Lincoln EPC

EPCs - Easily Explained!

You are told that you have to have an EPC but not why, read on for more help and information...

The Energy Performance Certificate is not a minefield which you have to wade through, it is an easy process where everything is taken care of for you. The certificate is important because nearly 50 per cent of the UK's energy consumption and carbon emissions arise from the way our buildings are lit, heated and used. Even making a small change to the heating and lighting systems in your property will have an impact on the certificate and can also reduce your energy bills.

The EPC works on the size and age of your house, we need to measure up in order to determine the footprint and volume of your house, we then have a look at the heating system so that we can determine how efficient it is at heating the space that you have, this is where the measurements come back into it, we then have a look at the insulation in the walls and loft (own ladder provided), this together with a few other notes on the windows, light bulbs and water heating system are then inputted into the system to create the certificate.

The average certificate itself is between 6 and 8 pages long, dependant on the particular house. On the first page are the two graphs, this is the bit that most people are interested in, the coloured chart is the energy performance of the house and the most important one of the two, the blue/grey graph is the carbon dioxide emissions or environmental impact of the house, in most cases these two results will feature in approximately the same place in each graph, only if you have a very unique situation or very environmentally friendly house will these two differ greatly. Within each chart are two colums, the first column is the current rating of the house, the second is the potential rating of the house. The potential rating is determined by a number of factors, the age of the house for instance and whether you are in an area without access to mains gas. The EPC rating does not penalise you for what you have or have not got and will set the potential accordingly, the trick to the EPC is what has been done to the house in order to get the current rating as close to the potential rating as possible, where these two ratings appear up and down the chart is not as important as how close they are. For example, both ratings of an older pre war house constructed of solid brick may appear further down the chart than a newly constructed cavity wall insulated house, but this does not mean that the older house is less efficient as the two ratings could still be very close, meaning that the house is as efficient as it can be for what it is and is not penalised for being older.

On page 3 of the report is a table listing relevant aspects of the house, heating, lighting, wall construction, insulation, windows etc and a result on the efficiency, from very good, good, average, poor and very poor, as a buyer, this gives you an idea of what is in the house and how efficient it is.

Also in the report are recommendations which have been put forward, these depend on how efficient the house is therefore giving you a good idea of what needs to be done in order to achieve maximum efficiency. These are split into low, high and further cost measures low costis anything up to £500 and includes such items as TRV's, energy saving lights and insulation. Higher cost measures are anything which costs over £500 and will include items such as new boilers. Futher measures are not recommendations but are there for people who are determined to achieve maximum efficiency no matter the cost and these include such things as solar panels and wind turbines. The EPC is not a pass or fail rating but a reference to give information on the efficiency of a property, the recommendations are not statutory to instigate but are there to help should you wish to investigate reducing your energy bills.

We hope this helps you unravel the myths and mysteries of the EPC, if you have any further questions please do give us a call and we will do all we can to help you.

This article is Copywrite and cannot be reproduced in print or online without the permission of the author, A Spencer. Sept 2010.