How much attention do you pay to the EPCs?

vectistim

Collie_Collie wrote: »

I think they are pretty useless. Another attempt to measure and standardise but one size doesn't fit all. My house was built in 3 stages over 50 + years so the construction varies and the EPC can't cope with that at all. Also,the person who came to do it made a lot of guesses/assumptions that where not really accurate. Didn't go into the loft for example just asked what was up there. Maybe if you compared several modern, exactly comparable houses they might work but in reality they don't. Sledgehammer to crack a nut comes to mind.

1) The EPC should be able to cope with a dwelling built in 3 stages
2) On the EPC when it describes what the building is made of and it puts 'assumed' after something (typically under floor insulation) this is added automagically by the software
3) Assessor's aren't meant to accept the owners'/occupants' word on anything, and if the loft is accessible should be going should be sticking their head up there and measuring. If your assessor didn't do that, and didn't bring a ladder with him, then that suggests he was taking short-cuts, and maybe did with your varying construction ages.
4) On your EPC there are contact details of the accreditation scheme that overseas your assessor, please contact them and ask why the assessor didn't go in the loft.

JustAnotherSaver

vectistim wrote: »

If you are reasonably close to this perceived average household then it should provide a reasonably close match, although the variation can be such that a particular household's energy bills in a house could be half as much, or twice as much as the SAP estimate.

Well there will be 2.00 people living in our house (whichever it may be). It wont be occupied during the hours of 07:30-18:00/18:30 Monday-Friday. Most Saturday's it'll only be occupied by 1 person until about 16:30. Sunday it would have us both most of the day.

We both don't like waste & are careful with the electrics. If a room isn't being used - the lights are off. If we're not watching TV, it's off & not just there for background noise like many seem to do. If we're having 1 cup of coffee - 1 cup gets boiled, not 4 etc etc etc.

I did a bit of reading last night & found the other house we were looking at has a recommendation of a "condensing boiler" which i read is law to be installed these days, but that it's a government con & they're not as reliable as your combi boilers due to the way they work & damage in winter.

SO...... if we got radiators & a boiler installed in this one, i'm assuming it now has to be one of these fantastic condensing boilers which may go belly up in the winter & cost a wad to replace.

Heating aside, we went for a drive today. It's a cul-de-sac which is quite quiet. Our only concern from the outside looking in is the parking - there's certainly one space, but we'd prefer 2. One or 2 other houses have knocked their garden walls down to allow for 2 cars off-street, but again this is a question of 1) cost & 2) permission.

This aside, it looks a fair house in a nice area.

Propertyfan

Not directly related to the actual details of this thread but the company doing the EPC is supposed to give you a copy of the certificate. I wasn't given one. The EPC guy said "no, we send it to your estate agent." I was a bit curious about this and rang my EA and asked them to clarify the position. They said the company is supposed to give you a copy. This makes sense since I am the owner of the property that is being energy assesed! The EA sent me a hard copy in the post and an online version via email.

So just to alert people - make sure the company send you the EPC. You're entitled to a hard copy.