Where will tenants go when EPC work is carried out on properties?

Hello, regarding the proposals to upgrade all properties to an EPC ‘C’ rating, where are the tenants of a two-bed back-to-back going to live whilst the work is carried out? Don’t forget that pets are as important as kids in many families.

Where will the mum/dad go during the day when the property is full of workmen and debris? It could take several weeks per property.

Where will a stay-at-home parent with infants go? How will provide food be provided with no kitchen? The one who puts food on the table comes home to a freezing cold house? No bathroom for days and days? No CH?

West Yorkshire has a huge number of these properties. We have several. We’re really good, experienced landlords but I’ve spent hours trying to fathom this out. There is no solution for most of my tenants. Has the person – Gove? – who came up with the policy ever even been in a similar property? Doubtful. Perhaps he’d offer up a few rooms in one of his no doubt multi-roomed mansions to accommodate some of my tenants whilst the work is carried out. Doubtful again.

I’ve gone through all of our properties one by one. All of our properties have gas central heating (GCH). The next substantial step would be retro-fitting wall insulation in some plus roof insulation in those with loft bedrooms. Nearly all have gas boilers in their kitchen or bathroom to vent through an exterior wall. Anyone familiar with properties such as ours would know you’d have to dismantle the entire kitchen and bathroom to get to the wall to be insulated.

The entire GCH system would have to be reinstalled as would the kitchen and bathroom plus much of the water supply and waste removal. The trouble is, some would ‘lose’ the kitchen. Some would ‘lose’ the bathroom, some both. The reason being there isn’t enough space for boilers, bathrooms and kitchens to be reinstalled in front of the insulation. All the sockets re-sited. New skirting boards, decoration.

How do you square that circle?

There isn’t the workforce to carry out all of this work. All of the suppliers of insulation materials stress insulation must be expertly installed or at least by competent professionals. Twenty years of experience has meant I know I need several of all types of professionals. Roofers – 6; gas safe plumbers similar; electricians 8. We have mutual trust.

Apart from emergencies, I sometimes have to join the queue. A lack of competent labour available to install insulation will see every cowboy in the land crawling out of the woodwork and charging more money than Elvis earned to do a rubbish job. Waste of time and money.

Tenants will be worse off financially. I’ll have to increase rents by around £1000 pa. Put that against a paltry saving in gas and electricity even at todays prices when the general feeling is that energy prices could well fall hence even lower ‘savings’. If the government want to save folk money all they need to do is to stop pandering to the greens and remove ‘green’ levies.

Then, how are you going to police the rogue EPC providers who will be abundant, no doubt? As usual, the ones who work to the legislation will suffer whilst the rest will get away with a dodgy EPC cert. Come to think of it, I think that’s what I need……

Thanks for reading,

Ian

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