EPC Rating - would this put you off?

[Furries]

I haven’t dealt with these before. My mum’s place is on the market and her EPC has just come through. It’s been rated as “D” and is just 3 points shy of being rated a “C”.

It details the following 3 steps that could be taken to improve the rating - the first 2 would get her to a C, all 3 would get her to a B:

Floor insulation - typical cost £4-6k, typical annual saving £187

Solar water heating - typical cost £4-6k, typical annual saving £78

Solar photovoltaic panels - typical cost £3.5-5.5k, typical annual saving £731

Mum’s worrying a bit that she should be looking into getting these done. My view is that if people look properly at the rating and the actual point score, then it’s fine as it is. I, personally, wouldn’t look at those “recommendations” and think “shit, that property has loads of stuff that really needs doing”.

For those that have been in the market as buyers, would the above put you off or not? For those that have sold, did you follow these types of recommendations?

None of those recommendations would worry me - I imagine very few houses have these features. I doubt anyone will be put off by the EPC if they like the house, otherwise they’d be looking at different houses!!

Nope. Ours (3 bed semi, 1920s) is an E and the one we're buying is an E (4 bed detached 1890)

The EPC is only a guide. what you might find is that with a low rating vendors might become more interested in stuff like what your bills are. Places can have relatively low EPCs but still be relatively cheap to run. But a low EPC and high bills and an old property is increasingly flashing warning signals for most people, especially since the latest energy price hikes.

People are becoming increasingly wary of what the government may impose in the future in order to achieve net zero, but there are still a lot of people out there who either do not consider the issues or want to bury their head in the sand. This will change over time.

To me only the bottom one of those suggestions makes financial sense.

Normally there are things you can do to add points here and there, so have they all been done is the question.

No, most UK EPCs are a D.

As long as the price of the home isn't unrealistic I would be happy to make those improvements myself in the future.

I doubt she would get back what she spends on those improvements.

Thanks all, much appreciated!

The good news is that I’ve persuaded her not to panic and that the rating is fine.

The even better news is that’s she’s had an asking price offer today! Great start to the bank holiday weekend, am really chuffed for her.

Hurrah! Congrats Furrymum

Floor insulation - typical cost £4-6k, typical annual saving £187

Solar water heating - typical cost £4-6k, typical annual saving £78

Solar photovoltaic panels - typical cost £3.5-5.5k, typical annual saving £731

The actual costs are much higher than what you mentioned, and the amount of money that can be saved is much less than what you imagine.

Basically, it is unlikely to break even.

The trouble with EPCs is that they are stuck in the year they were created. I wonder how many people buying or even renting stop to think 'hang on, how old are these numbers?'

The whole system needs an overhaul, it's absolutely terrible.

Hard agree to this. The advice in an EPC is extremely generic, and EPCs very often have mistakes in too. If you want to make a home more efficient/ comfortable, much better to get a proper energy survey done that is not limited to tick boxes on an EPC assessment. And yes, this is something for buyers to invest in, to their taste/needs, for their own future.

New build often have better EPC ratings, but in reality, there is very little difference in energy costs between EPC B, C, and D ratings.

I completely ignore EPCs, I think they are poorly done and not worth the paper they are written on. They need reviewing, in my opinion, if they are to be useful.

Tell me about it. Our rental is an C, but thanks to crappy UFH and poorly fitted chimneys, we still spent 3.9k on energy in the last year. Estimated kWh is about a third of that.

They will never be any good until they actually test if things are working properly.

That’s what I said

EPC cannot tell the actual case

btw Underfloor heating (UFH) is another thing I once really wanted, but I gave up on it after considering that it would never pay for itself.