Our advisers can help you keep warm next winter and reduce your fuel bills. Our technician can advise on making your home more secure and fit simple security devices such as door locks, window locks and spy holes.

Ring us to make an appointment, or look out for our leaflets around the area and fill in the reply-paid card.  The parish includes Audley, Halmerend, Alsagers Bank, Bignall End and Wood Lane. Click here to see the leaflet. It has some useful local contacts for the parish as well as information about the project.

This service is free of charge, thanks to our partners. Audley Local Action Partnership helps improve the quality of life for residents of the Parish of Audley. The North Staffordshire Clinical Commissioning Group and Staffordshire County Council want to help older people before the cold makes them ill.

One of our advisers can come out to talk to community groups in the parish. Again, ring us if you belong to a group that would like a short talk about this work.

Examples of home energy advice and support from earlier this winter

Mrs D, who lives alone and has trouble getting about, booked a home visit. As a result, her fuel company credited her with £200 and made sure that she will receive Warm Home Discount of £120 a year. They placed her on their Priority Service Register. The Fire Service came to check her smoke alarms and Warm Streets will check the level of insulation in the loft. (29051)

Mr V also qualified for the Warm Home Discount, of £120 a year. After checking carefully with his fuel company, our adviser found a potential reduction of £150 a year. On top of this, ‘Surviving Winter’ are helping with a one-off payment of £150 towards the high winter fuel bill. (29299)

For Mrs B, our advisor had to telephone several companies to find the best way to pay – comparing a fixed tariff from one company against a special deal from another and a fixed price from a third. Because of her health, it was important to keep Mrs B warm at home, making the reassurance of a home visit important. (29380)

Apply immediately for £150 off your winter bill.

Staffordshire Community Foundation are looking for people who need extra help because of heating their home over winter. Broadly, they are looking for people who are older, vulnerable, unemplyed, or lone parents with children under 5, but they are prepared to be flexible.

Specialist advisers from Beat the Cold can come out to see you at home and check your bills, meters, tariffs. They will also help you use heating systems in the best way. Book a free visit in Tamworth by ringing 0800 043 2815.

Or a loft with only a little insulation?

Take advantage of the free insulation on offer to all Tamworth residents.

It is open to all – regardless of tenure or whether you receive a benefit. This includes owner-occupiers, council tenants, private tenants and people of all ages.

The local contractor, Rockwarm, has an excellent record for quality and customer satisfaction.

To date, the scheme has installed insulation at an amazing 1,784 properties in the Borough. This will reduce carbon emissions by 49,143 tonnes over 25 years. On average, householders who have cavity wall insulation save £115+ each year and those who install loft insulation can save up to £150.

This offer is still open.
Ring HEAT on 0800 043 2815 to find out more.

With the introduction of the Green Deal from autumn 2012, offers like this will no longer be possible. If you have unfilled cavity walls, or a poorly insulated loft, book a survey without delay.

Some small print

Free cavity wall insulation for all properties (upto 120m and with a normal cavity less than 75mm.

Free loft insulation for all properties (upto 90m) that have less than 60mm of existing insulation.

The savings are based on a 3-bedroom semi-detached without prior insulation.

There are two distinct ways of installing solar pv. Most people invest in the equipment, buying it and having it installed. Then they use the electricity that they generate, free of charge. They also receive payments from their fuel company based on how much electricity their system generates.

The second way of installing solar pv avoids the expense of buying and installing the equipment. The householder ‘rents their roof’ to a company. This company keeps the payments from the fuel company; the household gets free electricity from the system.

Is a salesman coming to see you?

Look at the Code of Practice issued by REAL (Renewable Energy Assurance Limited). There is a comprehensive checklist of everything you should ask the salesperson if they are coming to promote free solar panels. Click here for the checklist, and here for REAL’s home page. The checklist is only one page, so you could print off a copy and tick each point if you receive satisfactory answers.

Likely savings on a household electricity bill from ‘free’ solar pv are likely to be £100 a year. Some careful households could see savings of £180 a year. If the company asks for an initial payment of £500, it will take between 3 to 5 years to recoup this fee. You could then have more than 20 years of reduced price electricity.

Feed In Tariffs

One of the best places to look for advice and information is the web site of the Energy Saving Trust. Click here for their guide to Feed In Tariffs (FITs). You should also click on the ‘Important Announcement’ box on their page.

For new installations, the FIT is 21 pence per Kilowatt Hour (p/kWh). The property must have a rating of D or above on an Energy Performance Certificate. The household receives the FIT for all electricity they generate, whether they use it or sell it to the grid. There is an extra payment of 3.2p/kWh for electricity sold to the grid.

From 1 July, 2012, the FIT is likely to fall to between 13.6 p/kWh and 16.5 p/kWh. The property will need an EPC band of D or above.

These dates refer to the date on which the system becomes eligible for FIT payments. This is after the installation of the system, when the fuel supplier receives a valid application for FIT. The payments are index-linked and last for 25 years.

Savings

The Energy Saving Trust gives the following as average, likely savings:

£530 a year from the Generation Tariff
£40 a year from the Export Tariff
£100 a year reduction in electricity bills, possibly rising to £180 for some householders.

Residents in the area covered by Beat the Cold are welcome to contact us to find out more.

If you are wondering whether your home has a band D rating, we can advise on this. If you need an EPC, we can supply one (a charged-for service). If you need to insulate your home to raise its standard of energy efficiency, have this done as soon as possible – later in the year the current free offers and large subsidies will disappear.

Beat the Cold has been working, since its formation, with local businesses to deliver warm, dry, safe homes. The organisers asked Martin to talk about a case study of how the third sector and business can work together. ‘Can it really work?’ was the title.

