Author: Aaron Wymark

As a landlord there are a number of safety obligations you must follow to keep your tenants and property safe. Failures to follow the regulations could lead to hefty fines, invalid insurance and injury to the occupants. So here’s our easy guide on how to be a responsible and compliant landlord.

Do landlords need to have all their electrics tested annually?

• By law you must ensure that all electrical installations in your rental property and in a safe condition at the beginning and end of each tenancy. Whilst an EICR or Electrical Installation Condition report is not legally required for smaller rental properties, getting an electrician to carry out this testing every 5 years is the best way to ensure the electrics are safe and haven’t deteriorated or been damaged.
• If you are the landlord of a house of multiple occupants (HMO) defined as a property occupied by 3 or more people who form more than two households such a student house, then a EICR needs to be carried out every 5 years by a registered electrician to comply with the law.

Do landlords need to PAT test?

• Whilst Portable Appliance Testing is not a legal requirement, the law does state that all electrical equipment within a rental property must be safe to use. If you’re a landlord who provides any white goods or a furnished property, then you are responsible for any electrical equipment you provide your tenants. Should an accident occur due to an unsafe electrical appliance you will be liable. The easiest way to avoid this to get a registered electrician to carry out annual PAT tests on all the electrical goods you provide. Although you would still be liable for any faults, a PAT test will check for both visual defects and internal. A qualified PAT Testing specialist will be able to perform tests and checks on a variety of appliances using PAT testers that will be able to show if the appliance has passed or failed testing including earth continuity, lead polarity, and insulation resistance, among others for more advanced testers.

Fire and CO Alarms in rental properties

• All private landlords in England must have a smoke alarm installed on each level of their property. The alarms must be tested and working before the start of each tenancy. A CO alarm must be fitted into any room containing a solid burning fuel appliance such a coal fire or wood burning stove. Non compliance can lead to fine of up to £5000 by the local authority.
  

  Nest Protect Co2 and smoke detector

• Smoke & CO alarms such as the Nest Protect are becoming more and more popular with landlords as they can notify the landlord when the alarm is going off, a useful feature for when the property is vacant.

The above rules don’t just apply to landlords; AirBnB hosts also fall under this umbrella as paid-for accommodation is classed as rented property for these regulations.

Our next blog on HMO’s is coming soon!

How to reduce your winter electric bill

As the days get shorter and the temperature slowly starts to drop, our homes use more and more electricity. The need and desire to stay inside and keep warm means that our central heating goes on and our lights come on earlier and earlier in the day. Bills can escalate over the winter but there are easy energy saving tips you can follow to minimise your use of electricity, keep your bills down and help the environment.

Here are Opulous’s top energy saving tips to get your home ready for winter and help you save

• Switch your old fashioned halogen lamps over to LED – LED technology has come a long way over the last couple of years, meaning that all standard halogen house lamps can now be upgrade with there more energy efficient younger cousin LED.
• Upgrade your heating controls to include a smart thermostat – devices such as the Nest Thermostat learn your behaviour and controls your heating and hot water whilst the app enables you to turn it off and on, up or down when you’re away from home.
• 90% of your washing machine energy is used to heat up the water so washing your clothes at a lower temperature is an easy way to save electricity.
• Switch energy providers every time your contract ends – you can use comparison website to find the best deals for your usage.
• Ensure empty spaces like your loft are as insulated as possible – for some properties it is possible to save the money spent on loft insulation the following year.
• Make sure your boiler is serviced annually to ensure it’s running as efficiently as possible.
• Deal with the draughts – gaps in your doors, windows and floors can let the cold air in and the warm air out.
• Avoid leaving appliances on standby – switch unused device off on the socket to avoid unnecessary electricity from being used. Even unused mobiles chargers use power when left plugged in.

For more energy saving tips at home and to find out how we can help you with all your domestic and commercial electrical needs please get in touch!

Your home’s electrical system is more than just a bunch of wires – it’s a complex system, carefully designed to deliver all the power you need for modern life. An expert electrician knows his/her way around your home electrics – but how much do you know, or need to know?

