Instructed a local EPC company as we are selling our home.

They attended without us being there, I told them before they produce the report that the following has been done:

*All light fittings are LED
*90mm External wall insulation to rear elevation complete
*50mm kingspan Internal wall insulation to front elevation to retain facade
*150mm kingspan insulation to ground floor kitchen, hallway
*500mm EPS beads to lounge and dining room
*125mm kingspan insulation to attic (50mm in-between rafters, 75mm below)
*Air source heat pump running wet underfloor heating and oversized radiators. Flow temperature is set to 35c throughout property at design temperature of -3c
*Danfoss TRV's to all rooms with radiators
*Danfoss wireless stats to rooms with radiators
*A rated glass to all windows


He came back with he can only evidence what he can 'photograph'

Where do I stand to ensure the EPC is accurate?

If you have , invoices for any of the work that was done professionally you can try presenting it with any supporting documentation, sign offs from building control usually accepted. Expose where you can by taking off switch/sockett face plates and popping out the back box if you can, but otherwise as per tony’s comment you’re stuck.

Posted By: Victorianeco
Where do I stand to ensure the EPC is accurate?

It's nice to have an accurate EPC, but I dont think it makes any difference to a potential buyers decision to buy or not.

I've just looked at recent EPC on a house in our postcode that achieved a D rating. There were several assumptions made in the EPC where the assessor would be unlikely to see things such as CWI so there's lots of educated guesswork.

The EPC gave £10s of thousands pounds worth of upgrades that would take the house from a D to A rating and potentially save £376/year. Paying an extra few hundred £ a year on running costs isnt going to put people off if the house ticks all a buyers other boxes.

You can always ask your estate agent to include all the work youve done in the sales particulars with a note saying these aren't considered in the EPC.

Posted By: kristevaEPC's should only ever be a guide and I doubt many people have taken steps to get them updated via the appropriate channels.

The point is that you're legally required to have an up-to-date one when sell (or rent) a property. And you don't have much control about what they say. They are notoriously inaccurate.

I wonder if a passivhaus certificate looks official enough for an EP assessor?

No, a PH certificate is basically a statement that a qualified independent certifier has seen and verified a PHPP model showing the building to have a heat demand of less than 15 kWh/m²/a etc and has copies of photographs of the construction showing details of all the insulation, windows etc etc.

So precisely what it sounds like an rdSAP assessor is supposed to look for but using a better modelling program than they normally use. I expect there's no way they can/will accept that. It would be far too sensible.

Posted By: chrisinbrightonCould it be a good idea to get an epc inspector in mid works so they can see insulation before boarding over.

No guarantee of that. I needed an EPC on my reno/extension for FIT purposes and got an inspector in. I had built a warm loft there was 170 mm of rockwool between truss rafters and boarded over with 100mm of 100 pir u value was about .11 as recall. A section where a light tube was going showed the construction. Over the bedroom ceilings I had more rockwool for the purposes of sound insulation. He took no notice of the rafter insulation but measured the ceiling insulation. When I pointed out that was for sound insulation and not to be considered as the house insulation he said it was the ceiling insulation he had to measure because that is what was on the form.

In that case, it does sound like the frustrating problem is with the rdSAP survey procedure (one of many), and not with the individual who was trying to follow it, so a complaint would likely be rejected.

In RdSAP the assessor has to identify the envelope of the building, which includes any 'heated roof rooms that are accessed by a permanent fixed staircase'. If a room in the roof fits that definition then it is included in the floor area of the building (for the kWh/m² rating and for calculating ventilation losses etc) and the roof room is included in the survey of the insulation envelope, including its gable walls and windows.

Maybe Revor's loft didn't match the definition of a room-in-the-roof? In which case rdSAP treats the ceiling of the room beneath as being the heating envelope of the building, so that's what the assessor has to measure. Only if that ceiling is uninsulated, does rdSAP look at any insulation value of the roof rafters. That's a fault in the rdSAP system in this case.

<blockquote><cite>Posted By: WillInAberdeen</cite>
This didn't matter at all, as nobody cared what the EPC said, didn't affect the sale price. That will change when houses below EPC C become illegal to rent or sell (planned 2028 and 2033 in Scotland).</blockquote>

Is this for real?

Posted By: WillInAberdeenhttps://www.gov.scot/policies/energy-efficiency/energy-efficiency-in-homes/" rel="nofollow" >https://www.gov.scot/policies/energy-efficiency/energy-efficiency-in-homes/

Also going to change the EPC scale, so EPCs may go up or down from their rating at the moment
http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17921" rel="nofollow" >http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=17921

Wow, that's bonkers, 35% of properties unsaleable! That's a lot of very unhappy people, I'd expect a riot to ensue.


What's happening to Scotland, first the gender recognition bill and now this.

Posted By: kristeva

Wow, that's bonkers, 35% of properties unsaleable!

You could also say that 35% of homeowners need to get their finger out??

Posted By: WillInAberdeen
35% are not technically capable of being upgraded to C, no matter how many fingers are pulled out!

Do you know what constitutes a property that CANT be upgraded to a C?

I'm struggling to think of anything that cant be draughtproofed and insulated, with the correct mindset.

That was according to BRE's work for the scot gov - their report is linked from the other thread.

I'd agree with the sentiment under the old/existing EPC scale, but the new scale is going to be more demanding apparently. Draught proofng and CWI are not going to be enough it seems! Present-day PHs will be at EPC C level, with EPC A and B reserved for future new buildings.


Edit to add: draught proofing doesn't/won't improve the EPC, because the rdSAP assessment visit doesn't include a blower test. The air change rate in rdSAP is just assigned based on the age of the building and what it is made from, irrespective of whether draught proofing work has been done.

It's not 'current' EPC C, the scale is going to be changed (for good reason). The property will need to be C on the 'new' scale because current certificates will have expired before 2033.

The BRE report is in the supporting documents section:

"the options for achieving high rating (As and Bs) might be limited... It may have to be accepted that bands A and
B are going to be occupied mostly by new dwellings."

In separate legislation, all new homes in Scotland have to be PH standard from 2024. As discussed on the other thread, one of those brand new PHs might get an A or B with its initial full SAP, but once 5 years old it is reassesed using rdSAP and would become a C, according to BRE (who are the authors of SAP and rdSAP).

It hasn't been announced who will get to decide the technical and cost effective bit, but the equivalent decision in the rental regs relies heavily on the list of technical recommendations on the back page of the EPC, which is only as good as the EPC assessment process, and includes 'surprising' cost estimates!

The language about 'cost effective' is a recent addition, the Bute House policy agreement said EPC C without exceptions. So we shall see how far it gets stretched!

The Scottish government considers that a house's energy conservation is not related to GHG emissions anymore, because that depends instead on the type of heating installed which will be dealt with elsewhere on the EPC. If electric, then that is "zero emissions" because electricity in Scotland is already regarded as such. Might be true by 2033.

Posted By: WillInAberdeenIn separate legislation, all new homes in Scotland have to be PH standard from 2024.

Do you/they actually mean PH standard, or some kind of bastardised 'PH-like' standard. What energy model is used , PHPP or SAP or? How is airtightness testing done - using a unidirectional test on a sample of houses or a PH standard bidirectional test on every house? How is the construction certified? i.e. how is it determined that each house has been built as designed? I'll be impressed if they really mean PH