Frequently asked questions

There is funding available under the programme for the following energy efficiency measures: Solid Wall Insulation Cavity Wall Insulation Underfloor Insulation Loft Insulation Room-in-Roof Insulation Air Source Heat Pump Solar PV Panels High Heat Retention Storage Heaters Heating Controls

You may qualify for the funding if the following statements apply: ​ Your home has an EPC rating of D, E, F or G (you can check your home’s EPC rating here: www.gov.uk/find-energy-certificate) ​ And either: ​ You have a total household annual income of £31,000 or less (before housing costs/bills) ​ Or: ​ You have a total household annual income of £20,000 or less after housing costs (mortgage/rent and council tax) ​ Or: ​ You receive a means-tested benefit (as listed below) ​ ​​ Or: ​ Your home is within an LSOA (Lower Super Output Area) 1-3 postcode area (we will verify this for you once you have made your application) The following means tested benefits are eligible for the programme: ​ Child Tax Credits (CTC) Housing Benefit Income based Jobseekers allowance (JSA) Income related Employment & Support Allowance (ESA) Income Support (IS) Pension Credit Guarantee Credit Working Tax Credit (WTC) Pension Credit Savings Credit Universal Credit (UC)

The Warmer Homes programme is funded by the Government’s Home Upgrade Grant (HUG) scheme. Portsmouth City Council, in partnership with the local authorities shown here has secured funding from these schemes to offer grant funding to improve the energy efficiency of eligible homes. Please note that private rental properties will require a landlord contribution.

The Warmer Homes team can arrange for an EPC to be carried out at your property, if your home doesn’t already have one or it’s expired. If your EPC rating doesn’t qualify you for funding through the programme, we may be able to direct you to another suitable programme, if available.

Yes. Within the application form you are provided with the option to either allow us to select an accredited contractor on your behalf or if you would like to choose your own contractor. If you ask us to select the installer on your behalf, we will choose the most appropriate installer based on availability and geographical location. If you choose your own contractor, we will do our best to use the installer you’ve chosen, but this may be subject to change based on their availability, geographical coverage and whether they have the appropriate accreditations and qualifications required for the programme.

Once you’ve submitted your application to us, will send you our welcome pack and eligibility verification documents. These documents allow us to check your eligibility so that our team can fully assess your application.

Yes, this programme is available to owner occupiers and private rental households. Please note that for private properties. If you are a private rental tenant you will need to landlord’s permission and the landlord will be required to contribute, which will be agreed with them prior to any work taking place.

No, the Warmer Homes programme is not open to housing associations or council housing tenants. please do not apply if you are a social housing tenant (local authority or housing association), as your application will not be accepted.

If you have any questions about your application or the process following your application, please contact the Warmer Homes team directly by email: retrofit@warmerhomes.org.uk or call us on 0800 038 5737.

If you have any questions about your upcoming survey or installation (if approved), please speak with your assigned installer who will be able to provide you with more detail.

Your assigned installer will be able to provide you with more information about the measure you are interested in and will also provide you with a factsheet related to the measure(s) you are interested in. You can also find our explainer videos here or you can find further information on other websites such as the Energy Saving Trust: https://energysavingtrust.org.uk

If you are a private rental tenant: You will need the permission of your landlord before any measure(s) can be installed in your property. If you are a homeowner/owner occupier: If your measure will affect the external appearance of your property (e.g. solid wall insulation or solar panels), we recommended contacting your local council to see if you need to apply for planning permission. We also recommend that you inform your home insurer to check that you have sufficient cover in place.

The homeowner/owner-occupier of the property will own the energy efficiency measure(s) once installed. For private rental properties, the ownership will be with the landlord.

The homeowner/owner-occupier or private rental landlord will be responsible for any future maintenance responsibilities/costs once the measure(s) have been installed. Details of your warranty cover will be provided by your installer following your installation.

If you haven’t found the answer you’re looking for the quickest way to contact us is via the form on our website, which can be found here. Simply select the relevant category and provide the required information. Alternatively, you can find our details at the top of every page.

The Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) is a government backed initiative which requires some electricity suppliers to pay residents with small renewable systems for the electricity which they export back to the National Grid (subject to eligibility criteria). Please contact your electricity supplier for more information.

This Privacy Notice applies only to the website of Warmer Homes (warmerhomes.org.uk) and does not extend to any websites that can be accessed from this Website. This includes, but is not limited to, any links we may provide, including to social media websites.

1. Google Analytics. We may at times use Google Analytics to collect standard internet log information about visitors to our website. This is done in order to discover, for example, how many visitors we have to the website. The information is processed in such a way that visitors to our website are not identified, and we do not permit Google Analytics to process your information in a way which would allow you to be identified. You can read more about the use of Google Analytics and their Privacy Notice on their website. 2. Website Security. We use a third party hosting service to maintain the security and performance of our website, and in order to do this it is necessary to collect the Internet Protocol (‘IP’) address of visitors to our website. 3. Cookies. In order for our website to function properly and to provide you with a pleasant user experience, it is necessary for us to use Cookies – small text files that are placed on your computer by the website. Please be aware that Google Analytics also makes use of cookies on our website. Visitors to our website who do not wish to have cookies placed on their computers should set their browser preferences to refuse cookies before accessing our website; although the website may then not work properly. Disabling cookies in this way will also stop Google Analytics from tracking any part of your visit to pages within this website.

