8 properties installed in: November 2019
HMO landlords face a dilemma when it comes to energy bills. Tenants love the convenience and peace of mind of paying rent with their bills included, but then they have no incentive not to waste energy. We interviewed Tom Ferber to find out if Control HQ helped them to keep energy costs under control while keeping their tenants happy.
HMO properties are notorious for being wasteful with energy, with tenants in bills-included properties often turning up the central heating thermostat when they’re cold, but opening windows when it’s too hot! Meanwhile, landlords typically have little ability to manage energy consumption in their properties.
They have been tackling this challenge using smart heating controls, allowing their team to monitor heating settings remotely and ensure that heating is reduced to the frost setting when students leave during holiday periods.
Tom Ferber (Director) “We want to save energy, but it’s also really important that our tenants are comfortable and that the heating system is easy for them to control. The risks of trying a new control system are small because these are small properties, but the potential energy saving is huge.”
Previously they have used another smart thermostat system, but it didn’t support the control of electric heating, which they needed for their properties in Swansea. That’s when they looked around for alternatives and discovered Control HQ
Their Swansea properties use electric convection heaters, which are expensive to run - but replacing them with a new heating system would be a major investment. Instead, they turned to Control HQ to control each individual heater, as well as the immersion heater for hot water.
Tom: “The price was excellent, and our experience of the Control HQ team is that they’re engaged and helpful. We were a bit concerned about needing to replace batteries frequently, as we’d had that problem with another heating control system. And of course, we never know whether the energy savings will be as much as predicted.”
Typically in a HMO with electric heating, a Hub can pay for itself in well under 2 years; sometimes in less than a year. To put that to the test, we installed Control HQ into eight terraced properties in Swansea. The installation uses motion sensors to detect when tenants are home, turning off each room’s electric heater automatically when they leave.
When the property is completely vacated, it even turns off the immersion heater in the hot water tank, helping save even more energy during holiday periods. As soon as the first tenant returns, the hot water automatically turns back on.
Even though they could use their existing heating control solution with properties that use gas boilers, they were curious to see how Control HQ compares. So they chose to also install our full, motion-sensing heating controls in four of their properties in Exeter, using wireless valve heads to control each room’s radiators individually.
Currently, installing individual room control normally leads to a longer payback period than installing a simpler, cheaper Control HQ system that only provides whole house control. However, installing the “full package” can bring greater energy savings over the long term, and helps insulate HMOs from any future gas price increases. Also, because each Room Sensor also measures temperature, it allows them to avoid excessive electricity bills by easily identifying when tenants are using electric heaters.
Tom continues; “The installation was easy; the contractors installed it as part of the renovation they were doing on the properties. The controls for the Hub are easy to use, and it integrates easily with how the tenants use the buildings. It doesn’t have many points of failure; generally, we’ve found that once it’s up and running, you can just leave it alone. That works well for our type of tenants. We like that Control HQ automatically takes care of everything, so we’re not heating empty rooms; we’re saving energy.”
Although it’s mainly a ‘fit and forget’ solution, landlords can still easily monitor heating settings across multiple properties in one place: our ‘Multi-Hub Dashboard’.
“If a tenant does have an issue with their heating, it’s great to be able to immediately log into Control HQ and solve it remotely. And we can easily see whether they’re using electric heaters. As soon as the staff at head office saw what Control HQ could do, they all thought that it’s great and wondered why we’re not using it in all our other properties!”
Your message has been received and a member of our team will respond shortly. We appreciate your interest and will get back to you as soon as possible.
