When the energy crisis first hit, Beverley Jones was so worried about how she would pay her bills that she turned her heating off completely and ended up with mouldy walls.
Three years later and Beverley, a former Paralympian who won a bronze medal for discus throwing at the London 2012 games, said she still struggled.
The 50-year-old said heating costs remained a “constant worry” ahead of the energy price cap going up again in January.
Beverley, who has cerebral palsy, is being helped by a new project started by a gas engineer who saw many people in the Deeside area struggling.
It offers free boiler checks and repairs to those in the area who are most in need.”You don’t feel like doing much when it’s cold,” said Beverley, from Shotton, Flintshire.
“You just try to stay warm with blankets or hoodies.”You don’t feel like going out. You should be able to be relaxed in your own home.”
She added that having someone check that her boiler is safe and working efficiently was a “big help” and something she would not otherwise have been able to get done.
Help 4 Heating was the idea of James Hunt, from Aston in Deeside, who already runs a community interest gas fitting company which helps fund other projects in the area.
He said it would be able to reach people who, like Beverley, cannot afford repairs and could be losing 40p in every £1 spent because of inefficient heating systems.
In figures from October 2024, the charity National Energy Action estimated there were six million people in fuel poverty in the UK.
James said the elderly and vulnerable were “disproportionately affected”.
“It’s not just down to being warm in your home, which is obviously a necessity, but it’s also things like damp, as in Beverley’s case,” he said.
“It affects mental health, it affects so many people in different ways. People need warm homes, and hot water at the very least.”