Thinking of moving - type of house

MWT

Probably my #1 feature to check would be orientation and suitability of the roof for solar panels.

Can fix a lot of the other problems, but not much you can do to change the way the roof is constructed and the direct it faces (without huge expense) .

Same goes for shading...

Alnat1

Annoying that so many houses built this century have silly little dormer bits and odd roof angles that I suppose some architect must have decided made them look more attractive.

[Deleted User]

Interestingly I looked at the EPC in more detail :  3 things stood out

The assessor did not find any opportunities to save energy by installing insulation in this property

So nothing I need to do here

One of the recommendations was to install low energy lighting

Yet in the bungalows features it states Lighting  'Low energy lighting used in 75% of fixed outlets' Very Good.  Only a flourescent in the garage but rarely used.  Other than this, all other bulbs are LED.

Estimated energy used to heat this property 9777 kWh (space) 1943 kWh (water) = total 11720 kWh

Yet I'm on target for 6500 kWh by December.

So short of spending some serious money on solar and/or heat pump technology there is very little I can do where I live to reduce costs other than reducing consumption by economising.

MWT

[Deleted User] said:

So short of spending some serious money on solar and/or heat pump technology there is very little I can do where I live to reduce costs other than reducing consumption by economising.

I wouldn't take anything on the EPC as definitive...

On my father-in-laws bungalow for example it was noted as having 75mm of loft insulation, which was considered average...

When we checked out what was actually up there more than 1/3 of the loft space had no insulation at all...

Much of what is on the EPC certificates is either assumed based on the year it was built, or based on only a partial view of the space, like in the case of the loft....

It does not involve a detailed inspection, just a 15 min run through at speed...

 

ProDave

[Deleted User] said:

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

Well that is the attitude of mass market builders for ever, lets build the absolute minimum pile pf rubbish that we can possibly get away with and still sell it for top price.

Clearly the system has failed, so time building regulations were tightened to force better standards?

[Deleted User]

ProDave said:

[Deleted User] said:

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

Well that is the attitude of mass market builders for ever, lets build the absolute minimum pile pf rubbish that we can possibly get away with and still sell it for top price.

Clearly the system has failed, so time building regulations were tightened to force better standards?

Yes, I'd agree with that precisely.  There is no reason at all for them to do it themselves, so the system needs changing to make it so.

There was a slight move towards that with the old CfSH and the restrictions on renting at low EPCs, but that didn't go very far and all impetus was lost.

Mstty

It is an interesting question

Knowing what we do now about a highly efficient house with ASHP we would only look at a grade A and B houses on the EPC and read it carefully to see what was suggested and cost them out. 

I do think houses in the top two bands could start to attract a premium and expect estate agents to be pushing this very soon.

We do look at online property searches regularly and we discussed this just now and we are both in agreement "efficiency matters"

[Deleted User]

MWT said:

[Deleted User] said:

So short of spending some serious money on solar and/or heat pump technology there is very little I can do where I live to reduce costs other than reducing consumption by economising.

I wouldn't take anything on the EPC as definitive...

I never did .  Indeed that was my point.   In fact I never even looked at it (the EPC) other than it was the same as my old house when I bought the property.  When I visited the place last year, all I really checked upon was cavity wall insulation (I could clearly see that there was from the outside), loft insulation (I had a look in the loft and saw plenty of it) and the gas boiler documentation.