I found a nice house with low energy efficiency, should I buy it?

lostinrates

energysavingguy wrote: »

I have found that the Energy performance certificate that I had done for my home was of great use. I'm set to save massive amounts in the future on the few changes that had been highlighted to me.

Did your own business dothe energy saving report?:rolleyes:

carefullycautious

I live in a GF post war flat. Solidly built and spacious. The only thing I find is that it is a damp cold, whereas when I lived in newer houses it was a dry cold during winter. I Hope this makes sense. We do have central heating but the down draught from the chimney is dreadful on windy days which will need dealing with.
The sewage pipes also run along our gardens horizontally to the two ground floor flats (we are in a block of 4) about 2 feet from my walls. NO problems as yet. In summer it is a bright sunny flat and the space we have far outweighs the problems with the winter cold. However, it has crossed my mind about whether as we age we will still feel the same so when we are looking at properties to buy we do take into consideration the energy efficiency. Good luck with whatever you decide

Davesnave

energysavingguy wrote: »

I have found that the Energy performance certificate that I had done for my home was of great use. I'm set to save massive amounts in the future on the few changes that had been highlighted to me.

Gosh! Really? We're all as mad as fish on here, so we won't think for a minute that you must be kinda quiet to have time to spam this site.

treliac

Davesnave wrote: »

My last house was in the middle band D and fell into this group. If I'd done the cavities, increased the loft insulation & changed the boiler, it would have been at least C, but I sold it instead.:D

The only thing we haven't done is cavity wall insulation, which I can't make my mind up about. I've read it can cause damp problems by breaching the cavity and creating a conduit.

Any advice please?

Really2

treliac wrote: »

The only thing we haven't done is cavity wall insulation, which I can't make my mind up about. I've read it can cause damp problems by breaching the cavity and creating a conduit.

Any advice please?

We never had any problems in our 60's semi and that was in place for 3 years (we sold it last year).

It did make the house warmer:)

Davesnave

treliac wrote: »

The only thing we haven't done is cavity wall insulation, which I can't make my mind up about. I've read it can cause damp problems by breaching the cavity and creating a conduit.

Any advice please?

Nobody in our road complained. (1950's breeze block 'n render jobbies)

LillyJ

Davesnave wrote: »

Can we have a bit more info to back that up?

Obviously, if you go very much pre-War you'll likely have no cavity wall, and there are even some 50s houses round our way which are solid, but I can't see what's particularly odd about this 'age-group.'

My last house was in the middle band D and fell into this group. If I'd done the cavities, increased the loft insulation & changed the boiler, it would have been at least C, but I sold it instead.:D

What's appalling is the overall construction standard of some new builds, though of course there are others that are fine, because you just can't generalise. A bit of Googling will begin to reveal some builders to avoid, though thanks to the complexities of sub-contracting, standards site to site, and even phase to phase, may vary a lot.

I can't say in general, but we lived in a 1970s (or at a push could have been late 60s, not exactly sure) house prior to buying this one and it was truly awful in terms of energy efficiency. The walls were thin, half our heating (and noise) went to next door, there was no insulation between the rooms themselves etc. Whilst we lived there 8 houses in the street (12 in total) got that foam injection stuff put in because it was so bad.

Now in the 1930s semi, it's much better, and despite having an unhealthy penchant for the gas fire, our bills are less than they were in the previous house. (very similar in size, and both semis). That is despite the cold winter. Very well noise insulated too.

Our new house does have good loft insulation though, which is ridiculously cheap and easy to do, and during the cold weather, the snow on our roof melted last out of all the roofs in the street which made me proud of the insulation!

toja

Oh guys.. this forum can't help it to make decision, can it? so many diferrent thoughts! However I have been seeing more properties this week and the more I see, the more I want this Victorian inefficient maisonette! I can't wait to see the last property in my list tomorrow and then run into the agency which sells the mentioned maisonette and put an offer. I am thinking of offering 148k from initial price 163k, does it sound good? My capacity is up to 155k but they always advice to offer less than more, don't they?

JayScottGreenspan

toja wrote: »

The property is priced at £163000 and I was going to offer quite generous £152500 but now after I saw HIP I am thinking of £150000.

Depends on the area, but that sounds like a very generous first offer.

gjchester

toja wrote: »

I am looking at other properties but this one i still like it.

And so will the person who eventually buys it from you.

House purchase choice is never really rational, you know when you walk in if you'll like a house regardless of seeing all the rooms. It's very rare you get similar houses on the market at the same time to compare anyway.