Has anyone sought compensation for a dodgy EPC?

[Mr Whippy]

Just bought house. EPC D.

Roof Pitched, 200 mm loft insulation Good

Turns out this is 70-80mm (as deep as the rafters) plus some old carpet/underlay. Both access points to the loft at different ends of the house and it's like this. At no point can I see deeper insulation.

It looks like the EPC assessor was also the photographer as their name/URL comes up for drone photography which the EA used (a big coincidence if not)
It also looks like EAs use combined EPC/photographers as I've just seen a local EA advertising for one.


I wouldn't be fussed but it's a big loft (2,000sqft bungalow), so lots of insulation is missing. And I don't think I can get the grant due to council tax band and the lack of ventilation (the windows don't have trickle vents despite being mostly 2010-2015 vintage done by FENSA person)


I'm going to do it in any case as it'll make a world of difference in winter. But it's a job I didn't want to have to do more just for the faff and time sink.

Part of me blames the EA more than anything. They've misrepresented the property using their appointed sub-contractor, and now I've got to mess around for weeks to clear the loft, get quotes, or DIY, blah blah blah.


Am I wasting my time, or do people take this kind of thing seriously?


It makes the whole EPC C for rentals proposal thing a bit of a joke really if you can just use a dodgy assessor and there are no consequences for messing around.

[B'stard Child]

Mr Whippy said:

Just bought house. EPC D.

Roof Pitched, 200 mm loft insulation Good

Turns out this is 70-80mm (as deep as the rafters) plus some old carpet/underlay. Both access points to the loft at different ends of the house and it's like this. At no point can I see deeper insulation.

It looks like the EPC assessor was also the photographer as their name/URL comes up for drone photography which the EA used (a big coincidence if not)
It also looks like EAs use combined EPC/photographers as I've just seen a local EA advertising for one.

I wouldn't be fussed but it's a big loft (2,000sqft bungalow), so lots of insulation is missing. And I don't think I can get the grant due to council tax band and the lack of ventilation (the windows don't have trickle vents despite being mostly 2010-2015 vintage done by FENSA person)

I'm going to do it in any case as it'll make a world of difference in winter. But it's a job I didn't want to have to do more just for the faff and time sink.

Part of me blames the EA more than anything. They've misrepresented the property using their appointed sub-contractor, and now I've got to mess around for weeks to clear the loft, get quotes, or DIY, blah blah blah.


Am I wasting my time, or do people take this kind of thing seriously?


It makes the whole EPC C for rentals proposal thing a bit of a joke really if you can just use a dodgy assessor and there are no consequences for messing around.

EPC's aren't worth the paper they are printed on - it's been discussed before here and on other forums

I haven't had an EPC survey done on my house because we have lived here 34 years - they didn't exist when we bought it and I don't need to do one unless we sell it - However it was needed for the BUS grant so I looked into it when I was making the decision to either go for replacement gas boiler or ASHP.

Had a bat and ball email chain with a local EPC "inspector" in detail about the process and to be honest I was totally unimpressed with the responses to questions I asked - got the feeling it was a box ticking exercise and at £70 was an expensive box ticking exercise with very little value

Examples of why I think this

I have 75 mm of PIR under my suspended wooden ground floor it made a massive difference to heat loss in the property but it's not easily accessible to inspect - I said would photo's taken from when I was doing it help to prove that it was insulated

This was the response

The survey itself is a 'non-intrusive', it is purely a visual survey, meaning an Assessor can only enter information into the software that creates the EPC if they can see and photograph it, for instance if a loft cannot be accessed for any reason (may be the hatch is sealed because it has been painted over) an Assessor would record the loft insulation as unknown, the software would then assume the insulation levels to be 'as built' dependant on the age of the property, where as in reality there may well be 300mm in place.

So in summary my suspended floor would be assumed to be un-insulated because Building regs at the time did not require it and because the openings have been covered by a solid oak floor it's not viewable

All my rads are sized for flow temps in low 30's to maximise condensing efficiency and the work I've done to improve the house has driven gas usage for CH and HW down from 25,000 kWh per year to under 9,000 I asked if this had a bearing on EPC results

This was the response

To answer the question about Kwh usage stated on the EPCs of the properties around you, these figures are all estimated from assumptions of occupancy based on the things such as the size of property, for instance for a four bed house it would be assumed that there will be five occupants and with a two bed house three occupants and therefore more usage in the four bed property. Now this of course is not always the case and the occupancy levels could be very different in reality!

Now I can get that HW demand changes with occupancy and 20% of my gas usage is HW generation that's fair enough but CH usage reduces with insulation and to my mind doesn't change with occupancy!!!!

Same size house as mine that does have EPC similar double glazed windows and doors is 18,000 kWh for Ch and 3,000 for HW

EPC is 49 - E

So that and a provisional guide from Octopus of £13,500 for ASHP install (less the 7500 BUS grant) I didn't bother and bought a new gas boiler

There is apparently a complaints process and if I was in your shoes I think I'd have some fun with that

Towards the back end of the link below

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a8...

[RGG]

I had an EPC done a couple of weeks ago.

All finished in 5 minutes.

"I've doubled up the loft insulation", I said.

"I don't need to look in the loft, the house is 14 years old and I go by the minimum standard set for that year".

It wasn't very impressive.

[B'stard Child]

RGG said:

I had an EPC done a couple of weeks ago.

All finished in 5 minutes.

"I've doubled up the loft insulation", I said.

"I don't need to look in the loft, the house is 14 years old and I go by the minimum standard set for that year".

It wasn't very impressive.

Exactly - the whole thing becomes a tick box exercise with assumptions made based on build period

EPC assessor is laughing with between £70 and a £180 for 5 mins work and a bit of travel time

[laterontoday]

I’m not a residential assessor but was back in 2008.

I’d say complain and keep complaining. An assessor should look in the loft and use the data collected. Only if they cannot physically get into a roof area should they use default of build age.

Things have changed I think with the software but it’s essentially a watered down version of SAP it cannot deal with non standard details to heating and design changes made to reduce flow temperatures. If it did then the cost and time required to prepare an EPC would be greater and therefore more expensive.