- September 5, 2022
- Commercial EPC, EPC Certificate London, EPC Certificate London, Residential EPC Certificate
What is EPC rating?
EPC stands for Energy Performance Certificate, and it's a certificate that shows your home's energy efficiency. An EPC gives you a full breakdown of how energy efficient your home or business is, as well as suggestions for how you may increase energy efficiency and the potential savings you'll see as a result of these adjustments. A standard EPC is a four-page document with a traffic light rating system that ranges from A+ (the most energy efficient) to G (the least energy efficient) (the least energy efficient). An EPC is required regardless of whether a home is being built, sold, or rented in the UK. This Energy Performance Certificate includes an estimate of how much it will cost to heat and light the building, as well as a general assessment of carbon dioxide emissions and suggestions for how to improve your EPC rating. Importantly, an EPC for a property must be renewed every ten years, so keeping a current certificate is essential.
What’s included in my EPC rating?
Rules on letting this property
This section of your EPC certificate will inform you whether or not you may rent or let your property depending on the EPC grade.
Energy performance rating for this property
On a coloured scale, this will show you your property’s energy rating as well as the prospective rating on the same scale. Our example that we’re looking at is rated at a C with a potential rating of a B.
Breakdown of property’s energy performance
The next section is the breakdown of the property’s energy performance. . This is where they explain how they arrived at the aforementioned rating. Wall insulation, roof insulation, window quality, heating and controls, water heating, lighting, floor insulation, and secondary heating are all evaluated and scored as very good, good, medium, bad, or very poor in the table.
Environmental impact of this property
How to improve this property’s energy performance
Our potential grade for the example we chose is a B. But how are we going to do it?
Getting floor installation is one of the assessor’s recommendations. It then displays the normal installation expenses, which are £4,000–£6,000 in this example, with a typical annual savings of £39. It will then show you what your rating will be once you’ve made these modifications.
Another suggestion is to install solar water heating, which normally costs £4,000–£6,000 to install and saves £36 per year on average.
Estimated energy use and potential savings
The anticipated yearly energy expenditures for the property are next section on the certificate. Ours, for example, shows a cost of £686, with a possible savings of £110 if the home owner follows the aforementioned recommendations. “The projected cost reveals how much the average household would pay in this home for heating, lighting, and hot water,” most certificates will state. It is not dependent on how the people who live on the property utilise energy.
The expected savings are based on following all of the recommendations for improving the energy efficiency of this home.”
The following section under this one concerns heating. “Heating a house normally takes up the majority of energy expenditures,” says the disclaimer once more.
This section displays how much energy is required to heat this property each year, as well as how much energy is used for hot water.
Contacting the assessor and accreditation scheme
Finally, the certificates identify the assessor and include contact information in case you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding your EPC certificate.
How can I increase the EPC rating of my home?
Given the current climate crisis, there is no better time than now to increase your home’s energy efficiency, and the greatest time to do so is during the summer. Your current EPC will list popular upgrades, such as insulation, double-glazing, low-energy lighting, and solar panels, as well as the potential costs of making these changes and the money you could save on your bills as a result.
