[Beki]

Even if the name wants me to talk about 'The Great British Bake Off' and include some quotes from Paul and Prue, I was very excited when I saw the revamped government scheme to insulate homes as you could get support if you home:

✅ has an energy performance certificate (EPC) of D to G
✅ is in Council Tax bands A-D in England or A-E in Scotland or Wales

You can be a homeowner, landlord or tenant (either renting privately or from a housing association). If you’re a tenant, you'll need to speak to your landlord before you apply as you’ll need their permission before any insulation can be installed.

It's quite an extensive list of home insulation that you can get support with:

• cavity wall insulation
• solid wall insulation (internal or external)
• loft insulation
• flat or pitched roof insulation
• underfloor insulation
• solid floor insulation
• park home insulation
• room-in-roof insulation

You can check whether you're eligible for the scheme via the

Great British Insulation Scheme

on the government website. Before you go into the link, you'll need some information to provide them with:

• the total household income
• the type of benefits anyone living in the property receives - you may be eligible for additional support
• your email address or phone number so your energy supplier can contact you if you’re eligible

I put my application through on the 15th September and heard back from E.ON Energy (working on behalf of E.ON Next customers) on 18th September asking me to request a call back. Well this goes straight to a comprehensive online survey that checks your eligibility again. It takes about 5-10 minutes to go through the survey and gives you an answer whether you're eligible or not - some examples below.

At the moment, due to high demand, they're taking a little longer to get back to customers than expected, but make sure that your emails don't go to your spam folder

😎

N.B Sadly, I wasn't eligible this time but it popped me through to some other solutions that I might be interested in. I've popped some feedback over to the team so I could find out why I wasn't eligible as it didn't say why and I think that information would be really valuable.

[Mailman]

Originally Posted by Beki_EONNext

@Mailman Do you qualify for The Great British Insulation Scheme?

Interesting that the eiligibility for BGIS via Eon (and I presume Eon Next) depends on having an EPC at D or below. Mine is at a score of 68 and 69 takes me into D so I'm on the border. Plus I own my own home and am in Council Band B (so I'm in option 2) and not forgetting I am an Eon Next customer means it is 'Free * for Eon Next customers qualifying for option 1 or 2'.

So I've arranged a call back next week, I'll be interested to see how this pans out.

👍

[wizzo227]

Time to upskill and DIY some insulation ?

There are about 33 Million homes in the UK and too few skilled trades to fit all of it professionally. You can't do rooftop solar panels work or heavy pipe jointing yourself, but have a look around your home for tasks which you or a friend feasibly could, perhaps with an evening class to help learn how to, do it yourselves. Loft insulation and additional thickness extra rockwool is a case in point. For the landlord to get a pro team in from another county in a nicely custom painted trades van, and some big skilled guys to do it for you, has a waiting list as well as a cost. Instead, for two friends who are competent to go up a ladder, select purchase and tack down some extra bits of wood, buy the right insulation, and sort out your loft insulation to safe and thermally efficient standards, is a nice Saturday job.

Could EoN back with real money evening classes for this winter, possibly run out of school woodwork rooms, presented possibly by qualified school woodwork teachers or those approved by them, to train households in some basics to measure, plan, procure, cut and fit some of the more commonly needed home thermal improvements? To increase the number of persons in the UK who are capable of fitting home thermal improvements is necessary to meet the government mandated goals, so should the government be co-funding materials, staffing, school buildings and tools towards the goal of getting the most helpful skills out to the most people, who should be able to DIY.

[geoffers]

Originally Posted by wizzo227

Time to upskill and DIY some insulation ?...Loft insulation and additional thickness extra rockwool is a case in point.

👍 - I'll second that.

My loft space had about 100mm of insulation between the joists and I wanted to lay another 170mm at right angles to meet the current building regs spec.

The apparent downside of doing this is you potentially would lose the ability to store stuff in your loft. However by using "loft legs", (which are 175 mm supports) you can lay your additional insulation then board over this.

I was quite sceptical about them initially but in fact they work very well.

One thing to be aware of is your existing loft joists will probably not have been specified to support a fully boarded area, so take care not to overload your loft space. Maybe just board an area adjacent to a structural spine-wall

[retrotecchie]

@geoffers

You can also 'reinforce' the loft by adding supplemental joists at 90 degrees which will also give you extra depth for insulation. But the loft legs are a good solution. I rate them and used them when I boarded out my old attic. Gave me an additional 50 square metres to play with my train sets!!! I also used 25mm thick battens on the rafters and fitted the roof with 25mm Jablite insulation boards.

When we had mahoosive snow in Surrey in 2007, the roof stayed white for ages and all the other houses thawed in no time. Somewhere I have a photo taken with a thermal FLIR camera showing the amount of heat everyone else's roof was losing to the outside world.

[geoffers]

Originally Posted by retrotecchie

@geoffers
...the roof stayed white for ages and all the other houses thawed in no time.

This was an interesting pic I took which goes contrary to expectations, and which I can only explain as follows....

In our terrace of 4 houses, the roof on the extreme left, mine & my neighbour on the right have all got new roofs with good insulation.

Whilst the only roof tiles which still have snow on are my neighbour's old roof on the left, and the lean-to in the foreground, which all have the original clay tiles

The tiles without snow are all modern concrete double-roman roof tiles, so my theory is that the old clay tiles absorb a lot of water (which is why they often crack and spall in the winter), which has frozen and thus stayed colder to retain the snow.

[meldrewreborn]

@geoffers

or they were away and had the heating turned down!!

[Mailman]

Oh for the days at my previous house where the roof pitch was such that I could navigate to the furthest recesses of the roof.

Now (in my bungalow with a smaller pitch) I've got to literally use crawl boards and am only just able to get my scrawny carcass below the rafters (the beams going from the ridge to the eaves). Not easy at 65 at all. I had a bad roof leak last December which necessitated a repair bill - thankfully the repair has held good (supporting structure to the roof channel not adequately supported from inside the roof 😣 but now it is 😁). But of course I have had to check that watertight integrity has been maintained hence the loft visits over the last year. Got the suits and the masks before anyone asks.

OK, enough of my babbling leading to a question? Can I just shove another layer of insulation on top of the existing layer now that the loft space is dry 12 months later?

[geoffers]

Originally Posted by meldrewreborn

@geoffers

or they were away and had the heating turned down!!

@meldrewreborn possibly, but don't think so and doesn't explain why my side of the lean -to (also with the old clay tiles) still has snow.

The clay definitely holds water, since in the wetter winter periods my digital TV signal degraded noticeably (aerial in the loft) - this hasn't occurred at all in the 3 years since having the roof replaced.

[geoffers]

Originally Posted by Mailman

Can I just shove another layer of insulation on top of the existing layer now that the loft space is dry 12 months later?

Absolutely - current building regs are for 270mm of insulation, so if you've currently got say 100mm in between joists, just add another 170mm at right angles to the joists.

This can cause access problems however, so you may need to use some raised boarding for access - see my above posting re: loft-legs (though may be difficult in your case with reduced headroom)