Scottish Borders Housing Association (SBHA)
Customer: Scottish Borders Housing Association (SBHA)
Location: Stow, Scotland
Installer: Eaga Scotland Ltd
Property types: Social Housing
Number of properties: 12
Measured: Cavity Wall and Loft Insulation, Air Source Heat Pumps, Solar Water Heating Systems, Radiators and fully fitted Cylinders, Controls and Pipe Works
The project: Fuel Poverty Reduction
Scottish Borders Housing Association (SBHA) together with Eaga Scotland, have helped residents out of fuel poverty, ensuring they remain healthy, warm and save money in their homes through the provision of energy efficient products such as cavity wall and loft insulation, air source heat pumps, solar energy and water heating systems.
SBHA had a number of 3 bedroom semi-detached properties built in the early 50's heated by a combination of electrical storage radiators and coal focal point fires.
The combination of difficult to control heating and often precarious procedure of filling buckets of coal, in the winter months from the external coal cellar and transporting these into the fire place or kitchen cupboards, made it a difficult task for the residents living in these homes, the majority who were elderly.
Eaga Scotland were approached by SBHA to increase the thermal efficiency of these properties. During the survey it was identified that the cavities were un-insulated and the lofts generally had only 70mm to 150mm of loft insulation present, well below current Government recommended standards. eaga Scotland carried out the cavity wall insulation and topped up the loft insulation to 300mm.
These improvements in insulation had a significant effect in reducing the heat loss from the homes. However, the inefficiency and expense of running the existing heating systems were a concern for the Association and the residents.
The option of gas central heating did not present itself given that the nearest pipeline was some 20 miles away. eaga Scotland & SBHA had previously carried out a trial of Air Sourced Heat Pumps for Central Heating together with Solar Panels for Hot Water. These systems were successfully installed in these additional properties.
The installation of these energy efficiency systems has led to savings of over £600 per year for the residents living in these homes. Andrew Lackenby at (SBHA) said; "Our residents have certainly benefited from the energy saving improvements and we are delighted the NHER (National Home Energy Rating) and SAP (Standard Assessment Procedure) ratings for the properties were improved from 2.3 and 26 to 6.3 and 68 respectively".
Eaga Scotland is one of Scotland's largest providers of energy efficiency solutions with access to grants from the government and major utility providers, making energy efficiency improvements more cost effective to install for local authorities, and housing associations. Currently Eaga Scotland are working with over 30 housing associations to help meet their SHQS for 2015.