If you rent or own your home the domestic electrical system remains a mystery to most home dwellers. Unseen and silent, it delivers powers for heating, cooking and entertainment 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. How it works only becomes of interest when something goes wrong.

So back to basics:

National Grid

The National Grid own the transmission network in England and Wales, helping to connect homes and business to the substations across the UK.

Our transmission network consists of over 4000 miles of overhead lines, nearly 1000 miles of underground cables and 346 substations. It’s their cabling that provide the electricity direct to your home. If you have a power cut in your area, you should call 105 for help and advice.

 Electricity Provider

Your electricity supplier is the company you choose to buy your electricity from, and who you pay your bills to. Part of what you pay is is given to the UK Power Networks for running and maintaining the electricity cables in your areas. Electricity enters your home at the service bow and a meter measures how much electricity flows into your system. Gas and electricity suppliers are responsible for providing and fitting smart meters for everyone in Britain by 2020.

Smart meters offer automatic meter readings, avoid estimated bills and provide an in-home display in pounds and pence. You can check with your energy provider whether smart meters are available in your area.

Consumer Unit

Your consumer unit also referred to as fuse board is the box that distributes the electricity around each circuit of your house. The consumer unit contains the main switch which is used to turn off the power to your entire home if necessary.

If newer, your consumer unit may contain an RCD or a residual current device, this clever switch will trip and disconnect the supply if dangerous conditions arise.

Each circuit of your property should be protected individually by an MCB or miniature circuit breaker. These trip when detected a fault on the circuit such as an overload. These can be easily reset, but if a circuit continually trips it would be best to contact an electrician to investigate the issue.

Your life is about to get a whole lot easier! If you haven’t embraced the smart home revolution maybe it’s time to dip your toe in the world of home automation.

With gadgets like the Roomba (robot hoover) celebrating over 16 years on the market, home technology is advancing faster than ever, devices such as Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri are introducing us to a whole new world of automation.

Founded in 2010, Nest was the brainchild of two former Apple engineers, Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers. Fadell, one of the creators of the first iPod was frustrated about the limitations of thermostats as he built his energy-efficient home in California. In May 2010 Fadell and Rogers co-founded Nest Labs and began prototyping the first smart thermostats.

By 25^th October 2011 Nest had launched to the public and the first Nest thermostat hit the market. Over the last seven years three generations of thermostat have been released, growing smarter with every evolution.

Nest Thermostat: A ‘Learning’ Thermostat

Whereas most thermostats rely on you to set the temperature, the Nest Learning Thermostat aims to set it for you. This device goes beyond simple temperature detection and learns your behaviour patterns and desired settings. Nest starts learning from you straightaway using sensors and advanced algorithms to create a custom temperature schedule that saves energy and keep you comfortable. Built around an operating system that is very similar to the Apple products we all know and love Nest allows interactions with the Nest thermostat via spinning and clicking of its control wheel. Users can also access the Nest thermostat controls via the app when you don’t want to leave the sofa. To date Nest has allowed users to save over 8 billion kWh in electricity across 190 countries, averaging a 10% saving on customers heating bills.

Nest Protect carbon monoxide and smoke detector

In October 2013 Nest launched its second product the Nest Protect – a smoke and carbon monoxide detector. Available in both black and white, this product can be both mains and battery powered. The Nest Protect features a multi-coloured light ring which is colour coded to indicate each operation. For example, yellow would indicate an early warning whereas it would flash red if the alarm was sounding. The ring also comes with motion detection to provide illumination should someone pass underneath. It is the first smoke alarm to bring Split-Spectrum Sensor in to the home. This commercial grade photoelectric sensor uses two wavelengths of light to spot different types of smoke and therefore catching slow and fast burning fires. A feature called App Silence allows you to silence the alarm in the event of a false alarm or some burnt toast. Another clever feature is the ‘self test’, the smoke detector will use a built in microphone to test itself when you’re out of the house.

Other Nest products include the camera range and the Nest Hello – a hardwired smart video doorbell with facial recognition and with 300 patents to the company’s name we’re excited to see what Nest comes up with next. Contact us to find out more about Nest and how we can get it working for you.