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Can anybody tell me more about epc certificates and rhi payments

 

i have been talking to a co to day about ground source heat pumps, off the record it sounded as though he told me that if our house just scraped through building regs, then it would get a larger rhi payment than if it was a super dooper insulated thing. 

As usual to me, as I deal all day in common sense, this made no sense to me. 

He told me to get my epc to just pass building regs but then build the house better and don’t tell anybody. 

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3 minutes ago, Russell griffiths said:

He told me to get my epc to just pass building regs but then build the house better and don’t tell anybody. 

 

Got to love these companies that promote fraud...

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The domestic rhi scheme here paid out based on your as built SAP.  So in theory the  bigger your heating bill the more you got.  It was limited to £2500 per year though unlike the  commercial scheme which paid you £1.60 for  every £1  you burned no matter how much you burned. 

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7 minutes ago, Big Neil said:

 

I've been told that a number of times. What's next - a fuel incentive for gas guzzlers? It's beyond a joke.

The RHI scheme is supposed to get a "measure" of how much energy your house will use with it's new renewable energy system and pay you a subsidy based on that.  So yes if your house is old and needs a lot of heating you will get a bigger payment than a modern well insulated house. But you will be paying higher fuel bills than that modern house.

 

When someone starts talking about telling the RHI energy assessor how poor the house is to get a low EPC, and then goes and builds the house to a better standard, then that is just simple fraud.

 

 

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19 minutes ago, ProDave said:

The RHI scheme is supposed to get a "measure" of how much energy your house will use with it's new renewable energy system and pay you a subsidy based on that.  So yes if your house is old and needs a lot of heating you will get a bigger payment than a modern well insulated house. But you will be paying higher fuel bills than that modern house

 

still seems to me like incentivising mediocrity. If the answer to our energy issues is to have houses and other buildings which are more energy efficient, lets knock down that old rathole and throw up a polystyrene box in it's place (so to speak)

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2 minutes ago, Big Neil said:

 

still seems to me like incentivising mediocrity. If the answer to our energy issues is to have houses and other buildings which are more energy efficient, lets knock down that old rathole and throw up a polystyrene box in it's place (so to speak)

I am increasingly coming to the conclusion if we are ever to seriously reduce energy consumption on heating, then there needs to be a modern equivalent of slum clearance and replace old houses with energy eficcient ones en-mass.   Of course that needs mass market house builders who really understand how to make low energy houses, and I don't believe we have that yet.

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That incentive where they were selling derelict houses for £1 a while ago, would have been a prime candidate to flatten the lot and rebuild rather than try and get people to patch up rows and rows of derelict old houses.

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I think the danger would be if you have submitted building regs drawings with insulation and airtightness level of X and claim for RHI that it is Y, there will be an easily provable case of  fraud.

 

If you use the default value for airtighness instead of having a test you will save on the cost of this and it will be used for the EPC.  At 15m³ / (h.m²) it is three times worse than you would normally achieve and fifteen times worse than the best.

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2 hours ago, Mr Punter said:

I think the danger would be if you have submitted building regs drawings with insulation and airtightness level of X and claim for RHI that it is Y, there will be an easily provable case of  fraud.

 

If you use the default value for airtighness instead of having a test you will save on the cost of this and it will be used for the EPC.  At 15m³ / (h.m²) it is three times worse than you would normally achieve and fifteen times worse than the best.

That was the loophole here for a few years until they updated the building regs and included an air test.  If you didn't do a blower test then they   put your details in to the SAP test and if your house passed with it set at to 15 then that was your result.  If it didn't pass then  you had to perform a blower test and then use the new score on your SAP score. But there where plenty of people who got in during that early stage ?

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The backstop air leakage of 15 is unlikely to comply with the fabric energy efficiency standard of the  2013 Regs. Normally looking at 7 or better so test must be done. Air pressure test cert and confirmation of make, model etc of heating system required for the as built SAP and EPC. Wouldn’t want to get involved in this type of fraud!

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35 minutes ago, Ed Davies said:

IMHO any RHI payments for new build should be on the assumption of A rating, whatever the house actually is.

remembering of course you only get RHI if the system is fitted and passed by MCS approved  fitter

so DIY would be no RHI anyway  

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2 hours ago, ADLIan said:

The backstop air leakage of 15 is unlikely to comply with the fabric energy efficiency standard of the  2013 Regs. Normally looking at 7 or better so test must be done. Air pressure test cert and confirmation of make, model etc of heating system required for the as built SAP and EPC. Wouldn’t want to get involved in this type of fraud!

 

If they can make it comply with FEE by making improvements elsewhere there is nothing fraudulent in having no test and air leakage the default 15.

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We've recently had our ashp rhi application approved, which amounts to about £5.5k over the next 7 years (270 sq m, EPC A).  I just consider it as a bit of a bonus for building an airtight, well insulated house!

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2 minutes ago, Roundtuit said:

We've recently had our ashp rhi application approved, which amounts to about £5.5k over the next 7 years (270 sq m, EPC A).  I just consider it as a bit of a bonus for building an airtight, well insulated house!

I am interested in a real life example.  What size heat pump? and how much was the total installed cost?

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Heat pump is 16kw split system for heating and hot water.  I suspect it's oversized as the plumber couldn't get his head around anything but bog standard building regs (originally, he wanted to install 2 heat pumps; 14kw for heating, plus 4kw for hot water). The heat pump wasn't itemised, but the total cost was about £17k. That includes all of the plumbing inc fitting bathroom stuff that we sourced, ufh downstairs with stats in each room, radiators upstairs, 300l cylinder.

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We'll receive circa £3.2k over 7 years. 165m2 and EPC of 96. As @Roundtuit says, we also view it as a bonus but the MCS install certainly didn't cost as much as we'll receive, and with no gas we also saved the cost of having that installed (plus the ongoing standing charges of course).

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my payment from rhi is just over £1000 per annum for 7 years = approx £7500 with the annual increases

 full system ashp + plumbed cylinder etc etc  was £8600 fitted 

PLUS

I am saving close to £1000 per year on LPG costs against the increase in my electricity bill

 so to me it was a no brainer 

 

 so yes it pays to have a border line house when you do the epc 

 

Edited by scottishjohn
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