Unbelievable EPC recommendations

[Spike]

Some friends of ours are buying a house, and out of interest I looked up
the recommendations of the Environmental Performance Certificate, available
on the .gov web site and quoted below. The house is a two-bedroom
end-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 heat
retention 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 into
the 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 for
the ‘losses’ of not installing the floor insulation and solar fancies.


=====
Step 1: Cavity wall insulation
Typical installation cost
£500 - £1,500
Typical yearly saving
£265
Potential rating after completing step 1
26 F

Step 2: Floor insulation (solid floor)
Typical installation cost
£4,000 - £6,000
Typical yearly saving
£96
Potential rating after completing steps 1 and 2
28 F

Step 3: Hot water cylinder insulation
Increase hot water cylinder insulation
Typical installation cost
£15 - £30
Typical yearly saving
£141
Potential rating after completing steps 1 to 3
31 F

Step 4: High heat retention storage heaters
Typical installation cost
£1,600 - £2,400
Typical yearly saving
£834
Potential rating after completing steps 1 to 4
61 D

Step 5: Solar water heating
Typical installation cost
£4,000 - £6,000
Typical yearly saving
£97
Potential rating after completing steps 1 to 5
63 D

Step 6: Solar photovoltaic panels, 2.5 kWp
Typical installation cost
£3,500 - £5,500
Typical yearly saving
£534
Potential rating after completing steps 1 to 6
77 C
=====

[Theo]

Post by Spike
Some friends of ours are buying a house, and out of interest I looked up
the recommendations of the Environmental Performance Certificate, available
on the .gov web site and quoted below. The house is a two-bedroom
end-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 heat
retention 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 into
the 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 for
the ‘losses’ of not installing the floor insulation and solar fancies.

One of the many flaws with EPCs is that the EPC lasts for 10 years, while
the current sensible recommendations can vary, both in cost and
appropriateness. For example, back in the early 2010s biomass boilers and
domestic wind turbines appeared towards the bottom (the 'increasingly
desperate' section). Those technologies haven't panned out, but yet they're
still on those EPCs. The small 2.5kWp PV, solar water heating and storage
heater recommendation suggests this is a relatively old EPC.

As you say, somebody can easily tell that ripping up all the floors to
install insulation makes no economic sense - unless they were ripping up all
the floors anyway, in which case it might. But at least they've given you
data by which you can tell it's not worth it.

What I find more interesting is the improvements in score - ripping up all
the floors only gets you an increase of two points. The score is a
simplified code for the rdSAP energy consumption numbers - because the EPC
is only a drive-by exercise (they don't actually do room by room heat loss
calculations) the score hides a lot of the inaccuracy. However they do give
a kWh/year heating figure which is more useful.

It's surprising that the biggest 30-point score boost is the storage heaters
- I wonder what they have at the moment? I wonder if the projected cost
saving is based on mid-2010s ideas of offpeak electricity pricing?

Basically the overall problem with the EPC is it's trying to do too much
with too little. Buyers want to know facts like what kind of boiler there
is, whether the walls are solid or cavity and how much the place will cost
to heat. Sellers want to pay as little as possible and don't want to pay
for a proper job. Assessors want to do the job in as short a time as
possible, which is how you end up with £50 EPCs. The government wants to
have everything in a standardised format and minimise variability from
assessor to assessor. Result is that all these conflicting interests
conspire to make something a bit crap.

Theo

[alan_m]

Post by Theo
Basically the overall problem with the EPC is it's trying to do too much
with too little. Buyers want to know facts like what kind of boiler there
is, whether the walls are solid or cavity and how much the place will cost
to heat.

Buyers can do a web search on the house energy use for the past year -
as mentioned a few weeks back on this newsgroup.

Out of interest I checked my energy consumption of my two adjoining
neighbours (terrace houses). One neighbour who is end of terrace used
25% more than me while the other was approx the same. However I wasn't
necessary comparing like with like as I don't know what temperatures
they like to heat the house to. I do know that both have modern
condensing gas boilers, no solar or whole house batteries.

[Chris Green]

Post by alan_m

Post by Theo
Basically the overall problem with the EPC is it's trying to do too much
with too little. Buyers want to know facts like what kind of boiler there
is, whether the walls are solid or cavity and how much the place will cost
to heat.

Buyers can do a web search on the house energy use for the past year -
as mentioned a few weeks back on this newsgroup.

