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“Warmer Widcombe” – What have we Learned, One Year On?

Warmer Widcombe – What have we Learned, One Year On?

About This Review

In 2012 Energy Efficient Widcombe (EEW) received a Grant of £61,000 from the Department of Energy and Climate Change as part of the Local Energy Assessment Fund. It was required to use the grant within two months.

EEW developed a project team, and named the project “Warmer Widcombe – Home Energy Saving Packs”. This involved assessments of Widcombe houses, a survey of residents’ attitudes – and packs of information on energy saving measures for the five commonest types of house in Widcombe. EEW took over a pop-up shop in Widcombe for a week and created an exhibition. The event was well publicised and over 200 visited and there were 400 website hits.

Now, a year on, it is useful to reflect on the project and see what can be learned. This is the purpose of writing this review.

Section one describes the background and the “inputs” to the project.

Section two describes the immediate results or “outputs”

Section three is more critical and asks what was learned from the project

Section four lists the messages – both for all and also specific messages

Tim Williamson, Energy Efficient Widcombe

Ross Grinyer, Student, Bath Spa University

May 2013

Thanks

A number of Widcombe residents volunteered their time and energy for the Warmer Widcombe project – and this has been wonderful. Special thanks also go to Widcombe Association, particularly the Chair and the Treasurer. The project also benefitted from strong support from the Council Community Sustainability Officer and staff at the Centre for Sustainable Energy.

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Contents

About This Review...................................................................................................................2

Section One: ....................................................................................................................4

Section Two......................................................................................................................6

A Review of “Warmer Widcombe”............................................................................................6

How Has The Project Been Assessed?...................................................................................6

How Well Did EEW Meet Its Key Deliverables?.......................................................................6

Section Three...................................................................................................................9

What Was Learned From “Warmer Widcombe”?.....................................................................9

What Was Learned From The Surveys?..................................................................................9

What Was Learned................................................................................................................11

From The Exhibition?.............................................................................................................11

What Parts Of The Project Were Most Successful?..............................................................12

What Were The Problems?....................................................................................................13

Section Four...................................................................................................................15

What Are The Key Messages From “Warmer Widcombe”?...................................................15

Specific Messages.................................................................................................................16

Appendices............................................................................................................................17

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Energy Efficient Widcombe (EEW) was set up in 2010 with the aim of helping residents of Widcombe save energy, reduce their carbon footprint and to help reduce excess winter death rates as they were well above the national average. EEW is a small group of volunteers who live locally in Widcombe.

In December 2011, The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) announced the introduction of the £10 million Local Energy Assessment Fund (LEAF). This was to provide grants for local groups to prepare their communities for the Green Deal. The implication of LEAF was that local assessments would helpfully inform the benefits of Energy Saving Measures (ESMs) under the proposed Green Deal. DECC explained:“The fund will support work by communities to understand the energy baseline and carbon footprint of their area as a whole and the potential to reduce that through local energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.

EEW Proposal

EEW would make the suggested assessments by carrying out relevant surveys in Widcombe. However, it wanted to make this information relevant to the residents. The proposal was to use the surveys to provide feedback and easily accessible information on energy saving measures (ESMs) customised for their type of house. This could be useful preparation for the Green Deal.

EEW application in Jan 2012

To develop their proposal, EEW listed these deliverables:

1. A survey of Widcombe housing stock

2. A survey of residents’ current energy use

3. A survey of residents’ attitudes to energy efficiency.

4. “Home Energy Savings Packs” giving residents information about energy saving measures (ESMs) in their type of home.

5. “Home Energy Masterplans” giving detailed information about ESMs in15 specific houses as a follow on from the Packs (4).

6. Engagement Dissemination and Promotion of Home Energy Savings Packs

7. A Report to the Council

Full details of the deliverables can be seen in Appendix 1.

Funding

Based on the deliverables listed above, EEW applied for LEAF funds of £45,000 and was successful – on condition that the funds were spent by 31 March, less than two months after receiving the grant.

There was a misunderstanding in three items in the initial application concerning projects involving the Centre for Sustainable Energy, envisaged work with BANES Council and the need for EEW project management. Following phone discussions with the LEAF managers

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Section One: Background


(Energy Saving Trust), EEW re-applied after the closing date for further funding (Appendix 2). EEW subsequently received a further £16,000 taking the total funding to £61,000.

