Home Visits provide a key opportunity for energy communities (ECs) to assess problem areas, offer custom solutions, and boost energy knowledge and know-how.
In addition to boosting energy knowledge and know-how, Home Visits provide an opportunity for Energy Advisors (EA) to collect data or demonstrate the need for more complex actions. Thermal imaging, for example, can help people visualise the ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ spots in their home that drive up energy demand. The EA can also take time to explain energy bills and how fixing the dwelling or changing habits can help reduce costs. Other devices can assess various aspects of indoor air quality and detect levels of humidity, mould or other pollutants.
Critically, Home Visits naturally facilitate invaluable side benefits – particularly if EAs (or other staff or volunteers) are in the home for an extended period of time or make multiple visits. When ECs have on-boarded the right skill sets, those who are invited to enter homes can watch for other signs or listen for clues during casual conversation. They may identify additional signs of energy vulnerability or of related vulnerabilities that others within their referral networks are better equipped to address.
While making Home Visits is well-documented as a particularly effective mechanism for tackling energy poverty, CEES Partners found it carried heavy costs in terms of human resources. Also, cultural and social norms make it difficult to replicate.
The difficulties that CEES Partners encountered in organising Home Visits often reflected that people in vulnerability choose to self-isolate and may have valid reasons to distrust government agencies and social organisations.
Several CEES Partners sought to overcome these challenge by first hosting Energy Cafés as a means to build credibility and establish relaxed relationships. Two challenges arose, however. First, it was difficult to attract target groups (i.e. households in situations of energy vulnerability) to the Energy Cafés. Second, the offer for a follow-up visit was rarely taken up.
Still, successful endeavours enabled CEES Partners to offer valuable advice for others.
Preparing for a first home visit
Informing the home occupants in advance regarding who will come and what to expect is vital to effective Home Visits. While information flyers distributed at events (such as Energy Cafés) can provide basic background information, ECs should organise a telephone appointment so they can answer any questions and describe the Home Visit process in more detail. During the conversation, they should tell the occupant who will be visiting and how to identify them as being connected to the EC (e.g. the EA or volunteer will present a badge or identity card).
This telephone call can be critical to setting a friendly tone, demonstrating effective listening skills and starting to establish trust. When speaking to a single woman, for example, the EC representative should ask whether she is comfortable having a man come to carry out the visit or would prefer that it be a woman or a man and woman together.
The telephone call can also make the Home Visit more efficient and effective. Collecting basic information – such as the size and age of the home, the number of occupants, and existing energy systems – can help the EA know what is likely to be useful to take along or carry out research on a particular heating system, etc.
To support eventual measurement and evaluation, the person conducting the telephone call should aim to ask most or all of a standard set of questions, while also being flexible in relation to what the home occupant asks or brings up. ECs may do well to avoid asking questions that are very personal or probing too deeply by telephone, as it is a quite impersonal medium and typically the first direct interaction.
Respecting confidentiality and protecting privacy
ECs must consider all information collected before, during or after a Home Visit as personal and confidential. They must have systems in place to protect the data and be ready to assure households that they do. They should also inform people of how such data will be used and by whom.
Upon confirming that the householder understands what the visit will entail, a time should be set that is convenient for them. Finally, the EC should leave contact information in case any questions arise or the person needs to change the scheduled time.
Click through for more blogs related to ‘ACT’.
- Hosting Energy Cafés
- Distributing Energy Efficiency or Cosy Kits
- Home Visits for advice and quick fixes
- Local energy production, self-consumption and supply
- Energy production to sell to grids or suppliers
- Production of renewable energy for self-consumption
- Energy sharing: an emerging approach to energy solidarity
- Retail supply of renewable energy
- Shared and Supported Self-Renovation
- CEES Partner highlights