Would it be foolish to buy a Grade II listed property with terrible energy efficiency rating?

[JaffaSnaffle]

Today, we went to view a beautiful house in a lovely village. It has enough space for my family.

The current owners had been away for the weekend, so I cannot tell if this was normal, but the house was cold. It is about 10 C here today.

There was no heating on. But it was impossible to tell whether the house was cold at any time the heating wasn't on, or if they had left heating off for days.

I am prepared for higher heating bills, but could not cope with a house that needs the heating on all the time not to be arctic.

Could I ask for people's experiences with heating very old, inefficient properties?

it's possible it could be made to be a lot more efficient than the current owners are making it.
eg my parents recently got secondary glazing for their listed house which apparently has made a big difference.

We live in a Grade 2 listed house... it had a terrible energy efficiency rating (not helped because it also has a gas aga!) Can you link to it?

unless you can put up secondary insulation or cavity wall insulation and double glazing I would not touch it.

useful book in case you get serious

I think there's a few things here.

First of all, I have heard that the energy efficiency ratings just don't work for houses built before a certain date, so that you have to put them out of your mind. Someone else on here may be able to confirm this. The warmest room in our house is the one that's had least changes to it in 500 years.

Second, as Tunip says, there may be plenty of changes that could be made to increase the energy efficiency.

I don't think that you can judge based on the heating being turned off, though.

On the other hand, we keep our house at a minimum temperature of ten degrees at all times because it isn't good for the timber frame to get damp. We found that it keeps ticking away nicely at a low temperature, but it does lose the heat quickly with no heating on at all.

It's here:

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-32371499.html?premiumA=true

The enery efficenciency graph is on the full brochure.

It only has single glazing Turnip, so secondary glazing would be something we would want to add.

It has a LPG gas storage tank in the garden.

it's also a matter of how you're going to use the house, I think. My parents have an attic which is the most inefficient part because the walls are only 1 brick thick up there, but they simply don't use it except when we all come and stay in the summer.

Grendels mum is right re energy ratings being less relevant. But uppermost in your mind should be grade 2 listing which may make alterations more costly or difficult than for none listed properties. Also, some houses are just cold, and you just need to adjust. Not with more heating, but with more jumpers!

herhonesty, the listing is very much in my mind. It might not be possible to change very much at all, and so it would have to remain cold. I am pregnant, and a bit worried about the baby getting cold, although I guess just more layers for them would do it!

We live in a stone cottage built in 1865. It doesn't heat and cool like a modern house but it's not too bad for efficiency. Downstairs is always cool, even on the hottest summer days because we have a cellar and small windows. The attic rooms are directly under a dark slate roof so get very hot in summer. I've added insulation and improved the heating where I can but there's only so much you can do.

I grew up in a 1940s semi that was much colder than our house.

Those energy ratings are not at all accurate for old buildings as they are based on modern technologies- I'd just ignore. You would be unlikely to be able to insulate the walls. Secondary glazing is as efficient as double glazing and you can get original windows draft stripped etc. perhaps it's because the owners were away?

With listing, you'd be best advised to make a list of things you might want to do to it and then have a chat with the conservation officer at the council. Good luck!

Most Grade II Listed buildings have terrible efficiency ratings.

the enws out yesterday though that from April 2014 a local authority will be able to force ypu to insta;ll green energy efficiency measures if you apply for planning permisison to do renovation or extensions etc may well have a serious effect on the cost of doing up and maintaining listed property.

Not only are listed properties much more expensive to repair anyway but their poor energy efficiency will mean much more extensive measures will be needed to make them energy efficient.

TYPO: 'The news out yesterday..'

I live in a v old, listed house, no idea what its energy efficiency rating is on that scale because it wasn't invented when I bought it.

I have a few suggestions:

• go and visit again when the heating has been on long enough to bring it up to "normal" temperature. E.g. wait til the owners have been back for a week.
• ask for the detail behind the energy efficiency rating. For example if it is low because you can't put cavity wall insulation in because the walls are 1 foot solid (like mine) then disregard it because the walls are warm enough without; if it's because there are several holes in the walls which you can't close off because they are special listed features, that would be more of an issue [though highly unlikely?].
• consider whether, actually, you are fine to pay the heating bills and live in it as is. Because if you are, there's no problem. It's just an expense of living in your lovely house.

I haven't found living in a listed property to be any more hassle or expense than an unlisted one of the same age. The listing just stops me destroying its character or using inappropriate materials, which I wouldn't do anyway. But I suppose the listing is there to stop people putting in plastic windows, like they have a few doors down: not listed and the windows are TRULY UGLY.