However during this time, it became apparent that some assumptions made at the time of the re-application were incorrect. Further discussion with the LEAF managers took place with the outcome that the EEW completed a Project Amendment Form detailing a reconfigured programme of how the £61,000 would be spent. (Appendix 3). This was accepted by the LEAF managers.

The £61,000 still had to be spent by the end of March and the project start had been delayed by the renegotiated programme.

Project Management

The Project Manager developed the following Team:

The name for the EEW project was chosen to be “Warmer Widcombe – Home Energy Savings Packs”. The “Warmer Widcombe” heading was to appeal to Widcombe Residents – and the strap-line “Home Energy Savings Packs” was to be the major offer to residents expressed in the manner of “it does what it says on the tin”. A logo was prepared to reflect this.

The project plan

The Project Manager generated a Gantt chart (Appendix 4). However because the timescale was so tight, delays inevitably

occurred increasing the pressure to complete the project on time. This put a lot of stress on the team and sometimes quality had to be sacrificed for speed.

This project followed the stages often found, according to research, in inexperienced project groups. The research shows that before achieving good performance a group goes through the stages of “forming”, “storming”, and “norming”. So it is not surprising that there were disagreements within the Team which sometimes impeded progress of work. There were a number of issues moving from the generality of the application to the detail of implementation.

The main problems concerned not initially agreeing a tighter purpose (exactly what we intended doing) and vision (how things would be different) - and a lack of clarity of roles responsibilities between the EEW volunteer Directors and employed members of the team (the project manager and the project administrator).

The project hugely benefitted from clear budgetary management by the Project Manager working closely with the Treasurer of Widcombe Association.

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Role OrganisationEEW Director EEWEEW Director EEWCo-ordinator and Marketing EEWAdmin Support EEWVolunteer EEWProject team support ESCM ConsultingProject Management Support Energy Taskforce


How Has The Project Been Assessed?This project was assessed in two main ways. Firstly, the project manager submitted the formal report to LEAF managed by the Energy Saving Trust. This took the from of entering answers to their specific questions. The report covered the following sections:

1. Drawing the main conclusions from your project

2. Understanding the success of your ‘deliverables’

3. The quality of support for your whole project

4. Carbon savings

5. Next steps and how these can be better supported

6. Working with us to pull together more insights and learning from your work.

Secondly, all employees and volunteers were asked to complete anonymously a feedback form. These individual forms were collated into a single feedback report.

How Well Did EEW Meet Its Key Deliverables?

1. Neighbourhood Housing Survey (Appendix 4)

This was very successful. A full housing survey was conducted of all the houses in the Widcombe area. The report contained information such as age and type of house and number of bedrooms.

2. Resident Energy Survey (Appendix 5)

This survey sheet was sent out by post to 1,000 residents (random), by Parity Projects. It was completed and returned by 181 residents in total.

Parity Projects wrote to each of the respondents giving a brief report on ESMs according to the information given.

There was confusion over how the survey was to be run. EEW thought Parity Projects would collate all of the respondents’ information and use that to make recommendations for the Home Energy Advice Packs. Instead they simply made generic recommendations purely based on the age of the house.

3. Attitude survey (Appendix 6)

This survey, conducted by Blue Marble, randomly selected houses from the ward of Widcombe to undertake the survey. 212 residents were interviewed by trained staff. Analyses of the data

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Section Two: A Review of “Warmer Widcombe”


were made by type of house, by type of resident etc. (but not by street or areas of Widcombe ward.). An excellent detailed and illustrated report was provided.

4. Home Energy Savings Packs

Parity Projects recommended that houses in Widcombe were put into just five categories based solely on the age of the property: Georgian, Victorian, 20s/30s, 50s, 60s/70s, and 80s +. They provided advice on energy saving measures for each of those five types. The EEW project team developed this advice and designed Energy Savings Packs by incorporating pictures of the range of houses in each category and by customising the advice based on the information from the Attitude Survey.

