Hotspot letter

Dear Portobello Resident

Haven’t got around to insu­lat­ing your home yet?

Last winter’s snow is becom­ing a dis­tant memory and insu­lat­ing your home is prob­ably not top of your to-do list. That’s why the Energy Saving Scotland advice centre and loc­al com­munity group PEDAL – Portobello Transition Town have got togeth­er to make it easy and afford­able for Portobello res­id­ents to get set for winter.

Installing loft insu­la­tion saves an aver­age house­hold about £150 a year and cav­ity wall insu­la­tion can save around £115 a year. It’s not just money you’ll save; by cut­ting down on wasted energy you’ll also be doing your bit for the environment.

We offer free, impar­tial advice on things like loft and cav­ity wall insu­la­tion and the dif­fer­ent offers you could choose from.  The good news is that dis­coun­ted prices are avail­able to every­one, and some people might even get their insu­la­tion for free. The even bet­ter news is that we’ve set up a fast-track ser­vice in Portobello for free, no-oblig­a­tion home insu­la­tion sur­veys:  here are some guide prices to give you an idea of cost for a home like yours.

	Cavity Wall Insulation	Loft Insulation
3 bed­room house	£129*	£149 — £179*
2 – 3 bed­room tene­ment flat	n/a	£149 — £269*

*Prices are sub­ject to tech­nic­al survey.

Signing up for the sur­vey couldn’t be easi­er. Just send the advice centre your details on the free­post card provided and we’ll call to book your sur­vey. Or you can call us free on 0800 512 012.

The Energy Saving Scotland advice centre is fun­ded by the Scottish Government. We provide free and impar­tial advice about how to stop wast­ing energy at home. If you’d like to ask us about energy effi­ciency, renew­able energy or green­er travel just give us a call on free­p­hone 0800 512 012. If your home can’t take loft or cav­ity wall insu­la­tion, why not give us a call for a chat about oth­er things you could do instead,

We’ve also prin­ted some inform­a­tion on the back of this let­ter about oth­er energy sav­ing pro­jects being run by PEDAL — Portobello Transition Town that might bene­fit you.

We hope to hear from you soon.

Chris Morris                                                                        Tom Black

Manager                                                                        Project Manager

Energy Saving Scotland advice centre                        PEDAL – Portobello Transition Town

Energysavingtrust.org.uk                                                pedal-porty.org.uk

What about oth­er energy sav­ing schemes for Portobello residents?

Portobello Warm Tenement Scheme aims to help you make your flat warm­er and cosi­er, while at the same time sav­ing you money and redu­cing car­bon emis­sions. The scheme is run by PEDAL – Portobello Transition Town. If you live in a tene­ment or flat with a shared roof space, the scheme can help with advice about energy sav­ing and free or reduced cost loft insu­la­tion. Free advice is avail­able for indi­vidu­al flats, as well as free no oblig­a­tion loft surveys.

Reduced price sol­ar hot water panels

PEDAL is also offer­ing Portobello res­id­ents reduced price sol­ar hot water pan­els through an accred­ited installer. We want to find out how many people in Portobello might be inter­ested in sol­ar thermal pan­els, and then agree a “bulk pur­chase” price with accred­ited installers so that people in Portobello can bene­fit from a reduced price one-off install­a­tion cost. The installer will need to carry out a sur­vey of your house to assess its suit­ab­il­ity for sol­ar pan­els and con­firm the over­all cost. Installation arrange­ments will be between the installer and house­hold­er, and may also be sub­ject to a build­ing war­rant and plan­ning permission.

If you would like more inform­a­tion about Portobello Warm Tenements Scheme or the sol­ar hot water offer, please con­tact Charlotte at charlotte@pedal-porty.org.uk or on 0131 258 4483.

What is PEDAL- Portobello Transition Town?

PEDAL is a loc­al com­munity organ­isa­tion set up in 2005, We are work­ing to cre­ate a vibrant and sus­tain­able Portobello. We aim to sup­port loc­al people so they can play their part in tack­ling cli­mate change and reduce their use of fossil fuels, while improv­ing the loc­al eco­nomy and qual­ity of life at the same time.  PEDAL has received fund­ing from the Scottish Government’s Climate Challenge Fund to run a range of pro­jects this year. These aim to help people in Portobello use less energy, gen­er­ate more of their own energy, and grow or buy more loc­al and organ­ic food.