Energy Matters

SDC owns over 5,000 social rented homes within the district.

Our tenants have told us that heating their homes is their top priority.

We want to reduce Fuel poverty in our housing – Fuel Poverty occurs where people spend more than 10% of their household income on their energy bills.

We have a partnership with Severn Wye Energy Agency. They are a charitable company and can give you impartial advice about ways to save money on your fuel bills. You can get this advice by ringing their free phone advice line 0800 512 012 or visiting their web site is www.swea.co.uk

Saving money

Severn Wye Energy Agency have prepared some useful “know about” fact sheets giving straightforward energy advice on how you can save energy, and money at home:

PDF  Energy Factsheets - Cover (PDF 320 KB)

PDF  Know about your gas central heating system (PDF 581 KB)

PDF  Know about electric storage heaters (PDF 595 KB)

PDF  Know about low energy light bulbs (PDF 342 KB)

PDF  Know about energy saving tips (PDF 646 KB)

PDF  Know about switching your energy supplier (PDF 296 KB)

PDF  Know about condensation and its causes (PDF 488 KB)

PDF  Know about credit crunch cleaning tips (PDF 355 KB)

PDF  Know about your flow boiler central heating system (PDF 645 KB)

Heating your Home

Because we are a rural area, we have over 1,500 council homes off the gas network, and the majority of these have night storage heating. Night Storage heating is classed as central heating under the governments Decent Homes Standard. However we get complaints every year from tenants who struggle with making this form of heating work effectively in their homes. You might find this information sheet useful Know about electric storage heaters

Insulation

We want to bring all our stock up to the following minimum level of insulation by 2010

• Gas heated homes
  - all cavity walls filled with insulation
  - minimum of 100 – 150 mm of loft insulation
  - all windows double glazed (unless listed building)
  
• Non gas heated homes
  - all cavity walls filled with insulation
  - minimum of 200 mm of loft insulation
  - all windows double glazed (unless listed building)

How energy efficient are our council homes?

Energy efficiency of homes is measured by a SAP (Standard Assessment Procedure) rating. The 2001 scoring system gives a building marks on a scale of 0 to 120, a higher rating means a more energy efficient home. The average SAP rating of all our council homes at 31 March 2009 was 64.

Energy Strategy

We are developing an energy strategy to make sure we improve the energy efficiency of our council homes in the most cost effective way. We will be setting a SAP rating improvement target.

We will update this page with more information as the strategy develops.

Energy Performance Certificates

We are required by European Regulations to issue an Energy Performance certificate when offering you a home. More information can be found below:

PDF  Energy Performance Certificate Factsheet (PDF 22 KB)