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EPC Energy Performance Certificate Shock Surprise

AncientMariner

Our village halls attached house is due to be rented out again and a couple of days ago had a EPC Energy Performance Certificate survey.

Due its form of construction, its a late 1890s Grade II listed building, no cavity walls, no floor insulation etc I was pleased that it achieved a D rating which means that it is OK to rent out, since the current minimum is E for rented property. However I was a little nervous when the surveyor told me that from 2025 the minimum will be C but as a Grade II listed I should be able to get an exemption.

However, the house that my wife rents out scored a D in 2019 and in order to become a C requires, in the suggested order: Floor insulation, Solar Water heating and Photovoltaic panels with a typical expected cost of  £20,000 as per the certificate! I've ignored the sloping ceiling insulation which was Number 1 on the list at £1500, this due to the previous owner converting a utility room into a breakfast room and removing the ceiling and creating a pyramid style ceiling.

The certificate (like all others visible on the UK Gov website) reminds all that the UK average is D.  These rules apparently were from the EU and take into account that the average age of a house is higher in the UK compared with the EU, so theirs have been built on average to a better spec.

Interestingly electric central heating makes the situation worse, my wife's property luckily has had a condensing combi-boiler fitted 2 years ago.  I joked(?) with the surveyor whether an EV charger is good or bad, she was not too sure.  

If you want to check EPCs then go to 

Clive

  • 0

    What a load of green tosh! Cynical I hear you squeel?

    Well, not really. I have 2 EPC ratings for the same property, one active and one expired. The expired one states that the assumed full cavity insulation is very good; the active EPC states that the assumed cavity insulation is very poor.

    I wonder about the level and type of training these assessors are subjected to? 

    Legh

  • 0

    Legh Richardson:

    I wonder about the level and type of training these assessors are subjected to? 

    Legh

    Not alot.

    House where I live are 25 years old and are identical. Those which have had epc's show totally different results and ratings. 

  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member

    Sounds like EICRs.   Inspectors not well trained but with a lot of prejudices and opinions

  • 0

    It looks terribly technical: 

    (They really have made a mess of this forum software!)

  • 0

    dcbwhaley: 
     

    Simon Barker: 
     

    dcbHow would you set the rent, before discount?

    If a landlord wanted to let out a flat that was impossible to keep warm in the winter, and they wanted £1000 a month for it, they could say that the flat is £1200 a month, but with a £200 a month discount.

    The tenant pays the same price as before, and still struggles to keep the place warm.

    There is an informal "going rate" for accommodation which is well known to letting agents and easily accessible to the general public .   If a landlord asked £1200 for a flat where the going rate was a £1000 then she wouldn't get many takers, whatever the energy efficiency.

    But in my example, they aren't asking for £1200, but for £1000.  The £1200 is a ficticious figure, so they can claim to be offering the discount on it.

  • 0

    It looks terrible technical: 

    (They really have made a mess of this forum software!)

    I presume that your complaint about the quality of this forum software relates to the continuing ‘flashing’ of the uploaded document.? (there's problably a technical name for that). I agree!

    Legh

  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member

    In my experience as a landlord if I (or my agent) said, when offering a let with a going rate of £1000.   “The going rate for this let is £1200 but you can have it for £100 because it is expensive to heat” the response would be predictable and would involve references to places where the sun doesn't shine.

    Tenants aren't stupid.

  • 0

    Solar Water Heating £6K - What about the 2 year old boiler? And how would it be plumbed in?

    The plumbing side is relatively straight-forward these days. You'll need some kind of storage (e.g. cylinder) for solar heat - but then there are a number of options:

    If the combi is ‘solar compatible’ (many relatively modern fully modulating ones are) then you can simply feed the output from the solar cylinder into the ‘cold’ supply of the combi - so that the combi sees water pre-heated by the solar and will only burn enough gas to bring it up to temperature, if necessary.

    Failing that you can revert to having hot tap water supplied direct by the cylinder - which the gas boiler tops up when the solar is insufficient - just like a traditional S-plan or Y-plan system. These days it can be a pressurised cylinder of course, so you can still have “mains” pressure hot water same as from the combi.

    Or if you have several heat sources (I have a log burner as well as solar to combine with the gas boiler) a thermal store comes into its own - which allows the alternative sources to contribute to space heating as well as hot water, as well as providing mains pressure hot tap water from a vented cylinder.

       - Andy.

  • 0

    dcbwhaley: 
     

    In my experience as a landlord if I (or my agent) said, when offering a let with a going rate of £1000.   “The going rate for this let is £1200 but you can have it for £100 because it is expensive to heat” the response would be predictable and would involve references to places where the sun doesn't shine.

    Tenants aren't stupid.

     

    Tenants do make the mistake of taking a tenancy in the late Spring then getting a surprise in the Autumn when they need to turn the heating on.

    A flat of house that looks good in July can lose its appeal in January.

  • 0

    One letting agent told a tenant she could not have a copy of the Energy Performance Certificate because of data protection laws, I sent her a link to the website.

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