Ann’s joy at energy efficiency improvement works

“We’re happy and really surprised – we didn’t expect it to make such a big difference!”

Ann Nicholson, who lives in Peterborough with her partner Pete, lives in one of nearly 600 homes to have had energy improvement work carried out.

Despite admitting to being unsure about having the work done as part of wave 2.1 of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, she said she’s delighted with how things have turned out.

One of the main measures to be installed in Ann’s home was new storage heaters, which she’s very happy about.

“Originally, the place was very damp. We had some new radiators put in which made a difference, but they weren’t efficient and were expensive to run,” Ann said.

“Our new storage heaters which we’ve had done are easy to control and work on cheap overnight energy rates which is beneficial to us.”

Ann said the work that’s been done has also cut her energy bills in half.

“I’m quite pleased with them and Pete is very pleased! He reads the meters and sends them off and it’s now much cheaper than two years ago,” she added.​

“We’re impressed.

“We both felt a bit unsure to have storage heaters put in. We thought the heat would be in them at night and cold during the day, but it’s nothing like that though! We’ve found them great!

“We now pay £102 a month for the electricity, but before that, we were paying out about £200 per month.

“It’s quite considerably cheaper as you’re not switching them on all the time.

“We’re happy and really surprised. We didn’t expect it to make such a big difference.”

As well as new storage heaters, Ann’s home has had loft insulation installed and improvements made to the ventilation.

She said she’d recommend similar work to other customers, especially after we recently secured an extra £20 million for the next phase of the project.

“I would encourage people to have it done,” Ann added.

“A lot of people have doubts about some of the measures but from my experience, I’d definitely recommend storage heaters to people.”