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The rental market is becoming increasingly tough for landlords, with margins getting thinner due to changing taxation policies and an increasing regulatory burden placed on the industry. As with any business, a landlord needs to look for ways to make their product more efficient and less expensive to maintain, which is an excellent reason to undertake a retrofit project with Rethink Retrofit on your rental property or property portfolio.
A thin profit margin can mean that even minor building repairs wipe out your gains completely, and British homes traditionally suffer from damp and mould damage due to our climate, which can affect everything from the rafters to the foundations. By having Rethink Retrofit take charge of your retrofit project, we can identify areas in which your building’s use or fabric are contributing to an existing problem, and remedy it before the problem gets worse. Thanks to our whole house approach to retrofit, we look beyond the immediate causes to deeper issues such as poor ventilation, damp problems or even overheating. This allows us to get at the root cause of the issues, and to create a comprehensive and sustainable plan, as well as to arrange a high-quality suite of contractors to solve the problems.
As well as the building itself, as a landlord you have a responsibility to your tenants, and keeping them in place can be a tough task in an uncomfortable house. Problems such as draughts and leaks can be disastrous, especially if you’re paying the energy bills, and issues with mould can even leave you open to prosecution if it causes harm. Unfortunately, fixing these problems can be a complex and expensive process when you just tackle the symptoms, which is where a comprehensive retrofit solution from Rethink Retrofit can help. Our whole house approach can identify all the opportunities you’re missing to make changes, small and large, using modern technology to fix age old problems such as damp and poor insulation. We can also identify ways to make your property even better and cheaper to run, such as by installing solar panels or a heat pump system, future-proofing your investment for years to come.
As experts in the Retrofit industry, Rethink Retrofit is the place to turn if you’d like to improve your property’s energy efficiency, but you don’t know where to start. After we have conducted a comprehensive survey of your home, we can then draw on years of experience and the latest thinking to suggest a start-to-finish Whole House plan for improving your home, including a range of active and passive interventions. We can even take care of suggesting and applying for all of the various grants that might apply, saving you time and money. Once we’ve planned your retrofit, we can appoint a range of trusted high quality contractors to carry out the works, and we’ll stay with you for monitoring and testing afterwards to make sure you’re taken care of.
ECO (Energy Company Obligation) is a government energy efficiency scheme to help reduce carbon emissions and tackle fuel poverty.
ECO funding is available for vulnerable tenants who are receiving income-related benefits or have a low overall household income and vulnerability to the cold (including suffering from a long-term health condition, being in receipt of a non-means-tested benefit, or living in a property with low energy performance). The funding means that the cost of undertaking energy efficiency home improvements such as loft insulation, cavity wall insulation, and heating system replacements can be met in whole or in part by an obligated energy supplier.
We are working with the Better Housing Better Health (BHBH) team, who provide residents with advice and grants to improve the energy efficiency of their home, lowering bills and improving health. BHBH already has a list of 18 accredited installers in Yorkshire – these installers all have access to ECO funding and will contact BHBH if they believe a tenant is eligible. Having an eligible tenant means that a private landlord can benefit from ECO funding for improvements to their property. The BHBH team will coordinate with the Rethink Retrofitservice should this situation arise.
Visit our ‘How it works’ page for up-to-date costs of the Rethink Retrofit service. This cost covers the time and expertise of our Retrofit Coordinators who undertake an assessment of your property and create a Whole House Plan. The Plan will also include estimated costs for undertaking each suggested energy efficiency measure.
The cost of a Whole House Plan is per property, and you need to fill in a registration form for each property individually. However, if you manage several properties – especially if they are of a similar age and specification – we may be able to offer a discount. We can also help you with registering your properties.
Please contact us using our contact form, or give us a call.
Commissioning a Whole House Plan is not usually required for the installation of a single measure. However, not doing means that you will miss out on our expert’s advice on how to comply with the MEES now and in the future, so we’d always recommend you take this route.
Whether it’s a single measure you want or our usual Whole House approach, we are happy to help. Please contact us using our contact form or give us a call.
If you’re a tenant in a private rental property in Yorkshire and want to find out what you can do to improve the energy efficiency of your home, you can find information in our blog post on the topic – including a communications pack to help you open dialogue with your landlord.