HELP PLEASE!! BUYING HOUSE WITH LOW (F) EPC RATING

ProDave

Re EPC's being nonsense.  Yes, why have such a complicated and inaccurate rating?  Why not just publish the last 12 months gas and electricity bills with the property listing?  (true readings not estimates)

FreeBear

ProDave said: Re EPC's being nonsense.  Yes, why have such a complicated and inaccurate rating?  Why not just publish the last 12 months gas and electricity bills with the property listing?  (true readings not estimates)

Judging a property's energy efficiency based on historic gas/electricity bills is equally misleading - I'm currently using 5,000KWh of gas, and 2200KWh of electricity. The next owner may well want the heating on at 22°C all year and run air conditioning throughout the summer so going to 14,000KWh gas & 10,000KWh electricity.

Whilst the EPC system makes way too many generalisations and assumptions, a certificate will provide some indication as to how much heating/lighting will cost.

tetrarch

movilogo said:

EPC's are nonsense.

Fully agree. However, this nonsense can have a large impact on our lives! A house can lose value or become harder to mortgage with worse EPC ratings. 

This is not entirely correct. Mortgage companies do not care about EPC ratings. It wasn't even mentioned on my daughter's recent application

Regards

Tet

Woolsery

tetrarch said:

movilogo said:

EPC's are nonsense.

Fully agree. However, this nonsense can have a large impact on our lives! A house can lose value or become harder to mortgage with worse EPC ratings. 

This is not entirely correct. Mortgage companies do not care about EPC ratings. It wasn't even mentioned on my daughter's recent application

Or mine. They did care that a kitchen sink existed and a toilet, but those were in the local tip within hours of taking possession, so all a bit pointless!

NeverTooLate

I've just looked at the EPC ratings for the flats in the block where my son lives, they range from C to F, the C's have assumed that the building is cavity wall insulated and the F's have assumed solid brick - it can't be both!

FreeBear

NeverTooLate said:

I've just looked at the EPC ratings for the flats in the block where my son lives, they range from C to F, the C's have assumed that the building is cavity wall insulated and the F's have assumed solid brick - it can't be both!

It could be both - My (late 1920s) house is cavity wall on the ground floor, and solid 9" brick on the upper half.

NeverTooLate

FreeBear said:

NeverTooLate said:

I've just looked at the EPC ratings for the flats in the block where my son lives, they range from C to F, the C's have assumed that the building is cavity wall insulated and the F's have assumed solid brick - it can't be both!

It could be both - My (late 1920s) house is cavity wall on the ground floor, and solid 9" brick on the upper half.

Could be, but I doubt it - was built early seventies I think.

What was the reason for doing both in one building?

P0123

Dear All

URGENT UPDATE!!

I do apologise for not getting back to you before now!  (I don't think I have participated in a discussion since this site has changed, and I was awaiting to get notifications to my e-mail account, but none came and so I didn't think anyone had replied!!).

THANK YOU for all of the helpful and constructive replies and advice.

In the meantime, I have now been able to view the property, (along with about 20 others!), and the "facts" get worse!

- it is a 1920s built house, apparently;
- the Agent says it DOES have cavity wall insulation!
- the floors, downstairs, are wooden, whilst the stairs and upstairs are carpeted;
- the boiler and radiators, etc, are ALL electric, and it was put in in just 2020!
- the rooms (except for the kitchen) are probably what many would describe as compact (- you can probably get the necessities in, but that's it), whilst the kitchen is more of a kitchen-breakfast room;
- the front and rear wall are "bare to the elements", but one side wall is attached to the neighbouring house and the other side wall forms/is attached to a long wall that goes across the end of these little houses and gardens:
- the EPC was only carried out in June 2022.

I don't think I need to add any further wall insulation, do I, if it does have cavity wall insulation?  (If I did have to, what type woud it be, roughly how much would that cost to install and would it be majorly "deep", because I wouldn't want to make the rooms any smaller?)

Currently, I live in a rental where, (it is a compact flat), I have ONE storage heater for the whole flat.  The old one didn't particularly work, and the new one seems to have it's own mind, and so I do spend a lot of time using my portable little halogen and electric radiator heaters during the day, despite the so-called Economy 7, which I am not sure produces any savings with this heating system.

Also, it is a very old property (Georgian?! - was terraced houses, I presume, but now turned into flats), and my front and rear walls are about 15 inches thick, with large window recesses.  (There is no-one below me, but flats above and neighbouring.)  Yet, this gets a D EPC rating!

Due to the number of people who have viewed, I need to make a decision today.  It is a large amount of money to "throw away" if it is going to cost me many thousands to "put right" (ie, bring the rating up and make it more cost (and energy) efficient).

With this new information - particularly with the walls, are there any more helpful thoughts?

Many thanks, once again, in advance! 

woodpeckerx

Due to the number of people who have viewed, I need to make a decision today.  It is a large amount of money to "throw away" if it is going to cost me many thousands to "put right" (ie, bring the rating up and make it more cost (and energy) efficient).

It doesn't cost you anything to put in your offer, then in slower time you can work things out and withdraw it if necessary. Personally I would ignore the EPC, nothing listed in it has to be done and probably half of it has been guessed or is wrong anyway.

markin

Ask for an actual power bill or the Annual kwh from the bill. But rule 1 is that EA's will fib, you would have to measure the wall thickness to work out if its a 2cm or 5cm cavity. Can you see if the are drill marks all over the wall where it was filled from?

EDIT.....................
If the is 5cm in the cavity you could get away with only 30mm or 50mm on the inside rather than 80mm -100mm.