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EPC for passive house


dnoble

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I need an EPC for building reg sign off. 

First quote I've had is £210 (was expecting around £60). 

Is it peoples experience that a passive house will have a higher cost (as there's more unfamiliar stuff for the EPC provider to engage with)?

Seems a bit ironic, and unfair to penalise best practice in this way, especially for an energy performance assessment!

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I did our design SAP/EPC, as that doesn't need a registered assessor to do (I didn't find it hard to learn about SAP, either).  For the as-built one I found an assessor that would accept my file, so I entered all the data, emailed him the file and he checked it and lodged the report (which ticked the box for building control).  The cost was £120, but that's three years ago, and he didn't have to do much work.

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27 minutes ago, dnoble said:

I need an EPC for building reg sign off. 

First quote I've had is £210 (was expecting around £60). 

Is it peoples experience that a passive house will have a higher cost (as there's more unfamiliar stuff for the EPC provider to engage with)?

Seems a bit ironic, and unfair to penalise best practice in this way, especially for an energy performance assessment!

Are they going to be doing epc from scratch or just changing your existing design epc to an as built. I have to be honest but who does any work for less than a £60 fee these days? Thats less than a plumber call out for an hours work.

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I don't know the answer to this. 

There are plenty of online suppliers who quote £50-60 (though this I assume isn't aimed at energy efficient newbuilds, it doesn't specifically exclude them). Does it require a site visit or could it be a paper exercise done from supplied documents and specs?

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Many of the online prices are for an RdSAP, the Reduced Data version that's used for things like RHI and other grants, and used to be needed for PV systems when FiT was around. 

 

The work needed for a full as-built SAP assessment for a new build and lodging the EPC etc is significantly greater.  It doesn't involve any inspection or a site visit normally, but there is a fair bit of data that has to be put into the worksheet.  Collating and checking this data, then putting it into the worksheet, could take some time.  Not sure how much, but I spent a fair few hours collating and checking all the data that went in to ours.

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I think I paid £170 

The EPC is quite meaningless as it’s done from the information Supplied by you But you need someone that is registered to do the final SAP calcs 

I know what you mean with the EPC

When we sold our house 

A chap came out and did us an EPC for £35 

 

 

 

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I have had one done now (about £130, online, sent them loads of specs, u-values etc, you need an SAP and an EPC for a new build it turns out)

I turns out the form doesn't recognise the concept of a passive house and you can;'t enter "nothing" in the space heating section. He advised I say have electric panel heaters.

The final cert also says there's a "space heating requirement" of >2000kWh/year. 

 

It might be OK to use this jut to get building regs signed of, but it rankles a bit that it's so  inaccurate. 

I have queried it with the provider.

Any other passive house owners encountered this?

 

Edited by dnoble
addn info
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31 minutes ago, dnoble said:

I have had one done now (about £130, online, sent them loads of specs, u-values etc, you need an SAP and an EPC for a new build it turns out)

I turns out the form doesn't recognise the concept of a passive house and you can;'t enter "nothing" in the space heating section. He advised I say have electric panel heaters.

The final cert also says there's a "space heating requirement" of >2000kWh/year. 

 

It might be OK to use this jut to get building regs signed of, but it rankles a bit that it's so  inaccurate. 

I have queried it with the provider.

Any other passive house owners encountered this?

 

 

 

Inaccurate doesn't begin to sum up the EPC for our house.  The thing's a joke, really, when applied to a passive house.  I particularly like the automatic observations that get inserted on the EPC, for recommended improvements.  

 

This is the front of ours:

 

image.thumb.png.da6d5481d5c9e8ff2bba46532d71a428.png

 

Note the "Recommended measures" at the bottom. 

 

We already have solar water heating via PV, but SAP doesn't take account of this for some bizarre reason.  The suggestion to install solar water heating, at an indicative cost of £4,000 to £6,000, with a typical saving over 3 years of £195 is completely bonkers.  The payback time would be between 61.5 and 92.3 years, assuming we scrapped the PV water heating we already have.

 

Our house is alongside a stream at the bottom of a steep sided valley, and very sheltered from the wind and weather.   It's also inside an AONB and Conservation Area, and opposite a GII listed building, so there's no way a wind turbine would work, let alone get planning consent.

 

 

 

 

Edited by JSHarris
Added copy of EPC
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i am particularly intrigued as to how they think you can get a wind turbine for £1500 9_9, on my EPC it shows the indicative cost of a wind turbine as 15-25k which is more realistic if a bit low, but it doesnt factor into account the large amount of land that you need to site the thing in the first place

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