This surely only works if your neighbours have gone to the trouble of
entering the data somewhere.

[Andy Burns]

Post by Chris Green

Post by alan_m
Buyers can do a web search on the house energy use for the past year -
as mentioned a few weeks back on this newsgroup.

This surely only works if your neighbours have gone to the trouble of
entering the data somewhere.

There is a central agency (or separate ones for elec and gas) which
knows every household's consumption, presumably reported by your energy
co, in my case it agrees exactly with the annual consumption on my
bills, it's used by comparison sites etc

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Chris Green

Post by alan_m
Buyers can do a web search on the house energy use for the past year -
as mentioned a few weeks back on this newsgroup.

This surely only works if your neighbours have gone to the trouble of
entering the data somewhere.

There is a central agency (or separate ones for elec and gas) which
knows every household's consumption, presumably reported by your  energy
co, in my case it agrees exactly with the annual consumption on my
bills, it's used by comparison sites etc

How does it know my Oil consumption?

[Pamela]

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Chris Green

Post by alan_m
Buyers can do a web search on the house energy use for the past year
- as mentioned a few weeks back on this newsgroup.

This surely only works if your neighbours have gone to the trouble of
entering the data somewhere.

There is a central agency (or separate ones for elec and gas) which
knows every household's consumption, presumably reported by your
energy co, in my case it agrees exactly with the annual consumption on
my bills, it's used by comparison sites etc

What's the link for this site which shoes a particular house's energy
consumption?

[Theo]

Post by alan_m

Post by Theo
Basically the overall problem with the EPC is it's trying to do too much
with too little. Buyers want to know facts like what kind of boiler there
is, whether the walls are solid or cavity and how much the place will cost
to heat.

Buyers can do a web search on the house energy use for the past year -
as mentioned a few weeks back on this newsgroup.

True, but it doesn't give a good picture because you don't know usage
patterns. Do they run the heating at a constant 25C, or do they run it for
one hour a day because they can't afford any more? Do they have 5 teenage
girls having two showers a day, or a single person having a bath once a
week?

Post by alan_m
Out of interest I checked my energy consumption of my two adjoining
neighbours (terrace houses). One neighbour who is end of terrace used
25% more than me while the other was approx the same. However I wasn't
necessary comparing like with like as I don't know what temperatures
they like to heat the house to. I do know that both have modern
condensing gas boilers, no solar or whole house batteries.

Exactly. And that comparison works because you know the houses are similar,
so you can factor out things you know to be the same. But if there are two
houses with more differences (eg a semi and a detached) you can't tell
what's due to the fabric and what's due to the behaviour.

It's better than nothing to have usage figures, but the idea of the EPC is
to be standardised so you can compare on a like for like basis.

Theo

[RJH]

Post by Theo

Post by alan_m

Post by Theo
Basically the overall problem with the EPC is it's trying to do too much
with too little. Buyers want to know facts like what kind of boiler there
is, whether the walls are solid or cavity and how much the place will cost
to heat.

Buyers can do a web search on the house energy use for the past year -
as mentioned a few weeks back on this newsgroup.

True, but it doesn't give a good picture because you don't know usage
patterns. Do they run the heating at a constant 25C, or do they run it for
one hour a day because they can't afford any more? Do they have 5 teenage
girls having two showers a day, or a single person having a bath once a
week?

Post by alan_m
Out of interest I checked my energy consumption of my two adjoining
neighbours (terrace houses). One neighbour who is end of terrace used
25% more than me while the other was approx the same. However I wasn't
necessary comparing like with like as I don't know what temperatures
they like to heat the house to. I do know that both have modern
condensing gas boilers, no solar or whole house batteries.

Exactly. And that comparison works because you know the houses are similar,
so you can factor out things you know to be the same. But if there are two
houses with more differences (eg a semi and a detached) you can't tell
what's due to the fabric and what's due to the behaviour.
It's better than nothing to have usage figures, but the idea of the EPC is
to be standardised so you can compare on a like for like basis.

I just looked at my mid-terrace old house - the new owners use twice as much
electricity, and 2.5 times the gas as I did.

I did tend to heat the whole house, but only to 14C in the day/overnight, and
18 in the evening. I'm genuinely fine with that. So I'd imagine they keep it
at 20C ish all of the time. They've got 2 children, whereas it's just me most
of the time.

I'm baffled by the electricity consumption. Can't think what they're up to.

