Energy audit on a house?

[Timothy Murphy]

Are there people/organisations that will carry out a scientific audit on a house, measuring where heat is lost, etc?

[Steve Firth]

Yes.

How deep are your pockets?

[Alan]

Get the experts in to do a Home Information Pack Survey

[Mogga]

Rentals need an energy certificate from October apparently. Don't know what's involved in that.

I think all this HIP energy stuff is nonsense without a IR photo of the outside of your home in winter with the heating on. Until you physically see where the heat escapes - and stop it doing so, then it's all pointless. Putting a tick in a box for CWI without checking that it is doing it's stuff seems mad. If your double glazing bleeds heat because it's poorly fitted then that needs sorting out too. etc etc etc

[Andrew Gabriel]

Yes, I heard that on the Radio today. Needs doing every time the tenent changes, but not if they just renew, if I heard it correctly.

[David Hansen]

On Sun, 11 May 2008 20:05:04 +0100 someone who may be Mogga wrote this:-

Presumably the same sort of survey as done when selling a house. Nothing scientific about that.

This can be done by anyone with a calculator, as it has been dumbed down to be simple enough for the sort of people who are involved in the house selling business to do.

However, that wasn't good enough for the Labour Party, as DIY wouldn't involve the sort of money making scam they love. Therefore the simple procedure has to be done by someone who has paid to go on a course to make them an "expert", probably pays money to keep them an "expert" and gives the data they gather on your house to the government for them to lose and misuse.

details the methodology. The reduced data version is acceptable in many cases I believe, that really is a Mickey Mouse thing.

[Tim Lamb]

In message , David Hansen writes

Hmm... is there a purpose to this?

Apart from the tenant, who gets the data?

Is this a wheeze to transfer money from landlords to employment without passing through the hands of government as a tax?

regards

[David Hansen]

On Mon, 12 May 2008 09:15:25 +0100 someone who may be Tim Lamb wrote this:-

Presumably the landlord who is carrying out the survey and government. In the latter case it is claimed that energy efficiency officers will be able to target their help. Of course that implies that government helps people, which would be a novel idea but I doubt they will do much or anything in this case.

Of course this assumes that there is a scheme to get landlords to have this sort of thing done and the information is abused by being sent to government as it is in the energy survey scam for houses being sold. So far nobody has given a URL of such a scheme and I can't be bothered to look it up.

[Bob Mannix]

Indeed - two "identical in all other respects" flats are, in practice, extremely rare. The prospective tenant will generally have other criteria (near to bus stop/shops/pubs/relations, size of rooms, decor, garden, garage etc. etc). The energy costs (if looked at at all) will be on the basis "oo, and it's energy costs are supposed to be good" or "bit of a shame the energy assessment isn't that good but never mind" but won't actually change the decision. Flats where the prospective energy costs are "twice that of another very similar one" are going to be very rare too. More often than not it's going to be at the 25% level. You either want to live somewhere or you don't and the decision is generally made as you enter through the front door - "this feels good" or "no, I don't think so". All else is detail. IMHO.

[Tony Bryer]

The theory is the same as the requirement to display car fuel figures. A tenant goes into a letting agency, narrows his choice down to two and then sees from the EPCs that one has projected energy costs that are twice that of the other. So he chooses the one that with the lower figures. After a bit the landlord of the high-cost unlettable flat decides to do something and then gets it reassessed.

Do I see this happening in real life? All the evidence to date seems to be that most people don't take any notice of HIPs.

[Owain]

Or gets a mate to rewire the electric meter and lets it out with heating included.

Owain