EPC recommendations - a joke !

[oncemoreuntothebeachdearfriends]

I am selling my house, & EPC is new to me.
The cert. tells me how to improve from a "C".

For c.£17,500, I can expect savings of c.£582 p.a.
30 years payback, + a loss of interest on the capital investment.

What is the point of an EPC?

Does anyone look at the rating when buying a property?

Well yes. And the recommendations. Because they pretty much tell you what the house hasn't got.

Most people don't take them as gospel though, and you are right the payback times can be silly. I looked at taking mine from a C to a B and it was no way worth it as the only way it can be done is with very expensive mods.

I think a C rating is OK and as far as I know doesn't place any restriction on use, which is the key issue. If I was selling a place and it was possible to bump up to the next grade cheaply because it was only a couple of points away and it could be done through something low cost like loft insulation I would do it. But this I think is rare for the higher grades eg going from a C to a B, as to get a C you have to have pretty much all the easiest stuff done.

yes, buyers definitely look. I am looking right now and I use the rating as a bargaining chip. If a place is a D or E, I mentally knock 10k off the offer price for "future upgrades" even if I never do them.
I use https://homecheckup.co.uk to snoop on houses because it shows the previous certificates too. Sometimes you can see a house was a C ten years ago and is now a D because the standards got stricter. It is just a negotiation tool really.

Take them with a huge pinch of salt. For example:
Double glazing is seen as good, even if it is old, blown and draughty.

Cavity wall insulation is seen as good. But lots at houses have insulated elements like bay windows, which do not mark down the score.

A secondary heat source of a log burner is seen as good. I like them, but they mean there is a chimney with associated heat loss.

I don’t see them as useful at all, especially compared with a survey. Ours got point for double glazing (so badly fitting you can see daylight between the pane and the frame, they have obviously slipped), and recommended external wall insulation which is explicitly banned in our conservation area, and replacement of lightbulbs with LEDs (the previous owner took them all with him).

Our old flat EPC claimed we had insulated cavity walls (build in 1870 so not likely!) and claimed not to know how much loft insulation we had (they opened the loft and looked at it but didn’t have a tape measure).

They are as good as fairy tales! And if a buyer tried to knock £10k off our asking price because of a EPC rating of D or E I would laugh at them. They might possibly tell you what has been done to the property - or not as they won't investigate anything they can't see straight up.

We had an air source heat pump installed and when looking for info on the FaceBook group there was many a comment from people who after install had had their EPC redone and it got worse!!! :D

The EPC methodology is changing next year and will be based on measured efficiency. Not a bad time to lock your EPC C and above before standards are raised. Valid 10-year. From 2027 new tenancies won't be allowed on EPCs below C.

Yes the current system is a complete waste of time and money and utterly useless.

I would be very surprised if the plans for new tenancies having an EPC of C or above by 2028 come to fruition, especially if EPC standards change in 2026. It will further constrict the supply of rental properties if landlords can’t or won’t make the changes. In many cases the return on investment isn’t worth it, or the labour to make the changes isn’t available. The EPC assessors will need additional training before reassessment, too. As for all rented properties having an EPC of C or above by 2030, where are all the tenants going to live whilst the required work is undertaken by the army of workmen?

So new tenancies will require C and above from 2027/28 but existing ones can roll on until 2030. Average EPC is D so won't take much to bring it one notch higher.

Would in our case! The things suggested on ours are internal wall insulation (no thanks, rooms are small enough already), and solar panels (not allowed in our conservation area). Or take the stone floor up and insulate it.

None of which would be cheap (all estimated at £10k plus). We already have good loft insulation, double glazing, draught excluders, good boiler, low energy lights etc, and we are still right at the bottom of D because we have solid walls and stone floors.

EPCs work ok for houses built in the last 50 years and with standard materials. But for old houses and those with unusual construction, they can be v inaccurate and make unhelpful suggestions.

For an investment of £25k, I can get my house from a low D rating to a high D rating. It already has a ton of insulation and this year we replaced the boiler. Modern DG throughout.

I could spend a year’s rent on suggestions in the EPC report and it would become a high D. The tenants would save the princely sum of £180 per year, according to the report. Had the assessor bothered to lift the hatch and see the thick insulation in the attic, we would have had a different report.

Yes, always.

I don't think log burners are ever seen as good? I was told it would lower my epc

What's the joke?

They are a rating

Stone walls wouldn't need taking up. They would be insulated and new flooring put on top. I don't think they are any different than other floors, they are just not insulated. However suspended floorboards have a lower rating

It will. However there are loads of exemptions like spending so much a year or tenants not agreeing

What makes you think they didn't look?

Agree they are a waste of time and money. Eg a victorian house with solid walls will be marked down as it won't have cavity wall insulation. Some 'suggestions' would be a joke cost wide, eg £15k investment for £150 annual energy saving.

It will further kill the rental market if the government insist on higher ratings. It just doesn't work on older properties, despite many of them being very well built- the sound proofing in my victorian terrace is brilliant from the solid walls, much better than my previous epc 'B' modern house.

They're a nonsense. I looked at the epc certificates for our road where all the houses are identical 1970s builds and the epc ratings and suggestions were different for each house.
Last time I checked, you got points for changing your light bulbs.

How many people with original Victorian encaustic tiles or flagstone floors are going to want to spend thousands of pounds to ruin the period features in their property by shoving insulation and laminate over the top?

It was given an average rating despite being Assumed. The assessor didn’t lift the hatch.

So ask them to redo?

You are confusing how to make your house more eco with what you want aesthetically