Home Report

kriss_boy

Anyone know the criteria to get the highest bands in the home report?

I can find example home reports and the advisories that are given, eg, "160mm insulation jacket required for hot water cylinder" but I cant see a score sheet that shows how to tally up what your home currently is.

And thus how to go about getting your rating up.

marcg

I take it you're talking about EPCs. I'm not totally au fait with the contents of the calcs but I do know that insulating the loft with fibreglass, lagging the hot water cylinder (if you don't have a combi) and replacing any boiler over 10 years old will make the biggest differences (per pound). Otherwise, double glazing will also help but probably very expensive.

LuluBlue_2

Make sure all your bulbs are low energy ones (a cheaper way to get the rating up a little bit at least!)

marcg

LuluBlue wrote: »

Make sure all your bulbs are low energy ones (a cheaper way to get the rating up a little bit at least!)

Does that work? I know you can get higher ratings if you change the fittings to ones which will only accept low energy bulbs but didn't know you could just change the bulbs in normal fittings?

kriss_boy

I lot of properties on the internet are all band C and D which is pretty low right?

Just wondered what I could do to make mine higher for when we sell up in 12/18months time.

Underfloor insulation would be easy and cheap to install so I might do that. I reckon it would be a good advert when selling your house if you have an A for enery efficiency.

Milliewilly

To be honest its the price that sells the house not its energy efficiency otherwise people would only buy brand new homes.

I wouldn't waste any money trying to get the rating up. Regulations change every year regarding loft insulation etc. It would be major things like having cavity wall insulation or new windows that would make enough difference in the rating and you wouldn't do that on a house you are selling.

The HIP was a way of geting income for the Government, nothing more. If it had included a Survey I may think differently.

Patr100

Waste of time trying to get your band up.In my experience. EPC inspectors don't even look in the loft to see the thickness of insulation or check for cavity wall insulation. Even when they visit THEY MAKE ASSUMPTIONS BASED ON THE TYPE OF PROPERTY, (sorry to shout).

jasper12

I read through quite a few home reports when looking to buy a property and, tbh, never really paid that close attention to the energy report. As others said, it was the price of the property which was the determining factor. It was good if it had CH and DG but it wasn't a deal breaker if it didn't. In fact, the house we eventually bought had neither :rolleyes:

david29dpo

The EPC software is very flawed at the moment but it seems very likely in the future the council tax will be based on the EPC (like car tax is now) So it may pay to get the highest rating possible. It is true some EPC inspectors are crap (not surprising when they charge £40) It can be quite easy it get the rating up, there is plenty of ways to do this (see the gov site)

kriss_boy

Hmm... Im just thinking in respect to the state the property market is in.

If you sell your house but the buyers see the report and have cold feet. Maybe £1000 spent on ensuring you house appears to be as best it can be would be worth it.

Homebase have cheap insulation and foil. I reckon Ill get under the floor boards in the next month or two and get it installed.

keith969

Even if you do obvious things like install TPRs on the rads and fit energy saving bulbs, the inspector might not notice.

On my HIP it says for main heating controls 'Programmer and room thermostat' and recommends fitting TPRs. But in fact all the rads bar one have TPRs and there is no room thermostat!

You'd be better off spending the £1000 on a clean lick of paint and fresh flowers when people come to view.