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Colchester · Installed 18 November 2025

Whole-house retrofit on a 1950s Colchester semi, fully ECO4 funded

1950s semi-detached · 112m² · gas central heating

The Palmer family bought the house in 2017 and had lived with draughty upstairs rooms every winter. Their gas bills had crept past £2,400 a year and the loft insulation was the original 1990s 100mm — matted, yellowed, and doing roughly half the work it should. Their EPC was a solid D.

Before / after

EPC band
D 58B 82

+24 points

Annual heating cost
£2,412£1,520

£892/yr saved

Customer contribution
£0

Fully ECO4 funded

Install duration
4 days

Family stayed in the home

The starting point

We visited in September 2025 as part of a free survey booked through the website. The surveyor walked every room, checked the loft, lifted a few floorboards downstairs, and ran an ECO4 eligibility assessment against the household benefits.

The family qualified for ECO4 under the Child Benefit + low-income route. The EPC put them firmly in the D band — within striking distance of the two-band uplift ECO4 requires, provided we combined the right measures.

What we installed

The funded package was built around three measures: topping the loft to 300mm, installing cavity wall insulation in the uninsulated 1950s cavities, and underfloor insulation beneath the ground-floor suspended boards. We also upgraded the heating controls to room-by-room programmable thermostats.

Install ran Monday to Thursday the following month. The cavity and loft were a one-day job each, the underfloor took two. The whole household stayed at home throughout — no one had to move out.

The outcome

The post-install EPC came back at B. The heating now reaches target temperature 40 minutes faster, and because the controls are zoned, the upstairs can run cooler at night without freezing out the bathroom in the morning. Their projected annual saving vs. the pre-install baseline is £892/year, validated against the first 5 months of bills.

Customer contribution was £0. The entire project was covered by ECO4. The family's paperwork contribution was one signed ECO4 declaration and a Child Benefit letter.

We'd had quotes for loft and cavity work before, both around £4,500 between them. OMEGA came in, checked us against ECO4, and the whole thing was free. Upstairs is warm for the first time in eight years.

Steve & Jackie P., Colchester

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