Green Home Grant application - have you had a response?

[Ronny]

On 01/06/2021 at 06:43, Jinglish said:

 

I applied for my GHG on Monday 29^th March and received my voucher 21^st April. My experience has been hassle free so I have nothing but praise for the GHG team! However....

 

Speaking with my installer he said he was shocked at the speed my grant was processed. I am 1 of 19 customers who applied for the GHG over its course for either an air or ground source heat pump. I am the only customer who has been issued a grant to date and in "record time", some date back to November last year. I must be really lucky and can only empathize with all of you who are not getting prompt and sensible responses.

 

On a side note I read that the majority of admin work was contacted out to the USA and because of GDPR all applications needs to be anonymised first. This IMO is likely the root cause of everyone's issues. Don't sub this work out especially outside the UK.

I have just noticed this thread and will give you my experience with this scheme. I applied for funding for a  LG ASHP on the morning the scheme opened. My voucher was issued on the 27th November 2020. My supplier gave me 5/1/21 as the install date which was then changed to 15th December. Commissioned on the 19th dec.  Supplier was paid on the 5th February 2021.  It would look as if i was lucky after reading some of the posts. I made sure everything that was asked for was complied with and i had my quotes long before the start date for applications. As a matter of interest, it was a relatively small company i used and they were very good and i have had no problems with the installation.

[stephenxue]

On 19/05/2021 at 17:02, Frustrated Mark said:

The Green Homes Scheme.

It is my considered opinion that the Green homes scheme is a scam orchestrated and directed by the government to be as difficult as possible to obtain the grant and I defy anyone to show me otherwise. The incompetence and stupidity of all our communication with the application team is so very bad that this work could be far better performed by many primary school children.  I make this statement on the basis that no government department or company would tolerate this level of support unless they were deliberately encouraging it.

 

We finally managed the well documented almost impossible task of finding a contractor that had undertaken the extra Trustmark training and submitted all the paperwork we were asked to supply. Unfortunately we waited several weeks after they said they had received everything before we rang to see what progress had been made. We were told, why didn't you send x, y and z etc......?   Because we were not asked to!  This was the start of what appears to be a deliberate system of being obstructive, unresponsive and manipulative.  Many, many many phone calls have been made by us and many many times we have had send new documents freshly requested and resend documents that they say have not been attached but on the email returned to us asking for a resend they are clearly visible not just as attachments but as pictures.

They tell us that the documents are not in the right format but obviously we know they are.

One person says send a copy of your passport then when we ring to confirm everything got there we are told a passport is not proof of identity send something else.

After having been told on many occasions when we phoned that everything was in place, it had all been checked and that everything was ok and it had all been forwarded for submission. We then get more emails asking for repeat copies of documents and or different  documents. Some documents we think have been sent about 10 times.

After multiple sends, re-sends and phone calls confirming everything was in place but then getting emails asking for more information we started recording the names of everyone who told us it had already all been checked and had been forwarded for approval. After the first 4 or 5 we have spoken to and had confirmed that all is well we then spoke to Stephanie, Ben, Saima, Chelsea, Joanna, Samuel etc etc. No complaints about the way the calls were taken they all apologised profusely when we explained the situation. Not one person could tell us how long we might have to wait to see if it would be approved.

 

The last straw was this Sunday. We had another email saying there must be something wrong with the machine we are sending documents from as they can't read them...Please send everything again from another machine.  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We decided to ignore it, we gave up, then today, Tuesday, an email arrives saying the driving licence sent a week or so ago ( for about the 6th time ) had been successfully put onto their system!

We have been on this farce since the start of the year. Between my Daughter and myself we have 70 plus years of business experience but this is the first time I have ever felt the need and frustration to waste more of my time and write something like this.

same as me，they reject my application，said unable to confirm my ID, I have been send driver license to them， but ，they are all blind。look like they want me send a certificates to prove i am come from earth！5 month， still nothing，when i called them， they always said apology，they find my driver license，dont  know what happen！ when i cut off phone，then recived email said unable confirm ID again！WHATxxxx？NOW,appeal for my case，hope will get better，some more smart people can handle my case，not stupid guy！

[Adsibob]

On 01/06/2021 at 06:43, Jinglish said:

a side note I read that the majority of admin work was contacted out to the USA and because of GDPR all applications needs to be anonymised first. This IMO is likely the root cause of everyone's issues. Don't sub this work out especially outside the UK.

Or don’t enact stupid GDPR law. Probably the only good thing about Brexit is we can get rid of GDPR.

[tanneja]

My situation has got unnecessarily troublesome.  EWI install seems to have gone well, then Trustmark send around a surveyor to see if all done to standard.  No issues on the install of the EWI it seems, but the absence of visible trickle vents in windows means the surveyor has said the house has a major failing and so the grant not be payable to the installer.  We have whole house MVHR.  They surveyor didn't even make their selves known, must have walked around the driveway and shot off without even knocking / asking any questions.

 

I have given the installer the spec sheet, flow rate calculations and proof of purchase from Paul Heat Recovery, share pics showing installation, but that doesn't seem enough.  They are saying they want to wait for the building signoff to see all is above board.  They will be waiting a while as our build fund has runout so the builders are going off to another job while we save up for jobs as we go along.  I don't want to commission the system when the house is full of builder dust.  The installer is getting itchy and threatened before that I will need to find the grant money if they have further issues with GHG.

