electric for each household could be as high as £4,733 within a decade.

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