Thinking of moving - type of house

Troytempest

We are possibly moving next year but it occurs to me that we should only consider A or B rated homes. Probably triple glazed, air source heat pump and solar panels.
Might mean a new house I suppose.

We had not even considered the energy rating of a property before but a big factor now!

EssexHebridean

I'm not quite sure what your actual question is here? 

QrizB

It's certainly worth taking the likely energy bills into account as one of the factors you consider when choosing a home.

Alnat1

The energy ratings are not a perfect solution though. Would you want to miss out on what could be the perfect property which was rated down to C because the homeowner hadn't changed all the lightbulbs to LEDs?

Troytempest

EssexHebridean said:

I'm not quite sure what your actual question is here? 

Not really a question but potential movers might want to think about it.
Find a perfect house but then discover it is impossible to heat or would cause a fortune to bring it up to a reasonable energy rating. Maybe not something folks had factored in before?

JGB1955

EPC ratings are a joke.  My father's house was rated at '47/E' when it was sold 2 years ago. There was a stream of 'assumptions and recommendations'.  It's a granite barn conversion in the South Hams (Devon). Suggestions were £6,000 to insulate a stone floor, £3,000 to 'improve' the existing NSHs, £6,000 for solar water heating and/or £15,000 for a wind turbine (in a valley.....!). The calculation was that costs were £2,400 p.a.  Hopefully the current owners are able to deal with (what was actually) a £5,000 electricity bill.  Buyer beware, indeed!

ProDave

If you are buying a recent house, it will have should have had a proper SAP assesment as part of building regulations, so you can be fairly certain as long as it was built to the specification they told the assessor, that it is a reasonably accurate indication of the true performance.

It is older houses, that never needed a proper SAP rating for building control (may never even have needed building control) that have been assesses with the RDSAP system that are notorious for being inaccurate and based on a lot of assumptions.

If you are looking for an EPC A or B, then you will only find that in recent new builds, very few older houses would ever normaly get to a B.

Have you considered a self build?  Like many self builders I took a lot of time and trouble and ours came out with an A94 EPC.  Our local BC inspector said it was the first A rated house he had seen, and I read some statistic that there were under 100,000 A rated houses in the UK.  That is staggering and disappointing as there was not anything particularly difficult or expensive to get an A.  I would have hoped by now all builders would be striving to get that.

[Deleted User]

Why would builders be striving to build A-rated houses?  They cost extra to build and don't sell for a premium. 

MWT

Troytempest said:

We are possibly moving next year but it occurs to me that we should only consider A or B rated homes. Probably triple glazed, air source heat pump and solar panels.
Might mean a new house I suppose.

We had not even considered the energy rating of a property before but a big factor now!

I would worry less about the rating and more about the potential to fix the deficiencies that pretty much every home for sale will have...

Other than that, yes, you are either building a new house or going unicorn hunting...

[Deleted User]

Having moved last year in August, the biggest thing we have noticed is the orientation of the house, so, which rooms are likely to be sunny?  which are likely to be cold?  Our house is 68/D rating and has cavity wall insulation, double glazing and loft insulation.  Hopefully the warmer rooms are the rooms that you are likely to spend more time in (unlike our last home).  Our lounge/TV area heats up nicely in spring/autumn with any sunshine.  Our bedroom is in the centre of the bungalow and has a more constant temperature.  

For the two of us, we are able to use less gas and electric than our previous house even though it is a semi-detached 2-bed bungalow (on target for 2500/6800kWh electric/gas).  Could be due to the energy cost-cutting measures we now take for granted, but also due to the natural warming effect of the sun being way better where I now live. Last year numbers were 3500/9800 kWh electric/gas in a semi-detached 3-bed. 

markin

Most 50's houses can get a mid C with just Cavity wall insulation and the loft topped up, On top of the standard boiler and DG windows. And Solar gives a good boost to a low B most likely.