Energy Performance Certificates and your home

What will the Certificate look like?

What is an Energy Performance Certificate?

Why is the Certificate important?

What the Certificate means

How to make your home more energy efficient

Frequently asked questions

Energy Performance Certificates tell you how energy efficient a home is on a scale of A-G. The most efficient homes - which should have the lowest fuel bills - are in band A.

The Certificate also tells you, on a scale of A-G, about the impact the home has on the environment. Better-rated homes should have less impact through carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

The average property in the UK is in bands D-E for both ratings. The Certificate includes recommendations on ways to improve the home's energy efficiency to save you money and help the environment.

Sellers of newly built homes will have to provide a predicted assessment of the energy efficiency of the property, but a full Energy Performance Certificate should be provided to the buyer when the home is completed.

An Energy Performance Certificate is part of a Home Information Pack. The certificates are commissioned by the seller (or their agent) from an accredited Energy Assessor, who visits the property to collect the relevant data and creates the certificate. This data includes the date, construction and location of the house and relevant fittings (heating systems, insulation or double glazing, for example).

The exact form of the Energy Performance Certificate will vary according to the sector use and size of the building.
A standard example can be seen by clicking here Energy Performance Certificate sample PDF.

http://www.communities.gov.uk/pub/856/ExampleofEPC_id1504856.pdf

An Energy Performance Certificate shows the official energy efficiency rating of a property. If you're not planning to sell your home, you don't need to do anything, unless you are keen to find out the rating of your property so that you can gain advice on how to save on your bills and make your home more energy efficient.  If you are not selling and are interested in this then please contact us.

The certificate provides you with a rating for the building, showing its energy efficiency and its environmental impact on a scale from A-G (where A is the most efficient and G the least efficient), in graphical format. It also contains recommended ways to improve the building's energy performance.

By 2009, all buildings in the UK that are constructed, sold or rented out will have to have an Energy Performance Certificate, in accordance with the European Energy Performance of Buildings Directive.

Predicted energy assessments are for homes that are not yet built. When a home is designed, a predicted energy rating based on the design is produced. This must achieve, as a minimum, the target energy rating laid down for the home as specified by the energy efficiency requirements of building regulations.

energy assessments are for new homes built in accordance with the energy efficiency requirements of the building regulations that came into force in April 2006. For these homes, only the energy-efficiency and environmental-impact graphs will be required, and not the full Energy Performance Certificate.

Nearly 40 per cent of the UK's energy consumption arises from the way in which our 25 million buildings are lit, heated and used. Even comparatively minor changes in energy performance and the way we use each building will have a significant effect in reducing energy consumption - and therefore carbon emissions.

Communities and Local Governmentis leading the introduction of a number of energy and cost-saving measures to make all buildings more efficient. These measures are being applied across all European Union countries and are in line with the European Directive for the Energy Performance of Buildings.

The Energy Performance Certificate is part of these new measures to improve property efficiency. It will include suggestions to enable homeowners to improve the energy efficiency of the building. This can mean lower energy bills for the occupiers, and could make homes more attractive to potential purchasers.

The certificate will also provide contact details for the Energy Savings Trust, who can help you find out whether you could be eligible for grants or discounts to help carry out these improvements to your home. It will also list simple ways that changes in behaviour can save you energy and money - without the need for any works

The Energy Performance Certificate is similar to the certificates now provided with domestic appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines.

Its purpose is to record how energy-efficient a property is as a building. The certificate will provide a rating of the property from A to G, where A is very efficient and G is very inefficient.

Two ratings are shown. The environmental impact rating is a measure of a home's impact on the environment in terms of carbon dioxide (C02) emissions - the higher the rating, the less impact it has on the environment. The energy-efficiency rating is a measure of a home's overall efficiency. The higher the rating, the more energy-efficient the home is, and the lower the fuel bills are likely to be.

Each rating is based on the performance of the building itself and its services (such as heating and lighting), rather than the domestic appliances within it. This is known as an rating. The certificate also lists the potential rating of the building if all the cost-effective measures were installed.

The ratings will vary according to the age, location, size and condition of the building. The potential rating on the certificate will take these factors into account, and the suggested measures will be tailored so that they are realistic for the particular building.

Improving the energy efficiency of your home can mean either making changes to the building, or simply changing your behaviour to save energy. Energy Performance Certificates will give you advice on both of these areas.
Installing energy-efficient measures

Here is a list of some of the measures that the certificate might recommend:

• Low-energy lightbulbs. These last up to 12 times longer and use around 80 per cent less energy than traditional filament bulbs
• Hot water tank jackets. These cost from around £10, and can cut heat loss by around 75 per cent
• Loft insulation. Fitting insulation that is at least 250mm thick could cut heat loss by around 30 per cent
• Cavity wall insulation. If you have unfilled cavity walls, installing insulation could cut heat loss by over 30 per cent.

The cost of the measures recommended will vary, but the certificate will distinguish between those that cost under £500 (such as those above) and those that could cost more, such as double glazing or new heating systems. The certificate will also list further measures that will help achieve the highest possible ratings for the home, but which could be expensive and will take more than seven years to repay their cost in energy savings.


There are also simple ways that you can improve your energy efficiency, simply by changing how you use your home:

• Check that your heating system thermostat isn't set too high (21 degrees C in the living room is suggested), and use the timer or programmer so you only heat your home when necessary
• Make sure your hot water isn't too hot. Your cylinder thermostat shouldn't need to be set higher than 60 degrees C/140 degrees F
• Turn off lights when they aren't needed, and don't leave appliances on standby. Remember not to leave chargers (eg for mobile phones) turned on when you aren't using them

What happens to Energy Performance Certificates once they're complete?
All domestic Energy Performance Certificates are lodged in a central database. Energy Assessors (through their Accreditation Schemes) lodge them as they produce them, and each is given a unique reference number. Access to the database is restricted, so only those who have the unique reference number can access the certificate for a particular property.

Not all buildings are used in the same way. However, energy ratings use 'standard occupancy' assumptions, which might be different from the specific way you use your building. What different methods of calculation are used for homes and for other buildings?

All the methodologies used to produce Energy Performance Certificates consider factors such as the size, age, location of a building, and how it's heated, lit and insulated.

For domestic homes, the method used is called .

For commercial properties, the method is called Simplified Building Energy Model.