Have they got near-identical boilers? Changing the heating system can have a huge effect on the numbers, whilst a bit of extra loft insulation (assuming you have 100mm to start with) doesn't. The heating controls can have a measurable effect too.
They are identical, all built about 12 years ago at the same time by the same builder with the same fittings which are unchanged. Exactly the same boilers, same (fairly simple timeswitch) controls, same orientation, same thermostat in the same place.
Right, then they should return more or less the same values. The required standard is +/- 5 (on a typical value of 50-80) 95% of the time.
I bought a pair of nail clippers in Boots at the weekend. IIRC, they were £1.70. I gave the assitant (17 years old at a guess) a £5 note. He accidentally entered £2 tendered and the till told him to give me 30p change. It was beyond him to work out what change I really needed, and he had to call over an older assistant to tell him.
They should have had the same results, they didn't. The problem appears to be (from having briefly met two of the "inspectors") that the standard of their training is dire. Neither had any construction background. One was an ex hairdresser and the other had previously been a social work admin assistant in the Civil Service. The primary requirement appeared to be to pay about £2,000, go on a three day course and do a 50 -100 hour correspondence course over a few months. Both joined having been told it was money for old rope. There appears to be no mechanism (other than paying out for further inspections until you get a result that suits you) for getting wrong assessments altered.
My 11 yo daughter wouldn't have any problem with working out the change,= she wouldn't have needed the till to tell here in the first place. Howev= er she might have problem remembering how to correct the sale in the till.
There's a lot of that sort of thing about. See all the "You too can be a jet set IT specialist and earn £50k" adverts on the backs of buses.
That an' all.
The training providers stitch up the proto-inspectors with the promise that they in turn can stitch up their customers by offering a service that they are required to use by law.
I dare say there's also some benefits related inducement / compulsion to take the course (to keep them out of the unemployment figures).
The future for this country ends *HERE*.
derek
Not that I know of. There are loads of very unhappy people who paid for courses on the strength of the promised £50K, who are making a small fraction of this. A lot of the work comes through larger organisations who have contracts with EAs and then commission the energy reports from individuals on their panel paying something like £50 a time including travel. It may come into balance when those who are not making money have to pay their annual registration and decide it's not worth carrying on.
The more enlightened ones are finding ways to add value, for example also producing floor plans for the EA.
Do they keep on getting benefits such as JSA whilst training on the course ?
They're not exactly "available for work".
Derek
I expect so, they aren't being paid to be on the course and they still need an income. Stopping a person benefits if they went on a training course would be a sure fire way of ensuring no one went on any courses.
In broad terms if the DWP sends some one on a course the DWP pays the course fee and the person still gets their benefits. There maybe a few gotchas though.
Don't these poorly paid people understand how the system works? Just make up a figure, charge £50 and everyone that matters is happy. Estate agents have been doing this for at least 60 years and no-one in authority has noticed.
On Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:58:50 +0100 someone who may be Peter Parry wrote this:-
It is worse then that. The results of these "inspections" are put into government computer systems, allegedly so that decisions on energy saving measures can be better targeted. All very Socialist.
The main gotchas are that the courses are compulsory and don't help most people get a job. They won't send you on any courses that might get you any technical qualifications to help find a job. They will send you on courses like how to fill in forms. What the courses do do is reduce the number of people unemployed as they don't count while on a course. If you don't believe me just go and ask what courses are available if you are unemployed.
There are courses subsidised by the LEA that some unemployed can get on for free, but if they are more than about 12 hrs a week you have to sign off.
I guess heat exchange ventilation will be required. I believe it is in some cold climes like canada etc. Would cost a bit. I wonder if this could bring back the popularity of warm air heating ? But I guess houses here are too small to have the ducts as is popular in the USA. Could integrate with heat pumps etc. Simon.
Packaged bathroom extractor fans are now common and not insanely expensive (notably expensive for DIY, not especially no if you're already paying a tradesman).
The whole-house systems were briefly popular in the early '90s, but it's difficult to run the ducts (unless you build them in, US-style) and in the UK's damp winter climate they suffered from condensation and mould problems.
One step to really good energy efficiency is balanced mechanical ventilation with heat recovery: the makers claim that up to 90% of the heat in air being extracted can be recovered. For this to work, and save more energy than is being used to run the fan you do need to built to a very tight standard or your warm air leaks out rather than being extracted through the heat exchanger.
The airflow is way below that from warm air heating, a continuously running fan sized to provide about 1/2 ACH, usual arrangement to feed air into living areas and extract from bathrooms and kitchens.
Don't forget to include 15kg of activated carbon in the intake pipe, then it will filter out (some of) the nerve gas and other pollutants.
This is what my (new build) apartment in Sweden had. The ducts were inside the wall and unnoticeable (except where they entered the apartment.
I was wondering whether we had this in the UK in new builds.
tim
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