1 minute read
An update on ECO4
Simon Flint, Retrofit Support Team Leader
The ECO4 scheme has promised £1 billion a year until 2026 to spend on improving homes around the UK.
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It is estimated that this funding will improve around 450,000 houses and will be targeted at the most fuel poor homes. The biggest difference between ECO3 and ECO4 is the number of measures carried out as well as the scoring system. Whilst ECO3 focused on one to two improvement measures per house, ECO4 will use the whole house retrofit approach and improve properties by at least two SAP bandings:
n Bands G and F will be improved to a D.
n Bands E and D will be improved to a C. post-installation RdSAP assessment to confirm that the goals have been achieved.
New Processes
Whilst there aren’t dramatic changes to the work of either Retrofit Assessors or Coordinators, there is a new requirement for the retrofit assessments to be submitted to Trustmark’s Data Warehouse before a retrofit project can be started. Trustmark released updates to their software on 1st July 2022 allowing for the new processes, however some of the administrative processes of ECO4 are still in consultation with the Government and so it appears that the funding has not been released yet.
Elmhurst’s software
While it was possible to lodge ECO3 funded retrofit projects directly through Elmhurst’s own software, this had to be paused while new software is being developed for ECO4. With the number of changes within the processes and the background data, the requirements for the software are a lot more than a facelift. We are hoping our members will appreciate our hard work on this and we will do our best to introduce the new software as soon as possible. In the meantime all ECO4 projects together with the Local Authority Delivery Scheme (LADS) & the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) funded projects must be lodged direct into the Data Warehouse.
Looking to the future
Elmhurst is very positive about ECO4 and the whole house retrofit approach as we believe that any improvements to the property should be done properly focusing on fabric first, which will then change the requirement for building services and potentially ventilation. By working hard to assist our members to use these new processes we hope to play our part in reaching our net zero carbon target for 2050.
