More eco-bollox ...

[Arfa Daily]

My wife is just buying another cafe nearby. It's getting towards the end of the process, so all of the paperwork is starting to slop around the system between the solicitors. Yesterday, we received a copy of a bloody "Energy Report" for the building. I have never read such a waste-of-time crap in all my life ! Some of the recommendations about replacing decorative light fittings and so on with types to take a CFL are little short of ludicrous. They even recommend that we dismantle any flourescent lights, and replace the ballasts with more efficient 'electronic' types. Yeah, right. Like anyone is ever going to do that ...

Each of their silly points has an 'impact' rating attached to it. The final conclusion is that the building falls exactly into the band that you would expect it to for one of that type and age. Well now, there's a surprise ...

How much has it cost the poor sods who are selling us the business, to have these 'consultants' along to produce this report ? I dread to think. I wonder how many politicians are on the boards of these companies, and are then working it back the other way as 'advisors' to the government to get all this nanny legislation nonsense on the statute book ? I really hate what this country is becoming.

Arfa

[billrigby]

On 26 Feb, 09:28, "Arfa Daily" wrote: [...]

The door's over there.

[Arfa Daily]

Off you go then ...

Arfa

[tony sayer]

In article , Arfa Daily scribeth thus

It keeps them in a job. There're not much use for anything else so what do you do put 'em on the dole or get them to do stupid jobs like this when if the govermint had any idea they'd be subsidising real things like insulation to the hilt ... which they aren't!....

[cynic]

Send a copy of your post to all the newspapers you can think of. One or two might pick up on it and run a suitably embarrassing article for the government to read

[Doctor Drivel]

The energy report is there for a reason. It is best he stops reading the Tory brainwashing Daily Mail and learn some common sense. It is clear the Daily Mail has affected his brain. He should use this appalling paper to stuff in the holes in the building to stop air leaks.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember tony sayer saying something like:

The real unemployment figures would be far higher if all those people in jobs like that were included. The infamous Jobs Creation Schemes of the

70s never went away, just got re-designated and came from a different direction.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yup.

Trouble is 'pay a man to do a make believe job and you feed him till the govmint goes bust: educate a man to do something productive, and you will be out of a job'

What a dilemma!

[Arfa Daily]

What, and the bunch of clowns that are in power at the moment are doing a good job are they ? Reminds me of the shit we were in last time we let them stay in for too long ... I suggest that you get back to your Daily Mirror. Even they can't find it in their hearts to support them any more. Drivel by nic, drivel by mouth ...

Arfa

[Andy Dingley]

We had one of those. I remember three paras:

• Lightbulbs are all incandescents.

• Did you know you could fit photovoltaic panels?

• It's Victorian and untouched, so score zilch on everything.

I don't mind the first two. There are ignorant people around who need to have this pointed out to them. What I dislike is that there's no expansion on these two observations. Yes, replace incandescents with CFLs (did it the first night). It's cheap and it's a good saving. However PV panels are an expensive con that won't payback in any finite time, so avoid them. Yet from this report itself, there is _nothing_ to distinguish the two, or their relative viability.

The third point is important. But I could have told you that much from seeing a photo of the outside.

This report is a failure because it's merely a report, not a recommendation. It tells you what you have, not what to do next. It also does so in an amazingly patronising manner. So it's a document that's only of use to those who already know enough to know what to do next, and it talks down to these people. One group are baffled, the other are patronised.

[Rednadnerb]

I went into an Estate Agents today to look at the Home Information Pack for a flat that I am thinking of buying, the pack included an energy performance certificate which I found very interesting and it gave me the answer to some questions that the estate agent couldn't help me with.

Ignoring the common sense stuff about lightbulbs, it told me that the heating system is communal and very efficient and the hot water is from an electric immersion heater and there's not much I can do to improve on that. Without that information I might well have ripped it all out and put in a combi boiler, costing loads and saving not much.

It's not all bad.

[Frank Erskine]

Do you _always_ believe what's written on certificates?

[Rednadnerb]

They're not selling anything. Why would the information be false? When it comes to energy efficiency I have to rely on someone else's calculations, getting the necessary information and doing the calculations myself is not something I would be able to do.

It also told me that replacing the the single glazing with energy efficient coated double glazed units will save me about thirty odd quid a year, another expensive mistake avoided!

[The Natural Philosopher]

What is common sense about it? CFLS are just ecobollox in themselves by and large.

When I bought my house, they removed all the lightbulbs from it anyway..

it told me that the

[Lobster]

I've had two done for properties of my own since they started: both reports had errors in which I pointed out and had altered.

David

[John Rumm]

Prolly about £30 - the EPC is usually paid for out of the payment for the HIP

[John Rumm]

No offence intended, but that has to be one of the most feeble defences of EPCs I have ever read... how difficult do you suppose it would have been to gain that information without the EPC? Would you normally set about ripping and replacing a heating system without even looking at what is there first?

[John Rumm]

In my limited experience of these things, it probably will be due to lack of knowledge and assumptions made about the building. The inspectors can only look at stuff, and not peer into the fabric of the building or carry out any detailed inspection (after all this is a budget service involving a quick walk round taking some notes and then a cut'n'paste job to prepare the report back at abase along with the five others he did that morning).

And neither can they. They will ask you about the construction (if you are there for the inspection) - but if you don't know they can only guess and will frequently guess wrong[1]. Hence they are starting with the wrong data before they do any calculation.

They ought to come out with a assessment that is in the approximate ballpark, but it could easily be an energy band one way or the other in the wrong direction.

Its a shame that this is not common knowledge really - but it has always been the case the DG is hard to justify on a cost saving basis alone.

[1] I walked round with the inspector for the one on the last place I sold - I had detailed knowledge of the buildings construction, right down to being able to give him u values for all the bits I have built/extended. Even with that the report still contained a fair amount of nonsense like an observation that the loft had less than the recommended amount of insulation (there was no loft - I had converted it

- and in the process insulated all of the envelope to better than current required standards ).

[Arfa Daily]

Ah, but this was the sale of a business, and the premises that it is conducted in, that are to be leased by us, so I expect that it then became some nonsense figure, because it was 'commercial' ...

Arfa

[Rednadnerb]

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No offence taken. But yes, I have always thought that says electricity is expensive but gas is cheap and I have always thought that if you have a gas supply then you are a fool not to have a gas boiler. The energy performance certificate put me right.

Unless you work for the building research establishment then I would have thought this kind of information would be difficult to obtain, and who has the time anyway? I want to take someone else's word for it.

Most of the people who subscribe to this website, like most of the people that I know, have absolutely no need of energy performance certificates or indeed house surveys but we should not forget that we are a minority. 90% of people out there are absolutely clueless.

The more information the better, even if most of us don't need it.