[Andy Burns]

Post by RJH
I just looked at my mid-terrace old house - the new owners use twice
as much electricity . They've got 2 children
I'm baffled by the electricity consumption.

55" baby-sitter?

[Theo]

Post by Andy Burns

Post by RJH
I just looked at my mid-terrace old house - the new owners use twice
as much electricity . They've got 2 children
I'm baffled by the electricity consumption.

55" baby-sitter?

EV?
Gaming PC?
Electric cooking?

[alan_m]

Post by Theo

Post by Andy Burns

Post by RJH
I just looked at my mid-terrace old house - the new owners use twice
as much electricity . They've got 2 children
I'm baffled by the electricity consumption.

55" baby-sitter?

EV?
Gaming PC?
Electric cooking?

Bigger fridge or Freezer
More cups of tea/coffee
A TV in every room
More electrical gadgets

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by alan_m

Post by Theo

Post by Andy Burns

Post by RJH
I just looked at my mid-terrace old house - the new owners use twice
as much electricity . They've got 2 children
I'm baffled by the electricity consumption.

55" baby-sitter?

EV?
Gaming PC?
Electric cooking?

Bigger fridge or Freezer
More cups of tea/coffee
A TV in every room
More electrical gadgets

Sigh:.
Everyone misses the obvious

Cannabis farm

[alan_m]

Post by The Natural Philosopher
Sigh:.
Everyone misses the obvious
Cannabis farm

That would be un-metered energy use

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by alan_m

Post by The Natural Philosopher
Sigh:.
Everyone misses the obvious
Cannabis farm

That would be un-metered energy use

Depends how professional they were

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by RJH
I'm baffled by the electricity consumption. Can't think what they're up to.

Really?

Bless!

[John Rumm]

Post by alan_m

Post by Theo
Basically the overall problem with the EPC is it's trying to do too much
with too little.  Buyers want to know facts like what kind of boiler
there
is, whether the walls are solid or cavity and how much the place will cost
to heat.

Buyers can do a web search on the house energy use for the past year -
as mentioned a few weeks back on this newsgroup.

I missed that, have you got a link?
--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

[Theo]

Post by John Rumm

Post by alan_m

Post by Theo
Basically the overall problem with the EPC is it's trying to do too much
with too little.  Buyers want to know facts like what kind of boiler
there
is, whether the walls are solid or cavity and how much the place will cost
to heat.

Buyers can do a web search on the house energy use for the past year -
as mentioned a few weeks back on this newsgroup.

I missed that, have you got a link?

https://energy.which.co.uk/
'compare energy prices'
then enter the address details and click through all the screens accepting
the defaults.

It shows you the recorded annual gas and electric consumption for the
property.

Theo

[Handsome Jack]

Post by Theo

Post by John Rumm

Post by alan_m
Buyers can do a web search on the house energy use for the past year -
as mentioned a few weeks back on this newsgroup.

I missed that, have you got a link?

https://energy.which.co.uk/
'compare energy prices'
then enter the address details and click through all the screens
accepting the defaults.
It shows you the recorded annual gas and electric consumption for the
property.

I get to the page
"How do you pay for your energy?
Please select how you pay for your energy"
... Nothing else shows. There is no way of doing it. Pressing "continue"
does nothing.


Anyway, hasn't anybody objected to this on data protection grounds? No-one
has given their consent to this data being published, so what is the
justification for it?

[RJH]

Post by Handsome Jack

Post by Theo

Post by John Rumm

Post by alan_m
Buyers can do a web search on the house energy use for the past year -
as mentioned a few weeks back on this newsgroup.

I missed that, have you got a link?

https://energy.which.co.uk/
'compare energy prices'
then enter the address details and click through all the screens
accepting the defaults.
It shows you the recorded annual gas and electric consumption for the
property.

I get to the page
"How do you pay for your energy?
Please select how you pay for your energy"
... Nothing else shows. There is no way of doing it. Pressing "continue"
does nothing.

Just try any of the many comparison web sites. I think uswitch was one of the
more forthcoming.

Post by Handsome Jack
Anyway, hasn't anybody objected to this on data protection grounds? No-one
has given their consent to this data being published, so what is the
justification for it?

I agree, it's pretty poor.

[Handsome Jack]

Post by RJH

Post by Theo

Post by John Rumm

Post by alan_m
Buyers can do a web search on the house energy use for the past year -
as mentioned a few weeks back on this newsgroup.

