Home Energy Advice Team
This project is co-ordinated by Surrey County Council and Zero Carbon Guildford, funded by the Local Energy Advice Demonstrator (LEAD) project, via the Greater South East Energy Hub. This project provides funds to introduce residents to energy efficiency and make measurable steps forward in decarbonisation.
As part of this project, What Next volunteers are offering FREE in-person Home Energy Surveys to the residents of Waverley Borough to provide tailor-made suggestions on how they could improve their energy efficiency, and potentially save on bills.
The surveys are free to eligible residents, no strings attached, no obligation to do anything else. If you’re eligible for a free survey, an Energy Survey Co-ordinator will contact you to arrange a suitable time and date for a survey and then link you up with one of our team of Energy Champions (see below), who are conducting surveys in Waverley Borough.
Project / Activity Leader: David Faraday
What’s Involved in a Home Energy Survey
Our Energy Champions will use a thermal imaging camera to help identify areas of heat loss from your home and discuss any issues you may have regarding energy use in your home. For the camera to work effectively, there needs to be an adequate temperature difference between indoors and outdoors, so surveys will be conducted in the early evening; surveys typically take between 50-70 mins, depending on the property.
Our Energy Champions may identify areas of heat loss from your home, if they do they may be able to provide you with FREE remedial measures; these include draught tape, secondary glazing film, chimney pillows. Sadly, our Energy Champions cannot install these measures for you, it is up to the householder to ensure the measures are installed. They may also leave some relevant information leaflets with you providing advice and guidance on improving home energy efficiency.
After their visit, our Energy Champion will write up their recommendations and upload thermal images. Then, our central co-ordinator will send you a written report, with guidance and recommendations suited to your personal situation and issues with your energy efficiency.
Please Note: that our Energy Champions are not Retrofit Assessors or Co-ordinators. Issues beyond the scope of our Energy Champions training will need to be referred to an appropriate Retrofit Assessor / Service.
Meet our team of Energy Champions:
We have a dedicated team of volunteers, our Energy Champions, who have been trained to conduct energy surveys in residential properties. All of our team have completed the Delivering High Quality Domestic Home Energy Advice course from National Energy Action and have been DBS checked.
Rieks Drijver
Jackie Drijver-Ludlam
David Faraday
Shirley Faraday
Cinzia Fontana
Tom Lashbroke
Adrian Morris
Rob Oulton
Why is this Project Important?
As far as energy is concerned, many of our homes are quite leaky, energy leaking into the environment is wasted. And, of course, all this wasted energy costs us money and much of it results in unnecessary carbon emissions to the atmosphere.
For a typical UK household, gas usage ranges from 7,500 kWh to 17,000 kWh and electricity usage from 1,800 kWh to 4,100 kWh (Source: Ofgem), resulting in household bills ranging from £1,346/yr to £2650/yr (Source: BBC Analysis of Ofgem data).
Across Waverley Borough, on average, home energy consumption accounts for 23% of a typical household’s carbon emissions, some 4.6 tonnes CO2e/household/yr (Source: IMPACT Community Carbon Calculator).
So saving energy saves you money and benefits the environment.
There is more information on this project on the Zero Carbon Guildford website.
How does the Energy Escape?
The answer is in many ways. Without effective insulation up to 35% will be lost through walls, 25% through the roof and 15% through the floor. Of the remaining heat loss, about 15% may be lost through doorways and 10% through windows.
