Jennie and Colin bought their home a few years ago, hoping for a comfortable place to retire, but they quickly noticed that the now 20-year-old boiler, wasn’t going to provide them with a warm home much longer. Over the last couple of years, with increasing health issues, and energy prices tripling, they struggled to keep their home at a comfortable temperature, and started looking for help to improve their situation before it affected them further.

Jennie contacted Act on Energy through an online form where she expressed her interested in finding out more about the Solihull Household Support Fund. This was sent over to one of the project managers, Paul, who contacted Jennie to discuss her situation in more detail and talk her through the options for support. Jennie was delighted to find out that she could be eligible for a new boiler and happily welcomed Paul round to help her with the full application process.

Paul visited Jennie and Colin, and they talked him through the issues they were having with their boiler. It had no controls and had to be turned on manually without a working thermostat, which meant that they couldn’t set a timer to turn on and off when they were in bed or out of the house, or set it at a regulated temperature. As well as that, Paul could see that it wasn’t working as efficiently as it once was and explained to Jennie and Colin the difference that a new boiler could make to their bills. Whilst filling out the paperwork and gathering evidence of their income, Paul talked them through the next steps of what would happen.

After their application was processed, Jennie and Colin were visited by a contractor who did a survey of the property, to evaluate the most suitable options for them. The contractor detailed his findings to one of our qualified retrofit advisors, Oliver, so that he could talk Jennie and Colin through what the recommendations were, why those options were chosen and how to get the most out of the new system in the future.

Over the next few weeks, Jennie and Colin had their new boiler installed along with some solar panels, to help ease their bills even further. Oliver explained to them that how the controls worked, how they could programme their heating to come on at certain times, and also how to get the most out their solar panels by reviewing new energy tariffs. Jennie and Colin couldn’t thank Oliver enough. Their house was now a home; somewhere cosy and warm, without needing to go into debt to be able to afford the new system and, with free electricity provided by their solar panels, they could now start saving for their well-deserved retirement.

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