EPC madness: Are EPCRR judgements failing?

The grander vision that you seek is net migration.

Energy suppliers struggled to ‘keep the lights on’ last winter. Rather than tackle mass migration, Labour plan to build 1.5 million more homes. Each and every one will need power and Labour are not planning for more nuclear power stations over the next 5 years. There’ll be no additional gas powered power stations and GB Energy is unlikely to be delivering green energy in time.

Why is this? Why won’t they tackle net migration?

Firstly, politicians are scared of their own shadows. They fear being labelled a racists.

Secondly, governments worldwide are always striving for growth. Pretty much like a Ponzi Scheme depends on growth to keep the plates spinning. And, of course, more people means more customers for the media, retailers and bigger profits for their shareholders. Let’s just ignore increased crime and civil unrest, the housing crisis, the massive increase in the benefits bill and the wasted £billions on fighting legal challenges. The government just prints more money, right?

Adding to the power requirements are all those EVs. My basic Model 3 sucks up the entire capacity of 7 houses when I'm at the supercharger.

For balance -
1) the EPC provides “recommendations”. There is the potential for the recommendations to be implemented as part, other larger, improvements that might be considered in the years ahead.
2) Would you prefer the EPC to provide no recommendations?
3) The tenant is unlikely to replace an LED lightbulb with a tungsten filament bulb when the tungsten filament bulbs are no longer on sale,

Agreed - the EPC report is an outdated, blunt instrument, poorly designed and totally lacking any allowance for common sense or surveyor discretion.

If we understand that the principle justifications for the EPC assessment are:
a) to encourage homeowners and landlords to reduce the carbon footprint of their property(ies); and
b) to protect buyers and tenants from excessive energy bills...
... then the report surely must:
a) take account of the actually annual energy consumption - for example, for the previous year, or an average of the previous 2 or 3 years;
b) give credit points for the proportion of green energy consumption. Some properties may run entirely on supplied green electricity from renewable sources.
c) (controversial suggestion:) encourage both tenants and landlords to improve efficiency. I suggest an option to split all energy bills between them (80/20, 60/40, 50/50, or whatever), so that both are incentivised to make efficiency improvements.

Reply to the comment left by Geoff at 03/10/2024 - 10:30
True enough - though there really is no arguing that the current EPC model is outdated & lacks any kind of precision.

But, more importantly, there is no allowance for renter autonomy or surveyor discretion...

We have been hearing for some time now that, if the property is from old 'housing stock', then there is a pre-determined ceiling of sorts - beyond which the EPC rating can never really manage to go...

Algorithmically, the surveyor's report will churn out a higher rating for a new build than for an older property - even with comparable u-values & eco-installations in both...simply because it has a build date of [in the example's case] 1908. This auto-bias was confirmed by another surveyor I discussed the EPCs with, a few years ago.

Furthermore, the first example for recommended works that was given in the original post [£14k expenditure for a £72 saving on bills over 3 years] should surely have been quashed - or, at the very least, heavily annotated - by the surveyor: condemned as a computer-based error in logic and clearly an inappropriate use of resources...rather than it then going on to constitute part of an official, publicly available document. I'm sorry, but no matter which way one rubs them up, there simply is no defending those figures.

The proposed system vilifies older properties within the sector - allowing no 'buyer discretion' (surely if one wants to live in an older property then that should be up to the individual!?) & allows politicians et al to continue lambasting landlords - simply for owning/renting out these properties.

Is the idea to remove all older property from the PRS - representing an enormous portion of the UK's housing stock? Given the national mandate to supply more houses - this seems an unlikely & unrealistic goal...

Or [foil cap alert] is this a nepotistic opportunity for the government to promote rampant (cheap) mass construction & EPC-based upgrade projects, with favoured national/overnight-starter firms? ["PPE, anyone?"]..!

True enough - though there really is no arguing that the current EPC model is outdated & lacks any kind of precision.

But, more importantly, there is no allowance for renter autonomy or surveyor discretion...

We have been hearing for some time now that, if the property is from old 'housing stock', then there is a pre-determined ceiling of sorts - beyond which the EPC rating can never really manage to go...

Algorithmically, the surveyor's report will churn out a higher rating for a new build than for an older property - even with comparable u-values & eco-installations in both...simply because it has a build date of [in the example's case] 1908. This auto-bias was confirmed by another surveyor I discussed the EPCs with, a few years ago.

Furthermore, the first example for recommended works that was given in the original post [£14k expenditure for a £72 saving on bills over 3 years] should surely have been quashed - or, at the very least, heavily annotated - by the surveyor: condemned as a computer-based error in logic and clearly an inappropriate use of resources...rather than it then going on to constitute part of an official, publicly available document. I'm sorry, but no matter which way one rubs them up, there simply is no defending those figures.

The proposed system vilifies older properties within the sector - allowing no 'buyer discretion' (surely if one wants to live in an older property then that should be up to the individual!?) & allows politicians et al to continue lambasting landlords - simply for owning/renting out these properties.

Is the idea to completely remove all older property from the PRS - representing an enormous portion of the UK's housing stock? Given the national mandate to supply more houses - this seems an unlikely & unrealistic goal...

Or [foil cap alert] is this a nepotistic opportunity for the government to promote rampant (cheap) mass construction & EPC-based upgrade projects, with favoured national/overnight-starter firms? ["PPE, anyone?"]..! ...Perish the thought.