The booklets presented ESMs in three categories: i) “No-brainers” for easy to do

and relatively cheap measures

ii) “Committed Savers” were more expensive measures but would pay for themselves in savings over 5 to 10 years.

iii) “Red Herrings” were measures not normally appropriate for that type of house.

They gave excellent advice for of the 5 different types of house and were a very useful output.

The completed Home Energy Savings packs were successfully made available for Widcombe residents both as printed booklets and via the EEW website (www.energyefficientwidcombe.co.uk).

5. Home Energy Master Plans

These were 15 in-depth studies on individual houses, requiring a 1- 2 hour visit from a surveyor. Modeling software was used to provide a customized report detailing ESMs.

They would normally cost £200 to £300 but were offered free of charge to Widcombe residents as part of the project. The houses were selected to cover each of the five categories being used for the Energy Savings Packs.

There was some difficulty finding residents in each category and completing the Master Plans within the time available. But this was achieved and they were used in printed format for visitors to the exhibition (see below) and electronically for those visiting the website.

6. Engagement Dissemination and Promotion

EEW held 2 evening talks, one from an architect, and the other from a specialist in ESMs. Despite expensive e mailing, only 45 attended.

EEW took over a pop-up shop in Widcombe Parade for the last week of March. An exhibition was created with newly designed display boards providing information about ESMs together with summaries of the Home Energy Savings Packs. A laptop attached to a large monitor screen enabled visitors to access the EEW website and find out more. Home Energy Savings Packs were available as booklets for visitors to take away. Copies of Master Plans were available for visitors to inspect. The exhibition was staffed throughout the week by the

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team members and also volunteers.

To promote the exhibition, leaflets were delivered to all houses in Widcombe. There was a formal opening by the Chair of Widcombe Association which was covered (from a press release) in the Bath Chronicle. A sandwich board person strolled up and down the high street offering leaflets. Visitors were also offered free T shirts and balloons all printed with the Warmer Widcombe logo.

The exhibition had 229 visitors and there were 432 website hits. On average, exhibition visitors stayed for around 10 minutes and visitors to the website viewed around 4 pages per visit. These seem to indicate that a good proportion of our visitors were seriously researching their options for saving energy.

7. Report to BANES Council

This was difficult to achieve because of the extremely busy timetable of the “Warmer Widcombe” team – and indeed council staff. However council representatives did visit the exhibition and discussion took place.

This deliverable needs to be completed.

Poster for the exhibition

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What Was Learned From The Surveys?

Neighbourhood Housing Survey

This report (appendix 4) gave a good detail on the housing stock in Widcombe that is certainly of interest to EEW and most probably others.

Resident Energy Survey

The data was not used to inform the Home Energy Savings Packs. The main output was the information letters to residents but there is no information as to how useful they found this.

The data could have further analyses made e.g. by groups of post codes or by age of house. However it is not yet clear what use, if any, can be made of them at this stage.

This survey could have been more useful with a more specific water tight contract at the start of the project.

Attitude survey

This survey is perhaps the most interesting and most valuable part of the Warmer Widcombe project. The main learning points are presented here to inform the discussion later in the report:

Half of Widcombe residents give their homes a score of 7 out of

10 or higher for energy efficiency. This generally positive view on the energy efficiency of homes is reflected in approximately half of residents giving a positive rating for the lack of draughts, ease of keeping warm and modern and efficient heating system in their home. It should be noted that residents in post 1930s houses are more likely to give a higher score for energy efficiency.

There is a core group of around 15% of residents who give their homes a very low rating for energy efficiency (giving a maximum score of 3 out of 10). This group tends to be younger (under 35) and living in Victorian properties. Again this figure is in line with more negative descriptions of homes: 18% finding them hard to maintain, 25% say their home is hard to keep warm and 19% describing it as ‘very draughty’

Tenants are feeling the effects of energy-inefficient homes: tenants are more likely to experience all the problems with houses that the survey raised: draughtiness, hard to keep warm, insufficient insulation, difficult to maintain and the effects of an aging and inefficient heating system. Not surprisingly, they give

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Section Three: What Was Learned From “Warmer Widcombe”?


a lower rating for overall energy efficiency than their home owning counterparts; a fifth giving a maximum rating of 3 out of 10 (compared to 12% of homeowners) and 45% giving 7+ out of ten (compared to 53% of homeowners).

