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We've seen a house we like but the epc rates at G with a potential of G.
Will it cost an arm and a leg to heat or is it all just a load of bollox? The house we sold had one that recommended insulating under the solid floor (i assume that must be hidden under the floating one) and got the square meterage of our house wrong.
Why dont you go and read it ?
Having produced EPCs for commercial properties in a previous life I would ignore the recommendations as these are generic and chosen by somebody who probably doesn't have a clue from a list.
The G rating tells you it's not a new building and as a consequence, yes, will cost more to heat.
British housing stock is generally (thermally) crap. IMHO, obvs.
Well, put it this way; did you ever hear anyone say;
"We found a wonderful house in just the right location for the right money, but it had a rubbish EPC rating so we discounted it"...
It tells you nothing that you couldn't have worked out for yourself, IMO.
It means someone entered a few figures in a soreadsheet and got an "answer" and some generic "recommendations".
It does give you an idea that it will be colder and will cost more to run as a house.
But that's the silly thing, what I really want to know is how much more.
For it to be of use to me, it needs to offer some multiplier I can use between two epc.
If I know mine gets a "standard cost factor score" of 100 and the next house scores 200, I'd know it would cost twice what it does now to warm and wash the same number of people.
The current numbers seem meaningless but then again, with drop down tick lists and minimal training/ understanding, I guess it's garbage in/garbage out.
I would say there's generally a correlation: better scores are typically more efficient houses. But they aren't very reliable, and it's usually obvious enough anyway just from the house description/type even before you visit. An old stone house will probably be somewhat draughty and expensive, a modern house less so (though cheap modern houses are often crap for a number of reasons).
Even the bloke who did the epc for my house said nobody cares about them
I believe 50p has a 'G' unit of some such, recon it's just street talk for nice gaf or some such, word.
Does an Assessor actually look in the loft to see if there's any insulation?
Does an Assessor actually look in the loft to see if there's any insulation?
Yep--the assessment is quite thorough, just not particularly useful
Thanks huckleberryfatt, something else to budget for!
Does an Assessor actually look in the loft to see if there's any insulation?
Not thoroughly. I bought a top floor flat with dormers and the idiot previous owner before me boarded and insulated the half of loft you can stand up in over the hall and bathroom but not the dormers as that ment crawling through a triangular space (you would have to be huge not to fit through) the assessor didn't bother to shine a torch into each mini loft above each dormer and it wasn't noted on the EPC
These are over the bedroom/living room/kitchen, this must have cost them a fortune over the last 30 years (80's build)
The storage heaters were tripped out and they had been using oil filled radiators again costing a fortune to heat their poorly insulated living space. I took the fronts off, removed the dust and re-set thermostats myself.
I'm about to fit triple glazing and have 170mm insulation in the loft now so it will be interesting to see what grade they give it and if it will improve on the E rating it currently has.
The previous owner also paid about £400 too much for water every year as they were the only flat in the block not on a meter, I now pay £130 not £550!
It may also depend on how old the EPC report is? I am currently involved with cottage refurbishments with old (cold) stone cottages and we get EPCs to check the rating for re-let, even if we get a 'G' the possible (if virtually impossible!) improvement rating is always better, as they include such improvements as a wind turbines.
To the OP if you can or want to, post up the EPC or the ref.no we maybe able to see more details.
But a domestic EPC is fairly simple and is more of a guide and perhaps really about education generally about energy.
So is it a great house and location, with any potential and would it be able to be sold in the future.
Good luck
Oh and if the politicians mean what they say....in a few years you will not be able to rent out a place with and 'F' or 'G' rating, but we shall have to see how this pans out...
Interesting thread!
I'm surprised that people don't make more effort with insulating their homes. Common sense, to me anyway, dictates that the loft is well insulated, radiators have TRVs, internal doors have draught excluders fitted and any gaps are filled etc etc.
Need to decide whether to go for cavity wall insulation plus having a power flush carried out on the radiators.
Having seen the recorded results for EPCs acros a district a huge number are just plain wrong. Recorded as having no loft insulation/cavity wall insulation despite building control records to the contrary and my favourite, a new build ground floor flat recorded as having cob walls with the first floor flat above having brick 🙂