January 12, 20233 yr Hi, I'm refurbishing a house, have an EPC certificate, and am wondering where best to spend to get the rating better. There should be some kind of online EPC calculator, where you can enter your current details (house type, existing EPC rating, insulation etc) and then to be able to tweak it to see what effect it would have. Anyone know of anything? Buggered if i can find anything... Cheers all.
January 12, 20233 yr Been there, wondered that. Not found anything particularly useful. You could just poke your neighbours addresses into gov.uk's find energy certificate website and see what improvements come up for their properties - and see how different houses are assessed.
January 12, 20233 yr It depends whether you want to improve the performance of the building or just to get a better number. The computer programme for it is complex but was faulty the last time i played with it. An expert will know where slight changes can make the most benefit (real or theoretically). A lot of it is through ticks in the right boxes, which are not always easy to understand, or even logical. The programme is licensed so you will have to pay someone to do the analysis. Also it is clear that some analysts are more thorough than others (from seeing obviously poor buildings with decent ratings).
January 12, 20233 yr I have copies of the Stroma FSAP software which seems to be usable without paying a fee. https://www.stromacert.com/members/software-release-notes It's fairly easy to put in the details for your own house, if somewhat tedious. You can then play with various modifications and see what happens. However, the EPC is a fairly useless tool for assessing if a house performs well or not. The easiest way to improve the EPC score is to add PV modules. I can make my house move from a D to an A by including the PV array. It's virtually impossible to make a significant improvement by improving insulation. The other things that improve the SAP score are using mains gas central heating (rather than oil, wood or heat pumps) and removing any secondary heating systems and associated chimneys.
January 12, 20233 yr 2 minutes ago, billt said: the EPC is a fairly useless tool Agreed. I've met people who made it. No further comment.
January 12, 20233 yr 3 hours ago, billt said: I can make my house move from a D to an A by including the PV array … and it can even point north as they count the array size not its actual output ..!
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