The vast majority of home owners (92%) have done at least one action to improve the insulation of their home. Three quarters have insulated the loft, over half have fitted double/triple glazing, over half installed a modern boiler and again, over half have lagged pipes. Half of all homeowners believe that most of the heat loss is from the roof: it is possible that residents feel they have made a more significant step to insulate their homes once they have put in loft insulation than is necessarily the case. In contrast, just 4 in 10 tenants have taken at least one or more action to insulate their homes.

The ability to take a simple and free step (i.e. putting on a jumper) is the single biggest reason why home owners do not do more to insulate their homes more effectively: and second to this, residents are simply happy the way things are (none more so than the over 65s). This is a much greater barrier than possible intrusion or disruption of home improvements, or indeed the lack of time to get on with it.

Perceptions of the likelihood to get permission, and the length and complexity of the planning process are also major barriers for between a fifth and a quarter of Widcombe home owners: for

many (around two fifths) however, they are unaware of the process and have no impressions of the planning process.

The cost of better insulation is the other important barrier cited by just under half of Widcombe homeowners. A quarter does not think they will reap the benefit of their investment and yet this is an important motivation to invest in better insulation. In all, 68% say they would be more likely to insulate if they knew they could recover the costs within 5 years

West Widcombe/ Lower Oldfield Park

The concept of Widcombe as a “village” suggests a community to the east of Wells Road. However Widcombe ward extends as far to the west of Wells Road as Brougham Hayes and beyond we have called this area “West Widcombe”

An analysis was made of the housing stock by post code. By aggregating the West Widcombe codes, it was found that 64% of the Victorian homes in the ward lay in West Widcombe. The attitude survey clearly demonstrated the problems experienced by many of the residents of Victorian houses: energy inefficient, hard to keep warm, and very draughty, typically occupied by 18 to 34 year olds and tenants. These conclusions are of concern – but are not surprising for those who know the area which is known to include many houses of multiple occupancy, typically by students and also younger tenants.

Masterplans

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A Masterplan provided advice specific to that house, summarised in bespoke recommended packages as “no-brainers”, “some consideration”, “green halo” and “green halo + PV”. The ESMs were also ranked by payback period.

However these plans have been received quite negatively by some. An EEW Director therefore conducted structured interviews with 10 residents who had had Masterplans carried out. Here are some criticisms that were reported:

Masterplans contained too much information and they didn’t have the time to read through the lengthy document.

Confusing with technical vocabulary not being explained.

Contradicting information e.g. on double glazing.

No baseline measurements were taken so it was hard to for the householder to assess the amount of saving the improvements would actually make.

Some glaring mistakes in the report which did little to convince them that the actions recommended were in fact the correct ones to make.

Information too generic (looked like copied and pasted)

Complicated measures are mentioned but not explained

As a result of these factors only one householder had acted on their HEMP recommendations.

What Was Learned

From The Exhibition?

Home Energy Savings Packs

The majority of the visitors to the exhibition took away a Home Energy Savings Pack leaflet. The impression was that the leaflets were very nicely produced and well received. They provided quick and easy advice for householders in the five different types of house.

Large numbers of the leaflets remain unused in storage. There is great potential to use them again in future events – and in other places.

The Website

This has had 432 hits during the project and this continues to rise. To view their particular type of house it required residents to enter their email address. This has allowed a database to be built up with email addresses of residents who clearly have at least some interest in taking energy saving measures. This will make it far easier to contact them in the future.

The website continues to play an important part of EEW’s work into 2013.

Promotional material

Much promotional material remains. Some of this may not be so useful, specifically the T shirts and balloons. In retrospect, too many were ordered.

The high quality exhibition boards are currently held by the Council Community Sustainability Officer and are available to use by community group. The laptop and large TV monitor remain available for use by EEW and Widcombe Association, but in fact they have only been used twice in the subsequent 12months.

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EEW exhibition boards on display

Sandwich board promotion

What Parts Of The Project Were Most Successful?

Overall benefits

EEW has definitely highlighted the issue of home energy saving within the local community – even for those who had not directly made contact with the exhibition. EEW sees this as having a cumulative benefit proving useful in years to come with future projects.