Not only can it work, it can produce great results for households. ‘Emergency Warmth’ restores heating and hot water rapidly to households where health is at risk.

Our main contractor, Holdcroft’s, offer such a rapid response that, sometimes, the heating has been fixed even before we arrive to lend temporary heaters! ‘Warm Up Moorlands Villages’ took home insulation and access to services right out to some of the most isolated parts of the Staffordshire Moorlands. Heatex worked with us to make the project a success.

 Martin’s presentation is here.

David Brough, MD of Heatex Quality Insulation Ltd, David Lowe, MD of Catch 22 Solutions Ltd, and Steve Holdcroft, MD of Holdcroft Heating and Gas Fitting Ltd, all helped put the presentation together. Steve said ‘Cross-sector partnerships do not happen; they are built. To trigger the relationship there generally needs to be a connection with a purpose.’

All the presentations, including important information about commissioning and procurement in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire, will be on the LEP website from 14 March.

Working with three Residents Associations in Stoke-on-Trent, Beat the Cold has tried ‘Low Carbon Tombola’.

No money changes hands – all the tickets are free. Players are invited to pick their tickets while they talk to advisers on the stall. All the prizes feature a reduced ‘carbon footprint’. For most this reduction is small, but the prizes are attractive and they certainly start people talking.

• Staplers that need no staples
• Water-powered clocks
• Daylight CFLs
• Wind-up torches
• Racing car track that needs no mains power or batteries – the faster you turn the handle, the faster go the cars.
• Solar powered shed lights
• PowerDowns that reduce the effect of ‘standby’

Two of the Residents Associations booked a face painter. The children looked amazing. One of the photographs shows how a child looked – she is helping her dad choose a ticket. Another photograph shows Angela McFoy (a medical student on placement with Beat the Cold), Christine Pratt (Chair of Blurton Farm Residents Association), and Jules Hill (a BtC adviser).

At Chell Heath, the Residents Association replaced two very old appliances with the latest, energy efficient, models. The photograph shows the volunteer helpers in the kitchen with their new fridge and freezer. They will also be replacing an electric hotplate and grill with a gas cooker. Lobby cooked on site should smell and taste good!

We are grateful for the support of local agencies at the events – working together to help local people manage their money, find out more about support services and become more aware of energy efficiency and sustainability. Among the agencies were:

• Age UK North Staffordshire
  
• Citizens Advice
• Disability Solutions
• Money Line
• Staffordshire Credit Union
• Staffordshire Fire & Rescue
• Staffordshire Housing Association and Revival
• Staffordshire Police

As well as talking to advisers at the events, 84 households booked Home Energy Advice and Support Visits from Beat the Cold.

During these visits, we can check bills against meter readings, look at tariffs, sign up residents for the Priority Service Registers and Warm Homes Discount, advise on the best use of heating systems and controls, and make referrals to other agencies. With the addition of a Carbon Footprint report, the project helps households to be more sustainable in all sorts of ways.

The Residents Associations – Chell Heath, Fegg Hayes, and Blurton Farm – and Beat the Cold are grateful to Eon, without whose support none of this activity would have happened.

Representatives from voluntary and community groups, from social care, from health, from housing and from Tamworth Borough Council spent a morning at the Assembly Rooms finding out how more local households could keep warm and well this winter. An earlier post – Extra winter help in Tamworth – details the partners and the help they can provide.

There is still time to contact HEAT if you, or someone you know, is suffering this winter because of a cold home, high fuel bills or cold-related illness. Ring or email HEAT to see how we can help.

Everyone who attended the event, on February 22, should have received an email with a password to open the Post that has the notes from the morning.

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

The Assembly Rooms, Tamworth

Two half-day sessions:

9.30 – 12.30 (followed by  lunch)

OR 1 – 4 (preceded by lunch)

For anyone involved with a voluntary agency or community group in Tamworth; health and social care staff.

Why attend? To find out more about the extra, practical help available this winter. This ranges from simple home checks to heating repairs, from extra lunch clubs to home energy advice visits.

Every year, death rates rise by 19% in the winter months and more people die because of the cold than die in Road Traffic Accidents. This is the first year of the NHS Cold Weather Plan. Staffordshire has won £360,000 from the Department of Health, with part of the funding allocated to work in Tamworth. Agencies working ‘on the ground’ in Tamworth are the best people to find the vulnerable households that need the extra help.

Come to one of these sessions to find out more and how to refer into the extra services. You are most welcome to book to have a display, so that you can promote your day-to-day services to colleagues at the event.

Tamworth CVS is looking after publicity and bookings and promoting the event to its wide range of members. Please complete the attached booking form (Word version) (pdf version) and return it to them.

Taking part

Home Energy Advice Tamworth – Beat the Cold. Planning for cold weather; health risks; checking fuel bills and meters; changing behaviour.

Spirita Home Improvement Agency. Warm Home Checks; smoke alarms; cold alarms; repairs to heating (both crisis repairs and longer term.

Citizens Advice Bureau. Managing fuel debt; financial capability; the new customer champion with changes to Consumer Focus.

Staffordshire Community Foundation. Surviving Winter support for individuals with large fuel bills and for community groups, including how to apply.

Tamworth CVS. Support for and from the third sector.

Home Energy Advice Tamworth – MEA. making life in Tamworth more sustainable; the shake up coming with the new Green Deal; referrals to Warm Front; how to refer; how to contact partners; timescales.

Everyone. Round table discussion and questions.

Please come to help us find the households that need help this winter, and to work for affordable warmth in Tamworth into the future.