Transcript for ‘The review’ video

Richard McPhail: I’m here in West London at a pre-1900s block of flats. The owner is using the Green Homes Concierge service to have an energy makeover prior to moving in, so let’s go and see what improvements we can recommend to this homeowner.

(KNOCK KNOCK)

Hi, I’m Richard McPhail from the Green Homes Concierge Service.

JT: Hi, JT, nice to meet you.

A: Hi I’m Alicia (??)

RM: So why have you called in the Green Homes service?

JT: Well, we really wanted to do a refurbishment of our house. We’ve just moved in now and we thought it would be really useful to have such a tailored service because we’re so busy.

RM: So what exactly is it you want to get from this assessment?

A: Well we really want to reduce our carbon emissions and reduce our carbon footprint and also make the energy savings that go hand in hand with that.

RM: OK, so what I’m going to do is to draw a sketch plan of the property, and measure up, collect some other information and then I’ll be able to complete my assessment.

RM: OK, so I’m just going to take some basic measurements of the property, so I can build up a footprint that the property occupies in the block and that will form an important part of my assessment.

RM: OK, so let’s begin by talking about the lighting.

JT: What sort of lighting would you suggest for energy efficiency?

RM: Well, the thing is that nowadays that you can get low energy light bulbs for every kind of fitting. London as a whole, if we changed all our bulbs to low energy, we could save as much as £139 million a year

A: Which is a huge saving.

RM: Yeah.

RM: So shall we go and have a look at the boiler now…

RM: So this is your central heating boiler – this does the heating and the hot water. We can see there’s five pipes there, which means it’s a combination boiler. The good thing about is the water is produced instantaneously, so it means you’re not storing any hot water and that’s one of the major losses.

Given that the flat is new to you, it would be a good idea if you were thinking of replacing this, to get a condensing combination boiler. It’s actually one of the most powerful measures that you could take in a flat like this. OK?

JT: OK.

RM: So I’ve got everything I need now to complete the assessment. So what I’m going to do now is go away and write this up, and we’ll come up with a plan of measures for you that we can discuss with you and help you get installed.

JT: Fantastic.

A: That’s great.