AgilityEco operates Warmer Homes in conjunction with a wide variety of partners, details of whom can be provided to you at your request. Our partners include, but are not limited to: 1. Local Authorities; 2. Social Housing Providers; 3. LEAP (Local Energy Advice Partnership) 4. Bierce (operating our telephone contact centre) 5. Central Heating Installers 6. Gas Distribution Network Operators ​ Your local council, housing association or other local agency may have referred you to us, in which case you will have been asked by them to give your consent for your contact details and other personal information to be provided to us so that we can assess whether you qualify for the scheme and where you do, for us to contact you directly. Personal information we may collect from you may include information on your health and personal circumstances. You do not have to disclose any information to us that you feel uncomfortable sharing with us at any stage during the Warmer Homes service. ​ If you have previously consented to us contacting you, but have changed your mind, you may withdraw this consent at any time by contacting us using the information given in this Privacy Notice.

In line with our principles, in addition to electronic data automatically collected when you use our website, in order to provide you with a service or to respond to any questions or queries you may have, we may request and collect the following data from you: ​ 1. Your name; and 2. Your contact Information such as email addresses and telephone numbers. ​ Data provided to us through our contact form, or where you e-mail us, is processed by us with your consent. You may remove your consent at any time by contacting us using the information given in this Privacy Notice. ​ When we receive your enquiry, we will contact you by telephone using the number(s) you have provided and will then seek your consent to collect further information about your personal and household circumstances in order to establish whether you are eligible for the Warmer Homes service and to ensure that we provide you with the best service that we can through the scheme. This information may include: ​ 1. Household income information 2. Names of any state benefits you receive 3. Relevant information about health problems

Where you have requested we provide you with a service, we will keep your data for the purposes of evidencing that you were eligible to receive the service, and to ensure we tailor the service to your needs or for other closely related purposes. For example, where you are provided with a service from us, we may contact you to ask you if you were happy with the service and if there is anything we can do to improve our service. We will never rent or sell any of the data you provide to us, and any third parties we use will only ever process your information for us on a need to know basis and in accordance with this Privacy Notice.

We will only provide you with marketing information where you consent to this, and you can withdraw consent or change your preferences about marketing activities at any time by contacting us using the details set out above.

Other than data we are legally obliged to keep for longer periods, e.g. taxation records, we will retain any data you submit to us for between 18-24 months in order to comply with regulatory requirements. This includes e-mail correspondence. All of your data which we collect is stored securely with appropriate physical, managerial and electronic safeguards in accordance with the principles of the General Data Protection Regulation and any other applicable legislation.

We strive to keep third party access to your data to a minimum. However, data provided by you to us may in some circumstances need to be passed to third parties which we use for the running of our scheme, for example: ​ 1. to the hosting provider of our website; 2. to Zoho Corporation who host our cloud based data; 3. ​to third party suppliers working for the Warmer Homes programme. Information passed to third parties is used only to the extent required by them to perform the services that we request. Any use for other purposes is strictly prohibited. Furthermore, any data that is processed by third parties for us will be processed within the terms of this Privacy Notice and in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation.

Under the General Data Protection Regulation you have certain rights as regards the personal data we hold on you. Where you would like to exercise these rights, you can do so by using a Subject Access Request or (‘SAR’). ​ In a SAR you can ask us if we hold personal data on you, and if so, request a copy of that data. We will also give you a description of the data, tell you why we are holding it and tell you who we could have disclosed it to. We do not charge for the provision of this information. ​ You can also use a SAR to: • ask us to rectify data on you which is incorrect; • ask us to stop processing data on you; • ask us to delete the data we hold on you; • ask us to stop processing your data; • ask us to transfer your data to another Data Controller/provide you with your data in a machine readable format; • object to us processing your data (including for use in direct marketing); and • exert rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling. ​​ We will reply to all requests as soon as possible, and in no event later than one month. Not all of these rights may be available to you, and will depend on the lawful basis we process your information. For more information on your rights under The General Data Protection Regulation, please see the ICO website.

Some of our third party service providers may be located out-with the EEA, including Zoho Corporation who we use for cloud based data storage. Therefore personal data which we collect from you may be stored, processed in and transferred to such countries, which may not have as stringent data protection laws as found in the EEA. If we transfer your data outside the EEA in this way, we will ensure that the third party provider which we use is compliant with the GDPR and that your privacy continues to be protected as outlined in this Privacy Notice.

Although any changes are likely to be minor, we reserve the right to change and update this Privacy Notice as we may deem necessary from time to time or as may be required by law. Your continued use of this website after any changes means you are deemed to have accepted any change to the terms of this Privacy Notice. As and when any changes occur, they will be set out on a change log. There are currently no changes.

Our supervisory authority is the ICO and you have the right to lodge a complaint with them if you do not feel we have adequately upheld your rights under the GDPR. Contact details for the ICO can be found here. In addition to complaining to the ICO, where you feel we have breached your rights and the privacy of your data, you are also entitled to pursue action against us in the courts or other legitimate legal forums, such as arbitration or dispute resolution.

This Privacy Notice governed by English law and any disputes will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.