MSE News: Home Information Packs scrapped

anneofthenorth

vet8 wrote: »

Excellent post.

Our energy assessor admitted that he had no idea what to do about our house as we have no central heating. There was nowhere on the form to record our open fire or our very efficient Rayburn that heats the kitchen, the hot water and I cook on, all for the same fuel. Also, counting how many low energy light bulbs you have is a total joke as I could change them the second he walks out of the door.
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If he didn't know how to treat a house with no C/H, or deal with range cookers he's not a very good assessor! you should complain.
As for counting the low energy lightbulbs, that bit is part of the procedure and it is a bit silly, and personally I'd like them to re-consider it. They are changing the conventions used all the time to include new technology as well as odd situations that don't 'fit' with the expectations for a normal house. It's not perfectly accurate - you'd need a full SAP assessment for that which would cost about 10 times the price and actually measure heat loss instead of making standard assumptions. But the current method works pretty well for waht its' supposed to do, which is give you a comparative indication of how much the house will cost to run (fuel-wise), something that's quite important when you are trying to decide which house to buy

tux900

Mids_Costcutter wrote: »

Hopefully over the longer term EPCs will drive improved building standards for better insulation and more efficient heating systems.

Do you really think so? As interesting an EPC is, I've not heard of anyone making a house buying decision based on the comparitive results of one.

Of course, factors such as whether a property has double-glazing is important to many/most, however it doesn't take an EPC to provide such information.

Mathew

vet8

Exactly. When you buy a house you tend to like a house or not. I can only see the EPC being useful if you were trying to choose between 2 very similar houses and one had a much better energy rating than the other. Otherwise people are not going to let their dream house go because it's not energy efficient enough.

tux900

vet8 wrote: »

I can only see the EPC being useful if you were trying to choose between 2 very similar houses and one had a much better energy rating than the other.

Even then such a significant difference in rating could only be due to an equally significant difference in the property e.g. double-glazing which would be self-evident by its presence. Perhaps something like cavity wall insulation might be something which might contribute to a significant rating difference but would otherwise go unnoticed but even then the presence of knowing such is only a simple question away (that's all the assessor will do anyway).

Despite the apparent level of analysis that our EPC inspector performed in terms of checking for the presence of this, that and the other, and taking measurements etc he was honest enough to admit that he knew our rating would come out in Band D from a cursory glance of what he could see when he walked through the door. As much as I support energy saving awareness there is nothing so subtle about it that requires a paid professional to have to point out.

Mathew

Shaftesbury

We are in a similar position in that we signed with an agent who has been unable to sell our house. We were meant to pay for the HIP on completeion of the sale or when we move to another agent.

Does anyone out there know if we have to pay as HIPs are no longer needed?

Optimist

Shaftesbury wrote: »

We are in a similar position in that we signed with an agent who has been unable to sell our house. We were meant to pay for the HIP on completeion of the sale or when we move to another agent.

Does anyone out there know if we have to pay as HIPs are no longer needed?

If your agent did the HIP as per contract then yes you will have to pay unless they are very very nice estate agents !

Mids_Costcutter

MJNewton wrote: »

Do you really think so? As interesting an EPC is, I've not heard of anyone making a house buying decision based on the comparitive results of one.

Of course, factors such as whether a property has double-glazing is important to many/most, however it doesn't take an EPC to provide such information.

Mathew

Point taken, but isn't the idea of the EPC that it gives the overall picture in terms of energy performance? Notwithstanding the fact the assessment could be improved, for example to allow for different heating systems as previously discussed. If a house can generate some of its own energy with solar panels for example, then that would be certainly be a selling point for me. Would the EPC take that into account?

tux900

Mids_Costcutter wrote: »

If a house can generate some of its own energy with solar panels for example, then that would be certainly be a selling point for me. Would the EPC take that into account?

Sure; it definitely would factor them in and I imagine that you probably cannot get an A rating without the inclusion of such renewable energy sources. However, you don't need an EPC assessment to reveal the presence of solar panels on the roof!

Whilst on the face of it it seems to factor in everything in reality it doesn't e.g. the quality/performance of cavity wall insulation is not considered, gaps in doors/frames are ignored, actual efficiencies of the installed heating system (standard values are used for different types) are not measured, etc.

I don't mean to knock the EPC entirely - it was afterall the most interesting document in the whole HIP for me but I dare say that probably says more about the HIP than the EPC!

Mathew

ettenaj

[I too had a deferred payment on my HIP due to be paid 1.7.10 if the house is sold or not, and it isint so I will be £517 out of pocket for a 10min look around my house! The extra money I could have recouped from the sale but now I have just thrown it away and as a single parent I find this soul destroying !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:mad:

M.Holloway

MJNewton wrote: »

Sure; it definitely would factor them in and I imagine that you probably cannot get an A rating without the inclusion of such renewable energy sources. However, you don't need an EPC assessment to reveal the presence of solar panels on the roof!

Whilst on the face of it it seems to factor in everything in reality it doesn't e.g. the quality/performance of cavity wall insulation is not considered, gaps in doors/frames are ignored, actual efficiencies of the installed heating system (standard values are used for different types) are not measured, etc.

I don't mean to knock the EPC entirely - it was afterall the most interesting document in the whole HIP for me but I dare say that probably says more about the HIP than the EPC!

Mathew

Considering that requires drilling into the walls and is more work for the energy assessor (who is already wildly underpaid) do you think people would pay an extra £50 for a proper EPC that did what it should?