I have lived in lots of properties. I have just moved into a old property after living in a fairly energy efficient property. We paid £400 last month to heat the house to 15-18 degrees. I'm not even warm. We have switched the heating off and theres not much difference. If the house has no cavity insulation you will lose 25% heat through the walls, no double glazing heat will be lost through the windows, the rest will be lost through the floor and roof. The house I grew up in (tudor black and white) had slate laid onto bare earth, it was damp and bloomin freezing.

If it is cold, it will be cold and possibly damp, in my last house even in winter with the heating off, it didn't feel "cold".

Don't even think of buying with your heart until you have a builder/solar/window glazer/roofer/plumber give you an indication of how much everything will cost.

Oh, and my experience of heating my house:

• always cold downstairs. Need shawl and/or wood burner in winter just to be tolerable
• upstairs always warm and comfortable.
• attic (proper loft conversion) hot in summer, fine the rest of the year. Downstairs & first floor have mixture of single and (very narrow) double glazing, plus thick thermal roman blinds which made a big difference. I should do something about the draughts downstairs, though: it's really cold.

Bills are more than the last house, but that was a modern 2-bed terrace while this is a 3-bed semi, so would be expected anyway.

People who say don't worry about paying for the heating if you can afford it are fools. Heating bills will significantly rise over the next 10-20 years thanks to the governments flawed energy policies pumping subsidies into inefficient windfarm projects. You may as well take a load of tenners out of you pocket and set fire to them (which I doubt any sensible person would do).

I would visit again and maybe get someone in the know about insulation and listed buildings with you as there i probably a lot you can do, for example the attic rooms could be overboarded with insulating plasterboard with minimal loss to headspace then as others said secondary glazing. Anyway, all sorts of things affect the grade it gets on the efficiency rating, don't lightbulbs affect it, so if the owners don't have low eneergy it gets a worse rating?

ohanotherone - I don't think calling people fools is appropriate.
It is up to each individual how they spend their money and if they would rather spend it on heating a lovely house than on holiday/car/clothes/other discretionary spending of their choice then that is, well, their choice.
It may not be your choice - that's up to you.

And this house is LPG-heated, so wind-farms are a bit irrelevant in any case.

They're only fools if they do their sums based on what the heating costs now and not on what it is likely to cost in the future.

I imagine the increased cost of fuel is also likely to bring down the desirability of listed buildings and make them bad investments - but again, if you're not buying it as an investment but as a money sink somewhere to live, that won't matter.

Well, actually the government is raising money via energy companies to pay subsidies on windfarms. That means we all pay extra for oil/gas/electricity so that a few very rich people can get richer by owning wind farms which only generate power 20% of the time and if the wind blows too much have too be switched off (and the government pay a fee if they are switched off aswell). Windfarms are highly relevant, this country is actually facing an energy crisis, everyones energy bills are set to rise.

I accept people make choices about spending money, I'm probably poorer than many people on here (looking at mumsnet homeswap) however by no means poor and we struggle to pay £400 a month on fuel so have to turn off/down the heating. I'm trying to impress to the OP the reality of moving into an old cold house when the OP doesn't like being cold with a baby on the way! Hence strong language but sometimes with houses people get caught up emotion and only realise the reality when it is too late. An inefficient house will burn money, unless you have a logburner and a free supply of logs or some other sustainable energy source.

At the minute, I live in a 5 bed Victorican detached house with some downstairs secondary glazing on mains gas with loft insulation and a new boiler, gas Aga though. It's only ever warm in the kitchen.

I am searching for an energy efficient house.

An old house is always going to have a high heat loss, so it is going to cost more to heat and it will still be colder. It will have cold areas of the house, and cold areas of rooms, and it will still be cold in April.

The idea that you can warm the walls up is half true; if you keep the heating on continually for a few weeks, they will be warmer than if you don't, but they will still be losing heat through the outside surface as fast as you apply it to the inside, the centre of the wall will be half-way between the inside temperature and the outside temperature. If you go away for a week, and let the house go cold, it will take a long time to heat up the tons of masonry and brickwork in the walls again.

If being warm/heating things efficiently matters to you, this isn't the house for you. I speak from experience.

I've had a look at the house, it's lovely, but the energy certificate is an G - horrendous! There is probably no loft insulation and very poor floor insulation in the room with the log burner! At least it has a log burner, but no land so you would have to buy your own fuel! The windows look good but are probably not double glazed? You could consider solar depending on aspect of property. The bills will be high as it is.