I missed that, have you got a link?

https://energy.which.co.uk/
'compare energy prices'
then enter the address details and click through all the screens
accepting the defaults.
It shows you the recorded annual gas and electric consumption for the
property.

I get to the page "How do you pay for your energy?
Please select how you pay for your energy"
... Nothing else shows. There is no way of doing it. Pressing
"continue" does nothing.

Just try any of the many comparison web sites. I think uswitch was one
of the more forthcoming.

I don't understand what you mean by this or why it is relevant to the
Which? web site.

[Theo]

Post by Handsome Jack

Post by RJH

I get to the page "How do you pay for your energy?
Please select how you pay for your energy"
... Nothing else shows. There is no way of doing it. Pressing
"continue" does nothing.

Just try any of the many comparison web sites. I think uswitch was one
of the more forthcoming.

I don't understand what you mean by this or why it is relevant to the
Which? web site.

All the comparison sites get the data from the same clearing houses (one for
gas[1], one for electric[2]). How they look up or present that data may vary.
For example, Which refuses to progress if it thinks the address is a
business address.

It doesn't seem to work for every address - it may be that smart meters
don't report data via the clearing houses, or some other reason. Maybe one
comparison site is better at querying data from more sources than another?

Theo

[1] https://www.xoserve.com/products-services/data-products/gas-enquiry-service-ges/
[2] https://www.ecoes.co.uk/
spec:
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/docs/2019/11/annex_6_ees_service_definition_0.pdf

[Andy Burns]

Post by Handsome Jack
hasn't anybody objected to this on data protection grounds?

It's not personal though, is it?
Tied to an address, rather than a person.

[Adrian]

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Handsome Jack
hasn't anybody objected to this on data protection grounds?

It's not personal though, is it?
Tied to an address, rather than a person.

But if that address has a sole occupant ...

Adrian
--
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[Handsome Jack]

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Handsome Jack
hasn't anybody objected to this on data protection grounds?

It's not personal though, is it?
Tied to an address, rather than a person.

So if the data was, "This address is occupied by several paedophiles", it
would be OK because it's tied to an address rather than a person?

[Pamela]

Post by Handsome Jack

Post by Theo

Post by John Rumm

Post by alan_m
Buyers can do a web search on the house energy use for the past year -
as mentioned a few weeks back on this newsgroup.

I missed that, have you got a link?

https://energy.which.co.uk/
'compare energy prices'
then enter the address details and click through all the screens
accepting the defaults.
It shows you the recorded annual gas and electric consumption for the
property.

I get to the page
"How do you pay for your energy?
Please select how you pay for your energy"
... Nothing else shows. There is no way of doing it. Pressing
"continue" does nothing.

When I tried the site, I saw only an estimate for my current energy costs.
One of the pages said:

"Your current tariff. Your 'Estimated Annual Energy Costs' are
calculated using your existing unit rate (the pence per kilowatt hour
used) and the daily standing charge (if applicable)."

I'm on smart meters, although the impression I have from this thread is
that the web site data would come from the billing system of the energy
supplier (rather than their meter reading system).

I tried https://energy.which.co.uk/

[Chris Green]

Post by Theo

Post by John Rumm

Post by alan_m

Post by Theo
Basically the overall problem with the EPC is it's trying to do too much
with too little.  Buyers want to know facts like what kind of boiler
there
is, whether the walls are solid or cavity and how much the place will cost
to heat.

Buyers can do a web search on the house energy use for the past year -
as mentioned a few weeks back on this newsgroup.

I missed that, have you got a link?

https://energy.which.co.uk/
'compare energy prices'
then enter the address details and click through all the screens accepting
the defaults.
It shows you the recorded annual gas and electric consumption for the
property.

Not for me it doesn't, it simply asks me how much electricity I use
when I've drilled down through all the entering of who/what/where.

I trieds it once before with the same result, I assumed therefore that
it only holds information that users have entered.

[Nick Finnigan]

Post by Theo

Post by Spike
Some friends of ours are buying a house, and out of interest I looked up
the recommendations of the Environmental Performance Certificate, available
on the .gov web site and quoted below. The house is a two-bedroom
end-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 heat
retention storage heaters at 2-4 years.
Solar panels at 7 to 10 years is getting to be an outlier.

still on those EPCs. The small 2.5kWp PV, solar water heating and storage
heater recommendation suggests this is a relatively old EPC.

