believe housing customer gets home energy upgrade

Homes across County Durham are being made warmer, greener, and cheaper to run – and the work on each property can take less than 48 hours to complete.

Housing association believe housing is upgrading almost 1,000 homes to improve their energy efficiency.

Contractor RE:GEN Group is installing measures including loft and cavity wall insulation, improved ventilation, heating controls, sensors and energy efficient lighting on homes which will benefit most from the work.

Around 200 properties have already had the work done, little over a month since the work started.

Customer David Eatock, whose home was one of the first upgraded, said the workers were quick, friendly and cleaned up after themselves.

He said: “It’s not cost me anything. If it is going to save me money on bills and things, why would you not get it done? There was no disruption, nothing else, they were in and out, no problem with anybody and it’s made a hell of a difference.”

Funding towards the scheme was secured from the government’s Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF), which awarded £9m to a Durham County Council-led consortium of five housing associations, including believe housing.

Almost £3.4m went to believe housing, which is investing an additional £1.69m in the scheme.

Samantha Tullock, Assistant Director of Strategic Assets at believe housing, said: “It is really important, especially at the moment with energy bills going up. We are wanting to make improvements in our customers’ homes, to make them feel warmer and help them reduce bills where we possibly can.”

Brian Bedford, Head of Sustainability at RE:GEN Group, said: “The real benefit of this is it is light-touch work. It is not disruptive and it’s over in a very short space of time, in most cases just two days from opening up to handover.

“The feedback has been extremely positive.

“It’s happening at just the right time, just before the winter months and before the price cap increase.”

believe housing, which was recently named the North East Chamber of Commerce’s Green Business of the Year, is working towards being net zero by 2050, or sooner if possible. And it has set a target of making every one of its 18,200 homes at least EPC (energy performance certificate) rating C by 2030.

“It’s really important this funding to help, not only our customers, but the environment as well and to help us to reach those targets sooner.

“We’re encouraging customers who are offered these works to accept them. Anyone who is unsure can talk to us or RE:GEN Group about any concerns,” added Samantha.

The SHDF-backed scheme supports believe housing’s objectives to create thriving places and homes people want to live in and to respect and protect the planet.

Hundreds more homes are yet to be upgraded.

Surveyors are currently assessing properties, to establish which ones will most benefit from the work, before inviting customers to accept the improvements.