Unbelievable EPC recommendations

Spike · 2025-01-26T09:44:05+00:00

Some friends of ours are buying a house, and out of interest I looked upthe recommendations of the Environmental Performance Certificate, availableon the .gov web site and quoted below. The house is a two-bedroomend-of-terrace, with no gas supply.Who in their right mind is going to spend £4000-£6000 on floor insulation,which will have a payback period of 40 to 60 years?Or install solar water heating for a similar cost and payback period?Cavity wall insulation at 2 to 6 years payback is feasible, as is high heatretention storage heaters at 2-4 years.Solar panels at 7 to 10 years is getting to be an outlier.Star saving and payback is improvement of the hot water tank insulation,payback in 6 to 12 weeks.This whole charade seems predicated on impelling people to put money intothe solar rip-off industry, for no real benefit to the owners.If this was my house, I’d insulate the hot water tank, and think about CWI,being aware of the issues surrounding that, and put in the storage heaters,for a cost of 4K. I’d then invest the £17k saved, the interest paying forthe ‘losses’ of not installing the floor insulation and solar fancies.=====Step 1: Cavity wall insulationTypical installation cost£500 - £1,500Typical yearly saving£265Potential rating after completing step 126 FStep 2: Floor insulation (solid floor)Typical installation cost£4,000 - £6,000Typical yearly saving£96Potential rating after completing steps 1 and 228 FStep 3: Hot water cylinder insulationIncrease hot water cylinder insulationTypical installation cost£15 - £30Typical yearly saving£141Potential rating after completing steps 1 to 331 FStep 4: High heat retention storage heatersTypical installation cost£1,600 - £2,400Typical yearly saving£834Potential rating after completing steps 1 to 461 DStep 5: Solar water heatingTypical installation cost£4,000 - £6,000Typical yearly saving£97Potential rating after completing steps 1 to 563 DStep 6: Solar photovoltaic panels, 2.5 kWpTypical...

Jan 26, 2025 Last reply: 1 year ago 63 Replies

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Roland Perry 1 year ago

In message <PCn* snipped-for-privacy@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>, at 10:09:41 on Sun,

26 Jan 2025, Theo <theom+ snipped-for-privacy@chiark.greenend.org.uk> remarked:

My EPC is about five years old, and recommends solar water heating. The payback period being about 150yrs.

I think the point here is they should refrain from including suggestions like that, because they are ludicrous, and eventually brings the process into disrepute.

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Roland Perry 1 year ago

In message snipped-for-privacy@q957.zbmc.eu>, at 19:34:59 on Mon, 27 Jan

2025, Chris Green snipped-for-privacy@isbd.net remarked:

Same here.

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The Natural Philosopher 1 year ago

Yup. I could get a better score by mounting solar panels on a thatched roof...

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Tim Streater 1 year ago

Unnecessarily Large Vehicle. Something that is a pain on these narrow, often sunken, Kent lanes.

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