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Stroma Certification and Training is proud to announce its offering of the Home Energy Advisor Course. This qualification will enable practitioners of Domestic Energy Assessment and Home Inspection to expand their portfolio of services offered to customers, by encompassing the provision of energy advice in the home.
The need for the Home Energy Advisor qualification has arisen from the government’s desire to improve energy efficiency and sustainability in households across England and Wales. Given the proven success of the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC), the Communities and Local Government have proposed that Home Energy Advisors (HEAs) should adopt a similar approach to the EPC delivery.
Home Energy Advisors will visit homeowner properties to undertake energy assessments and identify ways to lower CO2 emissions and reduce fuel bills. The HEAs will make recommendations based on the physical measures of the building, as well as the changes required in occupant behaviour to achieve greater energy efficiency.
Stroma’s offering of the Home Energy Course follows the success of our EPC training and our commitment to achieving green living within the built environment.
For further information on this course and others, call 0845 621
11 11 or email training@stroma.com
Nigel Farren - http://www.homesmatter.co.uk
Commented 104 weeks ago
As energy efficiency programmes roll out, a huge responsibility will be placed on Home Energy Advisers (HEAs) to deliver energy efficiency. Though door knocking on a street by street basis, they will be required to persuade homeowners to retrofit their homes, adopt low carbon lifestyles and reduce waste.
However, results from existing projects and trials to date are not promising. The London Development Authority’s Home Energy Efficiency Programme (HEEP) trials for example, show that more than 70% of consumers did not take up easy measures offered even though they were free. Energy Savings Trust’s Penistone area project had only a 13% uptake. As a result, costs are currently around £2,000 per tonne of carbon saved.
Some of the reasons for the low uptake rate are:
most door knocking is on a cold call basis with few pre-booked appointments being arranged
most homeowners are out during the day and are not receptive to unsolicited visits during evenings and weekends.
HEAs are expected to gain homeowners permission to carry out energy audits etc at the time they door knock. Audits can take up to two hours and not surprisingly most homeowners are not receptive to this without pre-agreement.
Most HEAs do not have good, “sales consultancy” and communication skills.
The salaries offered (£16,000-£22,000 in London) have not attracted the best quality candidates
there is no agreed national standard for HEA training
businesses and community groups have not been pre-engaged to publicise programmes.
Convincing homeowners in the private sector to improve energy efficiency is a huge challenge. Like any other product / service, energy efficiency needs to be “sold” to homeowners and therefore top quality “sales consultants” are required. However, some councils and delivery agents are hiring unemployed people with inadequate skills on a self-employed basis with pay linked to the number of visits, not uptake of energy saving measures. Some vacancies are also being advertised without requirement for a City & Guilds Energy Awareness or DEA qualification or minimum standards of attire.
So what is the solution? Every commercial organisation knows that top quality sales are required to be successful. If delivery agents recruit HEAs with poor sales and communication skills, low uptake will follow. Complaints will also increase resulting in resident’s trust in Councils being undermined and energy efficiency programmes, failing.
In my view, Domestic Energy Assessors with proven sales consultancy and communication skills are required to be retrained as HEAs, not young people on apprentice schemes. Salaries on offer also need to be increased to attract quality candidates and telesales staff are needed to pre-book appointments for HEAs as much as possible.
Of course this will increase staffing costs but the risk is that if delivery agents don't do this, we will end up with low uptake of energy savings measures, loss of residents' trust, failure of energy efficiency programmes and carbon reduction targets not being met.
See www.homesmatter.cuk for more details and to see what is going on check out what I found on http://www.gumtree.com:
Home Energy Advisors
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Location: Camden/Lewisham
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We are looking for a team of friendly, outgoing self motivated people to work in Lewisham and Camden on a part time basis.
You will work door to door advising people of a council funded service for this area to assist in making thier houses more environmentally friendly. The service is part of a home energy efficiency program in Camden and Lewisham to help with the reduction of harmful emissions.
You will be working on a Saturday and possibly a couple of evenings in the week to suit.
If you feel you have the confidence to help make the world a better place then please call and ask for James
http://www.gumtree.com/london/35/53052435.html
If this is the way councils intend to recruit HEAs, their programmes will fail. How can we persuade them that they have to recruit experienced professionals with at least a DEA or City & Guilds qualification?