EER & EI(CO2)R ??

[the_constructor]

A friend and I were discussing Energy Efficiency Rating and Enviromental Impact (CO2) Rating as he is thinking of moving houuse. We have both seen the results as shown on estate agents literature but doing various searches on the web, we can not find out how these surveys are carried out, only that CFL's, double glazed windows add to the scores.

Anyone got any concrete knowledge on the scoring system please.

Plenty of websites say that we can go on courses for X amount of £'s.

Kindest regards,

Jim G

[Huge]

It's all bullshit and handwaving.

Because that's where the money is ...

[Peter Parry]

Guessology. A house I know has single thickness concrete walls (1930's probably) and no more than 1inch of ratty fibreglass in the loft with much missing. The roof was unlined so had a permanent gale blowing through it. The "independent surveyor" took 20 minutes and £90 to declare it had a cavity wall, modern insulation, low energy lighting (there was none) and gave it a D rating.

[AJH]

We just had one charge us 50quid to comply with the landlord's obligation and he totally missed the underfloor heating but did comment on the new boiler only feeding one radiator and towel rail in the bathroom.

AJH

[Muddymike]

A friend and I were discussing Energy Efficiency Rating and Enviromental

I had to have one done on the holiday apartment we let. Absolute waste of money, and the local authority agree it is! The guy admitted he could only judge by what he could see and he can't see the insulation in the cavity or floor! As the boiler is in the main house he didn't look at that either!

Mike

[The Natural Philosopher]

+1

+2

[Tony Bryer]

The calculation methodology is called RDSAP (Google will tell you more) - reduced data standard assessment procedure. SAP is the full calculation, used for new homes where you have all the data available.

The rating is a function of the estimated CO2 output per year arising from energy used for heating, hot water and lighting. The basic calc starts with the fabric loss and assumed ventilation losses; hot water usage is a function of floor area. There are all sorts of interplays within the calculation: larger windows will increase the heat loss, but also increase solar gains (particularly if south facing) and reduce the need for lighting. A larger hot water cylinder loses more heat, but some of this heat useful heat and so on.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Like others said, it's a complete waste of time.

It has turned out to be a job creation scheme for the unemployed. The people who came forward to take part had no knowledge of the Constrution industry and no knowledge of physics, and the procedure and exams had to be dummed down to well below the point of being completely useless, just to get enough accessors through the courses.

It's a way of taxing you to take some folks off the unemployment register, and to make money for those who provide the courses. The results produced are not worth the paper they're written on, and everyone in the industry knows this. When they're not even allowed to look into the loft to see if it's insulated (the case with someone in the family who had one done), that surely tells you what a complete waste of money and effort this is.

[Andy Burns]

I looked at a few online for my neighbours and parents' neighbours, the EPCs don't differentiate between condensing/non-condensing boilers, they make assumptions about presence/absence of underslab insulation, if they're not allowed to look in the loft, presumably if they can't see any "plugs" they assume no cavity wall insulation too?

Since they're crap, you may as well just spend the least possible £35 on one!