 

We all have enough going on with pandemic making everything more difficult, some people, like this surveyor, really defy belief.  A house 2 roads away clearly has MVHR too based on their vents, how has an experienced surveyor made this assumption.

Edited August 13, 2021 by tanneja

[joth]

 

1 hour ago, tanneja said:

No issues on the install of the EWI it seems, but the absence of visible trickle vents in windows means the surveyor has said the house has a major failing and so the grant not be payable to the installer.

 

I am flabbergasted by this, or at least would be if I didn't have such low expectations of both this scheme, and knowledge of energy efficient house building in this country.

 

To confirm, this is sign off for GHG payment for the windows that is held up? From your description it sounds like they're refusing to pay for the EWI due to an unrelated issue with your windows, which really would knock me off my chair.

 

Is it a retrofit? Trickle vents aren't even a requirement on a retrofit are they? (Or are they? I have no idea)

 

We had our final building inspection the other day - the council inspector asked to see the extractor in the shower room and just smiled vacantly when I said it's MVHR. In the kitchen, asked if the hob extractor was externally connected, I said no we have MVHR: again vacant stare. I pointed to the extraction vent and that was that. No request for commissioning certs, no comment on the lack of trickle vents. Very odd.

 

But then he did fail the test for lack of intumescent strips -- on a passive house airtight fire door!  Seems to me an airtight door is probably fairly good block for smoke and fire without these strips, but whatever at least they're possible to retrofit and shouldn't destroy the core function of the door.

 

 

[tanneja]

1 hour ago, joth said:

From your description it sounds like they're refusing to pay for the EWI due to an unrelated issue with your windows, which really would knock me off my chair.

 

Precisely this.  Came to inspect EWI install, and found fault with the house ventilation as reason to deny EWI payment.

 

On the refurb question, to be honest I hadn't really considered it, I was clear about my project being a refurb every step of the way with the potential (and eventual) system providers, one would hope the fact that I would be foul of building regs would come up.  I have attempted a frantic check online and can't find anything specific.  I suppose that could be their angle potentially, but I don't give them that much credit.

Edited August 13, 2021 by tanneja

[joth]

That really is letter to the guardian stuff.

 

We won't pay for eco measure 1 because totally unrelated, unfinished eco measure number 2 that's nothing to do with us is being done to too such a high eco standard that we don't understand it

[Adsibob]

9 hours ago, tanneja said:

We all have enough going on with pandemic making everything more difficult, some people, like this surveyor, really defy belief.

This kind of lackadaisical behaviour from a surveyor really Fs me off. I would write him a strongly worded letter mentioning that as a professional he really could have had the common sense and courtesy to ask why you didn’t have trickle vents. It’s not as if MVHR is a new technology. Tell him that you consider his failure to ask to be, at best, lazy and, at worst, a breach of the standards to be reasonably expected from a professional surveyor, and threaten to make a complaint to his regulator/certifying body if he is unwilling to accept your evidence of MVHR. With some numpties, the only option is to threaten to make a nuisance of yourself.

Edited August 14, 2021 by Adsibob

[tanneja]

I have countered for now with a statement that I won't have signoff from BC any time soon, resent the calculations and photos of the installation from inside the house, and that I would invite them to return if they really want to see in person.  I can't see how much more flexible we can be.  

[Dave Jones]

On 22/04/2021 at 17:25, Jinglish said:

I’ve been keeping an eye on this for a while until the date was brought forward. Another success story like stewart’s post on 17^th Feb. I applied for my GHG on Monday 29^th March and have just received my voucher 21^st April. My experience has also been hassle free. I’m getting an ASHP Valliant 7kW system for £10,600 installed in Lincolnshire replacing my old oil system. With 5k on the voucher and 5.6K funded on 0% credit card with RHI payment this just make a sensible investment, thank you GHG team!

 

apart from being a rip off, do you already have heavily insulated underfloor heating ? If not are they replacing your radiators for ones at least double the size ?

 

Be very very careful going forward with this as you could freeze.

[SteamyTea]

@Dave Jones

 

Just spent 2 minutes looking up the price of the above ASHP

https://www.cityplumbing.co.uk/Vaillant-Arotherm-Plus-7kW-0010037213/p/477547

Can save almost £2500 before the haggling starts.

[joth]

1 hour ago, Dave Jones said:

 

Be very very careful going forward with this as you could freeze.

From the info posted their voucher was issued in April and would have  expired last month if unused, so I fear this warning is coming a bit late. 

It's a good question though. A 7kW unit to replace a oil boiler, with no emitter upgrade, seems unlikely to end well. In theory, as it's an MCS install there should have been room by room heat loss calcs to size the system, and the industry install guarantee to back it up, but it'd be interesting to hear details and how well it works out this winter. 

[Jinglish]

I should have come back here and updated this thread. There was a case study put on the website for years but it's not longer there and wayback didn't archive it.... Here is the RAW version sent to the installer obviously it's unedited and dated old but....

 

 

I have since moved house and back on oil and boy do I miss my heat pump!!