Discussion
My brother has a 3 bed detached house, solid stone walls. It is fully double-glazed, 250mm of loft insulation.
He's in the process of getting the aging and broken bottled gas central heating replaced with a heat pump.
As part of the boiler upgrade scheme grant, he needed an up to date EPC.
It came back as G, with 1 point - lowest score possible.
When he queried it, the chap said it's because he currently has bottled gas central heating.
OK, it's expensive to run, but the same rating as a house with no roof or windows?
A friend of his lives in a similar house, but only has an open fire and some fan heaters. That house has a better rating.
EPC = pointless!
He's in the process of getting the aging and broken bottled gas central heating replaced with a heat pump.
As part of the boiler upgrade scheme grant, he needed an up to date EPC.
It came back as G, with 1 point - lowest score possible.
When he queried it, the chap said it's because he currently has bottled gas central heating.
OK, it's expensive to run, but the same rating as a house with no roof or windows?
A friend of his lives in a similar house, but only has an open fire and some fan heaters. That house has a better rating.
EPC = pointless!
The present epc checks are a farce, a thorough check of a property would take five times longer and five times the cost. As another poster posted, presently just a case of ticking the boxes, asked if the property has cavity wall insulation, is the checker going to drill into the cavity to confirm the same. Lots of instances where new owners of properties, have found the former to be the case.
clockworks said:
My brother has a 3 bed detached house, solid stone walls. It is fully double-glazed, 250mm of loft insulation.
He's in the process of getting the aging and broken bottled gas central heating replaced with a heat pump.
As part of the boiler upgrade scheme grant, he needed an up to date EPC.
It came back as G, with 1 point - lowest score possible.
When he queried it, the chap said it's because he currently has bottled gas central heating.
OK, it's expensive to run, but the same rating as a house with no roof or windows?
A friend of his lives in a similar house, but only has an open fire and some fan heaters. That house has a better rating.
EPC = pointless!
I used to write the calc engines for these and ran an accreditation scheme. 1 is the lowest score that will show on an EPC but the actual calc will produce a figure technically lower. So your house with no roof or windows will show on the EPC as 1, i.e the same, but it reality is no where near. In the same vein a house with PV etc that is a net exporter of energy can have a score over 100 but it will show 100.He's in the process of getting the aging and broken bottled gas central heating replaced with a heat pump.
As part of the boiler upgrade scheme grant, he needed an up to date EPC.
It came back as G, with 1 point - lowest score possible.
When he queried it, the chap said it's because he currently has bottled gas central heating.
OK, it's expensive to run, but the same rating as a house with no roof or windows?
A friend of his lives in a similar house, but only has an open fire and some fan heaters. That house has a better rating.
EPC = pointless!
Im guessing the house is pretty old. Old stone built houses have bloody awful u-values on the walls, very leaky. Even newer stone cant compete with a filled cavity by a decent chunk.
Double glazed, but probably pre 2002 which again doesnt have good u or g values compared to modern DG. 250mm low insulation isnt great. So the bottled gas CH isnt great at all, but the fabric of the property is s
t and I wonder how the hell a heat pump is going to work in there. Its possible the assessor has made a mistake, if they have put wrong measurements in for the walls then heat loss area is going to be a lot bigger than it is. You can complain to the accreditation scheme and they will audit it. he EPCs are audited by matter of course but only a tiny amount, 2%, unless the scheme thinks the assessor is s
t and it will get upped to 5%.I appreciate that, for everybody except landlords, it's just a box-ticking exercise.
Just seems pointless having to get one to qualify for the grant, despite the actual result not affecting the grant any more.
The chap who did mine did actually walk around the outside to look for the cavity insulation "blow holes", and went into the loft too.
He still missed the fact that the immersion had a thermostat and a timer, which was enough to mark me down to an E.
Just seems pointless having to get one to qualify for the grant, despite the actual result not affecting the grant any more.
The chap who did mine did actually walk around the outside to look for the cavity insulation "blow holes", and went into the loft too.
He still missed the fact that the immersion had a thermostat and a timer, which was enough to mark me down to an E.
Gassing Station | Homes, Gardens and DIY | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff