Helping Innovate Property (HIP) – Blog, Housing Market News and Articles

You might think that installing something as large and life-changing as a solar panel on your home means big repercussions on your insurance premium, whether for the better or worse.

Well, there’s a balance at work: on the one hand, environmentally aware homeowners like yourself are usually less likely to claim and insurers can’t really penalise people for doing something that’s so eco-friendly and positive. On the other hand, the solar panels are both valuable in themselves and add value to your home, which means your payout might have to be larger if you were to claim.

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In readiness for the launch of the much anticipated Green Deal, the Government’s flagship environmental project aimed at making up to 14 million homes more energy efficient through loans to home owners for the purchase of energy saving improvements to the properties, the Department of Energy and Climate Change is busy drafting a Code of Practice, aimed at ensuring a proper level of protection for consumers.

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In today’s society, using up a great deal of energy is considered common and even expected. However, the more energy we use, the more expensive the utility bill is. Some consumers choose to save money by finding the cheapest utility supplier they can. While signing on with the cheapest utility company is a good start, this is not enough to change things if the homeowner continues to use a great deal of energy.

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On 30th June 2011 a piece of legislation comes into effect that will ensure that an Energy Performance Certificate or EPC is required on Holiday Lettings. This will bring Holiday Lets into line with other properties that need an EPC, such as those currently required on sales and rental basis.

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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