For similar reasons I've looked at the EPC for a terrace house with gas
heaters but not CH. Expiry 2034, solar water heating and 2.5kWp solar
panels at the bottom, longer payback presumably because it is further North.
Does also suggest a condensing boiler rather than ASHP or storage heaters.

[#Paul]

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?

Someone sick and tired of having extremely cold floors during winter?

#Paul

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by #Paul

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?

Someone sick and tired of having extremely cold floors during winter?
#Paul

Joking aside, when I got to doing heat loss calculations it was quite
surprised to work out how effective 3 meters of earth between the centre
of a house and the outside actually affected heat loss. The far worse
situation is a raised ventilated floor..
If you can, those really are worth insulating.

Also, it is amazing how much nicer 18°C with UFH feels as against 20°C
with radiators.

And that also saves a bit I guess.

Certainly if one has a suspended wooden floor, ripping it up, insulating
it and laying hot water pipes over the insulation is well worth considering

[alan_m]

Post by #Paul

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?

Someone sick and tired of having extremely cold floors during winter?
#Paul

Joking aside, when  I got to doing heat loss calculations it was quite
surprised to work out how effective 3 meters of earth between the centre
of a house and the outside actually affected heat loss. The far worse
situation is a raised ventilated floor..
If you can, those really are worth insulating.
Also, it is amazing how much nicer 18°C with UFH feels as  against 20°C
with radiators.
And that also saves a bit I guess.
Certainly if one has a suspended wooden floor, ripping it up, insulating
it and laying hot water pipes over the insulation is well worth considering

How much consideration probably comes down to how disruptive this is if
you are not already planning a a complete carpet replacement

In my case:-
Removing furniture from a room
Removing fitted carpets
Removing a 11mm thick underlay which is in the main stapled down, and in
some places glued.
Removing floor boards. In my experience in a 1908 house the floor boards
were installed with long cut nails and the wood itself somewhat dried
out. There is a 50:50 chance that when removing the boards that they
would split along the grain. In many cases a split could be glued and
clamped together and the board reused but in the past I've had to go to
a proper wood yard and have thicker and wider timber cut down to size to
match existing floor boards.

With a suspended ventilated floor how much insulation would be needed
for UFH. Wouldn't the insulation have to be both under the floor boards
but under the joists to prevent cold bridging?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Post by alan_m

Post by #Paul

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?

Someone sick and tired of having extremely cold floors during winter?
#Paul

Joking aside, when  I got to doing heat loss calculations it was quite
surprised to work out how effective 3 meters of earth between the
centre of a house and the outside actually affected heat loss. The far
worse situation is a raised ventilated floor..
If you can, those really are worth insulating.
Also, it is amazing how much nicer 18°C with UFH feels as  against
20°C with radiators.
And that also saves a bit I guess.
Certainly if one has a suspended wooden floor, ripping it up,
insulating it and laying hot water pipes over the insulation is well
worth considering

How much consideration probably comes down to how disruptive this is if
you are not already planning a a complete carpet replacement
In my case:-
Removing furniture from a room
Removing fitted carpets
Removing a 11mm thick underlay which is in the main stapled down, and in
some places glued.
Removing floor boards. In my experience in a 1908 house the floor boards
were installed with long cut nails and the wood itself somewhat dried
out.  There is a 50:50 chance that when removing the boards that they
would split along the grain. In many cases a split could be glued and
clamped together and the board reused but in the past I've had to go to
a proper wood yard and have thicker and wider timber cut down to size to
match existing floor boards.
With a suspended ventilated floor how much insulation would be needed
for UFH. Wouldn't the insulation have to be both under the floor boards
but under the joists to prevent cold bridging?

Yes.
If cold pridging is that impoartnt to you.

More realistically you lift the floor boards and slam celotex between
the joists, foil tape over and add another layer of celotex above the
joists - a thin one - and then replace floor boards or refloor with
flooring grade chip.

Or you could put insulation UNDER the joists, then insulation between,
then UFH pipes above that. If you have decent underfloor access.

[Spike]

Post by #Paul

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?

Someone sick and tired of having extremely cold floors during winter?

Quality underlay and carpet would be a lot cheaper, and be aesthetically
pleasing.

[Andy Burns]

Post by #Paul

Post by Spike

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?

Someone sick and tired of having extremely cold floors during winter?

Sheepskin slippers are cheap.