I had a call from a tenant, he was on benefits and someone had tried to convince him to sign up for a heat pump and solar panels on the basis that it would cost him and his landlord nothing. What could go wrong?
My Response
The 'ECO' scheme whereby the government pays for retrofit for tenants / householders on benefits has been around in various forms for a few years. My issue is that I have never met a contractor on one of these schemes who has done a good job – it is just a money making scheme for cowboys in my view. Am sure there must be some good contractors but....
Two examples from my own experience:
- A local authority organised solar PV installation 'free of charge' to my landlord and her tenant, the 'installers' charged the scheme for 8 panels and an installation cost that included scaffolding, but they only installed 6 panels and did so from 2 ladders to save the scaffold expense…..
- A boiler installed by a local gas company which spends far too much time making money and far too little looking after its customers. On paper it was a good deal, the landlord paid half the cost, the grant paid the rest and he got a new Worcester boiler with 10-year warranty. In reality, the cost was almost twice what my gas guy would have charged so it did not save much, the boiler was never registered with Worcester so there was no warranty unless we paid a significant maintenance contract fee to the company and some of the parts in the boiler were obviously not new - when I talked to Worcester they identified it as a discontinued contract boiler…
So sorry – I see a good few companies looking to 'help landlords improve their properties using these schemes' but I have yet to come across one who can answer some basic questions which would confirm genuine benefits for my landlords, so I never promote them as a result...