EEW achieved nearly all its deliverables in an effective way within a particularly short time scale.

EEW itself as an organisation has been high-lighted and is now relatively well-known in Widcombe.

A legacy of energy saving for Widcombe residents to use

The website is still available for residents to view and is still receiving hits, which gives residents great advice and regular news items. It is currently being extended and developed. A new mailing list of 96 members (in addition to the old mailing list) allows EEW to keep residents up to date with future projects.

The material from the exhibition which can be used in future engagements with the public.

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Widcombe residents enjoying the display and promotional material

What Were The Problems?

Time Constraints

The biggest constraint on the project was time. Specifically it caused these problems:

Strained team work. The application had to be in place before the project team had met so reduced agreement on objectives within the team.

Difficult to keep to the project plan, things over-running and blocking progress

Quality suffered

Sometimes companies had to be paid more to get the work done quickly.

Management on the hoof

One team member reported:

“In projects there are three conflicting priorities- time, vs. quality, vs. cost; you can normally only have one at the expense of the other two. In this project we had fixed and very tight timeframes, our costs were slightly inflated due to the tight time frames (e.g. one of the printers opened on the weekend to meet our deadlines), and our quality of delivery was good to excellent, given the timeframes we had to meet. My opinion is that this project was dominated by the tight timeframes involved and that we did a good job given this constraint. “

Value for money

What EEW achieved for £61,000 of tax payers money needs discussion. Whereas the monitoring of the use of that money was efficient, it was relatively superficial. EEW was required to provide a written final report that seemed to be a “tick box” style of feedback. It is unclear what use was made of that report. One of the EEW directors attended a LEAF review conference in London, but it mainly consisted of formal speeches.

The project manager took two different approaches to discussing whether the project was worth £61K.

One the one hand, the fundamental premises underpinning the project were flawed. Georgian, Victorian, 1930s, 1960s and 1980s houses are not unique to Widcombe. There is a sea of public information about how to save energy in each of these house types – including excellent work done by BANES Council. Empty cavity wall, un-insulated lofts and apathetic residents who are only semi interested in energy are standard across the UK. We didn’t need to reinvent the wheel specifically for Widcombe. It would have cost about £10,000 to use this ‘off the shelf’, mail a copy to each house and

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make an exhibition using standard material.

On the other hand, given that the funds money could only be spent upon “assessments”, that is what EEW spent it on. There is now an extremely detailed understanding of the housing stock and residents’ opinions in Widcombe that forms the foundation of years of future engagements with the community. This is the beginning of a 10 year project for EEW. In one month EEW engaged with 229 visitors to the exhibition and had 432 visits to the website. Within the scope of the Local Energy Assessment Fund EEW could be seen to have done a good job.

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Messages For AllThe results from the Attitude Survey, explained by Blue Mable, can provide answers to key questions for future energy saving work in Widcombe.

What will encourage Widcombe homeowners to take energy saving measures?

Research indicates that inertia will be the biggest challenge for EEW. High proportions of residents are happy with the energy efficiency of their houses, and happy to take simple actions like wrapping up warm in a cold snap (53% very likely to take this approach) in contrast to the small minority (6%) who are very likely to make plans to insulate in a cold snap. The research indicates that rather than knowing they could insulate their homes more effectively if it were not for a series of barriers, home owners are not particularly aware of their need, and hence do not see the barriers!

First and foremost, communications need to illustrate to homeowners that they could (or should) be doing more to insulate their homes. To do this, EEW will need to convey that many homes are under-insulated and that there is a tangible benefit for otherwise happy homeowners to take steps to improve the efficiency of their homes.

The messages that are currently most motivating relate to:

Adding value to the home (72% agree strongly or slightly)

Recovering costs within a short (5 yr) timeframe (68% agree strongly or slightly)

Desire to reducing carbon footprint (77% agree strongly or slightly)

The communications messages will need to substantiate any of these claims if they are to be motivating and prompt positive action.What are the messages for policymakers at a national and local level ?

By revealing the high levels of satisfaction with the status quo, this research indicates that the majority of homeowners do not perceive the importance of insulating their homes: 67% are happy with the way their home is; 71% are very or fairly unlikely to make plans to insulate.

