Charity demands swift reforms for outdated EPC system

What I've learned about the climate scam is the following. Once you start watching alternative info you can see the other side and it is crazy how we are seeing Co2 as a dangerous gas.

Co2 is the greening gas and if it gets too low we are in trouble.

Co2 does NOT lead temp changes, it follows them.

The temp driver for the earth is the position of the sun to earth. This alters over hundreds of years due to the gravitational pull of Saturn and Jupiter on the sun.

So we heat up and cool down on this planet continually and the cycles last hundreds of years.

In the 80's, If you remember at the time, they were talking a lot about the cooling planet and how ice was going to be the danger.

So we are warming and this is going to continue for hundreds of years. Co2 is having no effect on this.

In York when the Romans were here they were growing vines for wine. So it was much hotter in the north of England around that time compared to our current modern times.

Reply to the comment left by John at 05/02/2024 - 13:22
Locally grown wine in York would be most welcome.

What is the point in the UK striving for net zero when most of the rest of the world isn't bothered.

Cows, and the deforestation required to enable crops to be grown to feed them, is causing a much greater environmental impact than the EPC ratings of UK housing stock.

Reply to the comment left by Ryan Stevens at 05/02/2024 - 15:38
Whether cows cause an environmental impact or not depends upon how they are managed (and of course whether you are cutting down rain forest for grazing). If they are grass-fed in areas that would not normally be wooded and acting as proxy apex herbivores they may increase the amount of carbon in soil.

But none of that makes much difference to the fact that many of us landlords who are obliged to obtain an EPC are supplied with assessments that are either not useful, or that are nonsense.

we will all inevitably follow the blind and where we have to comply getting a stupid piece of paper we will.
Just think there may be some time in the future when a tenant actually reads an EPC! It could prove to be evidence to them of why the rent is at the level it is.
To get a shiny C rating (if that is the goal) then yes it has been achieved. It cost XXXX to get there which is why the rent is now XXX.
No sorry I'm banned from letting a property to you that you can actually afford. The government insists that this piece of paper ensures high property standards and of course that every tenant is happy and willing to pay for this as a result.
Yes I agree that its unfair, and that your options are now limited. I appreciate there are is no social housing and 'affordable' housing is far from the mark too, even if you can find any.
Maybe you need to take this up with your MP - yes - he/she is more than likely one of the ones that voted this in. Oh and copy in Shelter too...they pushed for this too.....

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 05/02/2024 - 12:27
Reducing validity from 10 years to 5 years ensures the government takes more money from tenant (via landlords) in the form of VAT and income tax from the assessors.

We need an economy based on producing stuff and doing things rather than evermore pointless assessment and inspections.

Lost me at "charity demands" ie it is an oxymoron that belies the underlying lobby interest to erode the concept of private property rights, a cornerstone of the net zero agenda. Charities should support the needy instead of being Davos lobbyists.

The Government used to fund the Building Research Council originally to prevent fires but also to improve construction generally.To describe the BRE as a charity when it is funded and lobbied by the construction industry is a joke. House-builders have recently decided that it is cheaper to build their own test facilities rather than pay BRE. Obviously they will not make their research public for the public benefit. Rather they will interpret their findings to permit trading as usual. This is what led to Grenfell Tower when fire resistance was relegated to the need for retrofitting insulation. Its got to stop. Why do we pay taxes for cr#p government ? Answer, because commercial interests lobby to make it so. Who is lobbying for EPC’s and retrofitting? Answer - the British Energy Efficiency Federation who know “energy efficiency” is greenwash to promote their products. A Cambridge University report said that extra loft insulation did not lead to lower gas bills. Go figure.

Reply to the comment left by EPC Killjoy at 08/02/2024 - 11:10I have always struggled with the fact that whenever I have looked into grants to improve from D to above the assessors looking at the property work for a firm that sells insulation and are not prepared to allow me access to grants unless I buy their insulation.
I do not mind a charity producing research as long as it is research that stands up to independent public scrutiny. If it is a charity producing the research they ought to be publishing their research so that it can be properly analysed.
At the end of the day we all need research that we can rely on to come up with policy that makes sense or make sensible decisions about our properties. Our UK wind-generation industry was exported - to Denmark as I recall. The EU is now facing a similar problem with cheap Chinese imports of solar panels.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/with-solar-industry-crisis-europe-bind-over-chinese-imports-2024-02-06/#:~:text=Yet%20the%20green%20energy%20boom,weeks%20unless%20governments%20step%20in.

But cheaper solar panels may make sense for many of us landlords.

I cannot see the UK governments, the EU or any government making sensible decisions without good information that can be relied on. The EPCs I have had in the past are useless. I have looked into the cost of ground-source heat pumps and there is no reliable information.

Reply to the comment left by EPC Killjoy at 08/02/2024 - 14:56
So that says...."Researchers behind the study, published in the journal Energy Economics.....argue that good insulation is vital, but any drive to insulate UK homes should be combined with investment in heat pump installation and campaigns to encourage behaviour change if 2030 targets for energy independence are to be met."

So the way the energy is generated or harvested is as important if not more important than the insulation.

I have looked into ground source heat pumps. The only available information I could find told me that they were difficult and expensive to maintain and they only last about a decade. I struggled to believe the information I read because it didn't distinguish between different types of ground source heat pump. But the truth is I couldn't find reliable information. Air-source heat pumps are reliant on electricity which is more expensive than gas. My understanding of them is also that they don't work without good insulation because the Kw output of them is such that you have to be heating constantly in order to keep the house up to a comfortable temperature.

It looks to me as though there could be some benefit to cheap PV panels even if the EU doesn't like them.