Overview

What will it include?

How much will it cost?

How can I arrange one?

Testimonials

FAQs

How much does it cost?
Our starting price for most property types is £290 including VAT.  This is for a 7 main room house (we don’t count toilet only WCs, corridors, landings etc).  Larger houses have an additional £40 per room charge.  A full price schedule is available along with our terms and conditions.

Will it save me money?
A HEMP is an essential investment if you are planning to make improvements to the energy performance of your home now or in the near future, since our experience shows that our independent advice can do much to help you avoid doing the wrong things, in the wrong order, with the wrong people at the wrong price – helping you to make the most of your budget or achieve your desired savings at the lowest cost. Of course, any investments you make in new measures will also help you save money on your fuel bills too.

What is the process?
After booking a survey, a trained Parity surveyor or Parity affilitate will come to your house and carry out a survey.  They will collect physical information about your house, i.e. measurements, heating and hot water systems, lights and appliances, as well as behavioural data about how you use it, your ambitions for your home, your budgets and specific questions. Advice is not given at this stage as we prefer to wait for the analysis to be undertaken.
All this information is passed to one of our analysts who use our unique Parity software to evaluate all applicable options.  The analyst summarises the findings in a Home Energy Masterplan.

What do I receive?
Along with the comprehensive printed home energy report, we provide CD with your photos, a pdf copy of the report and a spreadsheet that allows you to update the prices when you get actual quotes – the paybacks automatically change to reflect the new prices.

How long does it take?
We aim for the survey to be carried out within 2 weeks of receiving a booking. The report is usually completed within 2 weeks of the survey.  You contact us to arrange one here.

Who carries out the survey and analysis?
The survey is either carried out by one of our Parity Surveyors or an affiliated surveyor. Only surveyors with relevant experience or knowledge are selected and they must then have undertaken specific training including in-house surveyor training and work shadowing. The analysis is all carried out by Parity Projects.

Do I need to be there?
Part of the survey includes understanding your use (or proposed use) of the property. Although we are able to model the house with standard usages, we’d advise using actual use wherever possible.  It is also important for use to get an idea of your ambitions for the property – timescales, drivers, budgets etc.

I’m only interested in renewables, why should I pay for a Masterplan?
There are many options for upgrading a house and reducing bills and CO2 emissions – renewables are only one of them. Despite the incentives such as the Feed In Tariffs and potential Renewable Heat Incentives, there are usually lots of other measures that will have better paybacks for much less upfront capital cost that may be worthwhile carrying out too.

Do you then carry out any installations?
The masterplan is designed to be a standalone document and is not linked to any products or manufactures.  We do offer a project management service for larger renovations which included obtaining quotes from local installers and managing the whole installation.

Can you just evaluate one bit of the house such as my bedroom walls?
Each part of the house is interrelated and so the whole property needs to be modelled.  You can’t model how a plane will fly by only modelling one wing.

I don’t wish to pay for the whole house can you just model the ground floor?
To understand how the ground floor is using energy, we need to understand how the other parts of the house are also being used.  The model includes gains and heat transfers from different parts of the house.

How is it different from an Energy Performance Certificate?
An EPC is a means to quickly and roughly benchmark your property against others.  It is not designed as an advice tool and it’s simplistic evaluation is based on a limited amount of data and does not take into account any actual or behavioural use of the property, nor can it be calibrated against actual bills.

Can’t I get the same advice for free from the Energy Saving Trust?
The EST does provide generic advice but this will not be based on your actual property or use.

Is it a specification document?
The Home Energy Masterplan is not designed as a specification document – it’s the analysis that needs to take place before you begin to specify.  The Home Energy Masterplan is designed to help you decided what measures you are proposing to carry forward to the detailed specification stage.

What sort of measures does it cover?
A list of the types of measures we have analysed can be found in the online home energy masterplan presentation. 

What products do you recommend?
We are independent of manufacturers, suppliers and products and so do not analyse or recommend any branded products. However we will analyse different materials and will tailor that to your needs.  An example is that we might analyse using phenolic insulation or woodfibreboard insulation but we would not actual brands of these products.

How do you cost the different measures you evaluate for my house?
We have an extensive cost database that is built up from installations we have managed along with additional research.  In many cases we have both professional installation costs as well as DIY costs.  Where appropriate the costs are dynamically calculated based on the areas or lengths to be covered. 

I’ve heard about XXXX technology and really want to have it installed.  What can you tell me about it?
We will evaluate all measures that are appropriate for the property including any renewables.

Can you send me a sample report?
You can download one here.

How do I book a survey?
Firstly you should read the Terms and Conditions, then phone us on 0208 643 6630 to confirm the price and any travel costs. Once we’ve received a Client Acceptance Form we will go ahead and arrange a time with you.

How do I pay?
We invoice after the report is complete. You can pay a number of ways – at the moment you can pay over the phone using a debit or credit card, by cheque in the post or by bank transfer.  

Which areas of the country do you cover?
We’ll try and get to anywhere in the country and have Parity Surveyors or Parity Affiliates in many locations. In some circumstances there may be a travel cost which will be agreed in advance.

Do you cover planned extensions, loft conversions, etc?
Of course: we can model your house with whatever alterations and amendments you specify. It will help if you have plans available, and if any additional rooms are created by the extension, they will count as additional qualifying rooms in our pricing model.

Is the model appropriate for a Victorian terrace or a XXXXX?
Victorian terraces are actually our bread and butter and it continues to amaze us how different they all are - both in little structural differences as well as behavioural use.  As for other property types, we are confident at modelling pretty much anything although we would have to concentrate on the behavioural, hot water, lights and appliances for something built to current Building Regulations.  The flexibility of our software allows us to model any home or material as long as we can work out what it is.