EPC - diy possible?

No. But *I* can look at most houses closely and come up with more or less the right answers myself. I do this when I first view the place, carrying a ladder in the car just in case, and a camera with a decent lens on a long stick. Then again, I did a course on building construction as part of a quantity surveying course many years ago, and have seen what goes on on site which isn't necessarily what is on the drawings. I can look for and diagnose things like damp patches round cavity wall ties and such, where the mortar's bridging the cavity.

Without that experience, you'd be wanting to pay a professional for a full survey anyway, which should include an energy use check of some sort.

Splitting the odd hair. The price paid for a property is the amount received by the vendor plus all the fees. Either way, the cost is effectively borne by the purchaser, it's just the way it's split.

Most of the suggestions made on the one I had done just before Christmas made good sense for normal use of the flat. It was even more or less right about the payback periods. It didn't take account of the way I use the hot water tank in the airing cupboard as a space heater to warm the bathroom up on cold mornings, then turn the hot water off until the following night, except for top-ups. The jacket that's sitting waiting in the airing cupboard for Spring will be put on before I leave. Where the EPC process could fall down is where the bulding is not of normal tile roof and brick wall construction. It did, or so I've been told, regard a thatched roof as being uninsulated if there wasn't any insulation in the loft space.

Yersss....

I'll not argue except to say that the boilerplate list is there for a reason.

It was suggested that I replace the convector heaters which run on a timer only when I'm home and an hour or so either side with storage heaters, which store up heat when I'm in and let it out while I'm at work, for instance. If someone's in all day, then they make sense.

Reply to
John Williamson
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That was my point really. You are primarily interested in spotting serious or potentially serious problems. The stuff on the EPC usually falls into "might be nice to know" category, but not if its going to waste time and cost you more...

When I bought I current place three years ago, I had a valuation survey done and gave the surveyor instructions as to the bits I was not interested in (i.e. heating, plumbing, electrics etc, since I can assess and fix those myself). From an energy point of view, I was quite happy with a statement from the vendors as to what they were paying for gas and electric. (don't think they had an EPC since they put it onto the market before they were compulsory)

That was something I noted with mine. It described the loft as "uninsulated" and quoted the energy efficiency of this as hence "very poor". The fact that I had converted practically all the loft space into habitable rooms, and insulated everything to higher than building regs requirements did not seem to factor. I even gave him the details of the construction. The very small amount of space that remained as "loft" was easily visible by the expedient of opening a cupboard door and looking at the 100mm of PIR foam lining everything, and yet he did not seem to think that was within his remit!

Reply to
John Rumm

The folks doing the EPC are mostly clueless. The government originally thought people with a background in the building trade would come forward to train, but they actually got no one from the building trade and mostly people who were unemployed and unskilled. They had to significantly dumb down the assessment to match the people they got, which is why the EPCs are so inaccurate as to be useless in many cases.

Apparently, still a lot of houses sold without one.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Andrew Gabriel ( snipped-for-privacy@cucumber.demon.co.uk) wibbled on Friday 07 January

2011 13:43:

So is it a legal requirement that an EPC is required to convey - or just something the solicitors are scared to be without in case they get sued?

Reply to
Tim Watts

The other thing is that in many other EU countries, even if they had a similar piece of legislation, absolutely no one would take any notice of it.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

A final reference to SAP 2005 on which the EPC is based.

There is a clause that enquires what percentage of the light sockets are fitted with low energy lamps.

This specification is aimed at new constructions. So how many new houses are sold with all the light fittings installed?

Reply to
David J

The two near me were, and all decorated too. I suspect they would find them significantly harder to sell otherwise, or fetch a lower price (significantly lower than the cost of decorating and lights).

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

It's part of the Building Regs now that the installer has to comply with

- 75% of new lights have to be 'energy savers'. I'd presume it would be hard to comply if you left plain bayonet fittings dangling with no bulbs in them.

Alan.

Reply to
A.Lee

Since you can get CFLs for 10p or so (dunno why, but I've seen them in all sorts of places at that price) it's hardly a major expense to populate all the pendants.

Reply to
Skipweasel

Building regs require the *fittings* to be low energy - i.e. they can't be ordinary BC or ES lamp holders, but must be a type that only take low energy bulbs.

(hence why many electricians have a set of them to install in new builds to get a house signed off by building control... the fittings can then move onto the next place!)

Reply to
John Rumm

A far greener solution than actually leaving them in the house for the new owners to throw away

Reply to
ARWadsworth

I've seen it suggested that this is being removed from building regs, because of phasing out of filament lamps.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Talking of building regs - who would we lobby to get FENSA's monopoly on installing windows removed as unnecessary red tape?

Reply to
Skipweasel

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as fruitful as the Number 10 petitions website though ... Oh too late, the site seems to have closed already ...

Reply to
Andy Burns

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