Additionally, the research indicates that the energy efficiency of homes in the rental sector is less good than in the private sector which has implications for influencing landlords to act.

We know that Widcombe has particular issues with excess deaths of the elderly in the winter months and yet the older (+65) residents in the sample are more likely on average to rate their homes as energy efficient and less likely to say they use additional heating to combat cold weather. It is difficult to draw firm conclusions from the data but this would indicate that the elderly are suffering in silence – unwilling to accept that they could make their

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Section Four: What Are The Key Messages From “Warmer Widcombe”?


homes warmer, and unwilling to incur the expense of additional heating.

What are the messages for landlords?

The survey did not include the views of landlords, but it does reveal the attitudes of tenants who make up 36% on the sample – and this group are experiencing the negative effects of under-insulated houses to a greater degree than homeowners.Whilst the majority of residents are willing to take simple actions to combat cold weather, such as putting on an extra jumper and making-do, it is likely that landlords are not under particular pressure from their tenants to improve the insulation and energy efficiency of their properties. In terms of communications messaging, EEW can appeal to landlords as homeowners who have the potential to add to the value of their home by improving its insulation (again, as long as this can be substantiated). Additionally, EEW has the data to demonstrate to landlords that tenants are more likely to describe their homes as draughty and insufficiently insulated; and therefore to appeal to their duty of care to tenants. It may however be more effective for EEW to equip tenants with positive arguments for improving insulation that they can take up with their landlords directly.

Specific Messages

What can DECC do differently?

1. Time. DECC can consider giving community groups much more time to prepare their proposals and to carry them out. If they want the Green Deal to be taken seriously, then these projects need more planning than has been experienced by EEW.

2. The Green Deal. The delays to the implementation of the Green Deal are seriously reducing the enthusiasm of Widcombe residents to participate. It is not yet clear why the Green Deal appears to have had such a protracted and difficult gestation. Although the Green Deal was finally launched on 28 January 2013, it was not fully functional even at that stage with no Green Deal Providers in place. Might an assumption be made that there are political or business barriers from the energy suppliers?

3. Working through local communities. There was an understanding that the Green Deal would be best established through local community action. This certainly seems a reasonable approach. However the experience of EEW was that the local actions i.e. assessments, had already been proscribed by central government. DECC will be more aware than most of the research into how communities might change attitudes and be motivated to introduce ESMs (e.g. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/73107/Key_findings_wave_4.pdf http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmselect/cmenvaud/505/505vw18.htm and: http://causeaction.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Energy-Efficiency-Behaviour-Change-Planning-Checklist.pdf).

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https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/73107/Key_findings_wave_4.pdf




Community groups might increase their effectiveness if they are allowed to be more creative.

4. Attitudes. DECC could fund further research into householder attitudes and behaviour and incorporate lessons into programmes like the Green Deal.

What can the council do differently?

1. Attitudes. BANES Council can use the information summarised above in the “General” section.

2. Planning consent. One concern that came up regularly among residents attending the exhibition was the difficulty in obtaining planning permission for ESMs. This is backed by the data from the attitude survey. If this process wasn’t so long winded and expensive, a lot more people would make improvements.

What should EEW do differently?

1. Community groups typically involve volunteers. However managing volunteers can sometimes be problematic. For future projects, the roles and responsibilities within the Project Team itself need to have been defined at the proposal stage – with crystal clarity.

2. Future EEW activity should be informed by the attitude survey and concentrate on what might be of most interest to residents.

3. West Widcombe needs particular attention. It is the neighbourhood with the most energy inefficient houses with residents suffering from cold.

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Appendices

Appendices are available on line in www.energyefficientwidcombe.co.uk

1. original application form2. or Deliverables in the first application3. e mail to LEAF requesting further funding4. Project amendment form5. Project management Gantt chart6. Neighbourhood Housing Survey7. Resident Energy Survey8. Attitude Survey

http://www.energyefficientwidcombe.co.uk/

Documents

“Warmer Widcombe” – What have we Learned, One …api.ning.com/.../WarmerWidcombeReportv9.docx · Web view“Warmer Widcombe” – What have we Learned, One Year On? About This