Find out how Eco Matters can help solve the problem of chilly residents.
As the cold weather really sets in and the days grow ever darker, now is the moment to be thinking about insulation. We don’t need to tell you that your tenants need to be kept warm throughout the winter!
Here at Eco Matters, we’ve encountered our fair share of chilly residents – ‘ex-chilly’ by the time we’ve finished our work. Last April a change in legislation meant we could go back to a block we had originally worked on in 2015, to insulate even more flats to top up the building’s loft insulation. We got in contact with a lovely woman whose flat we had insulated in 2015 to inform her we would be returning to insulate her loft for free and she was delighted we were coming back. Before the insulation we did in 2015, she had taken to curling up in a sleeping bag with the heating on full blast just to keep warm. After our work, she had been far more comfortable and was finally able to ditch the sleeping bag and keep warm more cheaply in her own home.
This is not only the kind of feedback we love getting, it really highlights the real life implications of the work we do. Good quality insulation improves your residents’ quality of life, and you aren’t going to be hearing many complaints about that.
So why cavity wall insulation, you may ask?
Well for starters, it’s cheap (very often, totally free!) and quick to install, with a large block taking on average no more than two days. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be careful with who you pick to do the job – always use a well regarded and trustworthy installation company. This may seem obvious, but we’ve spent a lot of time sorting out cavity wall insulation done poorly by others. We insist on the best blown bead cavity wall insulation, which is rot proof, water resistant and sufficiently stable to remain effective for the life of the building.
Cavity wall insulation decreases the amount of heat lost through the walls of your building, creating a more even temperature inside and it reduces condensation inside. In the summer it can also reduce the buildup of heat within the building – cavity wall insulation is for life, not just for Christmas!
Essentially you are looking at improved energy efficiency which should not be downplayed given the new legislation coming in April 2018 which requires properties to have an E or above EPC rating in order to be let out. This in turn will reduce heating bills, which will not only benefit your tenants but present you with an excellent publicity opportunity – who doesn’t like a property manager who saves them money.
Where do Eco Matters come in?
We take care of funding applications and depending on your property’s eligibility, it may well be completely free. We are not cavity wall insulators through choice but we work closely with accredited installers who have done consistently excellent quality work for us in the past and we will organise the work for you.
Yes of course we are invested in cavity wall insulation. However, we’ve got a strong belief that it really is the best option for many properties, especially from your point of view.
Who are Eco Matters? What works can we organise?
Set up five years ago, Eco Mattersis a Sussex based company that provides insulation to residential blocks of flats. In founder Peter Dunsby’s own words, ‘I wanted to make a difference and do whatever I could to combat climate change. We fell into working on flats by accident; now it’s what we do day in, day out… if we can save people living in flats, money on their heating bills and attend to fire safety then we think that’s great!’
In these five years we have organised insulation from Glasgow to Plymouth to Eastbourne and nearly everywhere in between. We look at a block of flats, we work out the best options to improve the insulation or to make the heating system better, and then we work out what grants there are to help meet the cost. Sometimes we can do work for free, sometimes we can get a grant for work that has to happen anyway, for example, renewing and insulating a flat roof.
Eco Matters can either fit or organise cavity wall insulation, flat roof insulation, loft insulation, external or internal wall insulation and underfloor insulation (for example for garages below flats or undercrofts) for blocks of residential flats. We can also assist with communal heating system upgrades and switches from electric heating to a renewable based heating system. Give us a call to see how we can help you.
