A new assessment of the average cost to a UK property owner of improving their EPC rating suggests it’s soared to £13,981.87.
And in London it’s even more - £14,589.80.
The data shows that the average UK home currently has an EPC rating of 66 points, or band D.
With the right work carried out, this could be increased to 84 points, band B.
The government has mandated that all homes should reach at least EPC band C by 2035 with different targets likely to be announced for private rental properties.
Not surprisingly, carbon emission scores are highest in Greater London. The current average rating is 62 points, where emissions are 4.07 CO2 for the average London property, but this could be reduced to 2.04 CO2 (80 points and band C) with the right works carried out.
Properties in Scotland were found to have the highest current EPC emissions with data from insurer Dashly showing this at 6.33 CO2 with the highest costs to improve this estimated at £18,046.35.
The lowest EPC emissions are found in the East Midlands and West Midlands where both regions show EPC ratings at 3.49 CO2.
The lowest expenditure required to reach the 2035 guidelines is in the South West at £13,565.02.
The EPC survey highlights the key areas of the property that need including, for example, adding cavity wall insulation or getting a condensing boiler. The cost of each recommended improvement is an estimated cost taken from industry standard figures.
Dashly chief operating officer Martin Leonard says: “We all need to step up and do our bit for the environment, but making these adjustments to your home can be costly.
“The mortgage industry needs to do its bit to ensure homeowners are aware of the existence and possibilities of green mortgages. Up until now, green mortgages have attracted very little attention, but cheaper borrowing rates in a difficult environment could help raise awareness of the benefits of energy efficient homes.
“EPC ratings have a role to play but the reality is that they mean very little to the average homeowner. People want to know how the rating impacts them in pounds and pence and what they can do about it.
“In the coming months, as the need to save costs becomes even greater, we expect to see an increase in green mortgage products and lenders must continue to innovate to respond to this increased demand. Lenders and brokers should be offering green mortgages as standard by now. Those that do will offer their customers, and the planet, better outcomes.”
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Britain's roll-out of 21 million + domestic + EPCs and 1 million + commercial EPCs has already been massively successful . EPCs and the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard (MEES) are keeping British families out of fuel poverty and lowering CO2 pollution from our country's stock of old budlings. It's working - simple as that. Not a single EPC Grade F or G house, flat or commercial rental buildings has been lawfully rented out since 2018. Every single lawful continuing tenancy of Britain's most energy wasteful rental houses and flats stopped in April this year. The millions and millions of accurate EPCs on the Government public database are driving positive change and have been consistently for the last 15 years.
Mr Leonard should commission a £75 EPC on his own family's home and read the document. He will find that it's packed with specific financial data that he claims that they do not! He's not actually looked at a domestic EPC - that would have been a good thing to do before issuing this Press Release.
All that landlords and owner occupiers have to do is to order an EPC from a good, local qualified energy assessor (there are 1000s trained across the UK), insulate walls, loft and roof and install a modern energy efficient heating system. It's not rocket science and 1000s of folk across the UK are taking this action every month.
Are you an EPC assessor by any chance?
"The millions and millions of accurate EPCs...." Therein lies the problem Martin bot, most EPCs, especially the earlier ones arent worth the paper they are written on, and you can get 2 assessors on the same day to produce 2 very different certificates.
Well said, Matthew.
I have a flat in a purpose built block. There is an identical flat one floor above. They have the same heating, hot water system etc yet have different EPC grades. That is why I ignore the Gibbons gibberish.
No, I'm not an energy assessor, I'm a Chartered Surveyor. I can just recognise something good and worthwhile when it's working and I'm cable of independent thought. Matthew - all of the 'early ones' have long since expired! We've had EPCs in the UK for over 15 years and EPCs last for 10 years. My local, EPC guy (who I've actually talked to and gained information from) is audited by the Government, has to go on regular training courses, has passed an exam etc, just like any other professional person - from a Doctor to an MOT test engineer.
EPC are ACCURATE otherwise consumers wouldn't pay the £75 once every 10 years for them. Just as you wouldn't pay for a restaurant meal if it was 'wrong'. EPCs and MEES are driving massive positive change and we are allowed to say this.
Well, it's not like people have a CHOICE to pay the £75 a decade, its the law that rentals have them... And whilst I, and most other people, want tenants to have a warm, cost-effective and environmentally friendly home, the fact remains that soon all rental houses are going to be a higher rating, with newer boilers, windows, insulation etc than the Landlord's home, as they cannot afford to do anything to their property having been forced to spend all their income from rent and savings on the rental!
Bring the minimum E to a D by 2035 by all means, but a 2 rating jump, especially with some of the listed buildings, barn conversions and old farmhouses I deal with is near impossible.
Sorry Martin, I am a senior tech coordinator for a large developer and I'm afraid your original posting reads like a Government press release. As a surveyor, hand on heart, do you really have *no* scepticism about EPCs? The more I experience them and understand how heat loss, ventilation and cooling work in historic houses, the less I like them. EPCs are simply not fit for purpose: they don't even measure carbon costs, just fuel bills, hence all these people who replace their gas boilers with electric air source heat pumps (ASHPs) and find their EPC rating actually gets worse.
EPCs are also well-known to be full of errors and incorrect assumptions, and completely ignore draught-proofing (there's no air leakage test). How can anyone possibly measure a house's heat profile in 30 minutes? Or give house-specific, genuinely relevant advice? Before anyone spends tens of thousands on renovations, we need to be doing proper energy surveys, using the SAPr standard, based on the SAP rating used for new-builds, and conducting proper validation tests, again as per new-builds, all under supervision and sign-off by Building Control. The emphasis should be on Fabric First, not the bolt-on tech so often recommended by EPCs and so heavily pushed by solar power and ASHP installers, who are in danger of becoming the latest incarnation of double-glazing salesmen
Agreed @AA - I've long known they are purely Politically rigged "window dressing" tools and - like most ideologically motivated & driven "environmental" clap-trap utterly unscientific and essentially "smoke & mirrors".
Worryingly, down the line further legislation is likely to follow (which would be a copycat of the way European regs are going) to turn these garbage "assessments" from being merely *advisory* for our tenants (but mandatory to provide) into GUARANTEES that we (as agents or landlords) can be SUED for by tenants who find the "actual" energy performance or inferred energy cost is lower than stated on these theoretical SAP report!
That's one thing you didn't mention - but a huge factor - the way people USE a property makes an incredible difference.... eg draught excluder are irrelevant if they leave the windows open in the winter, or perhaps they run the washing machine on a half load three times every weekday.... etc.
Image they then expect YOU (or us) to pay because when they live there it was less energy than "promised"?!
Martin Leonard says: “We all need to step up and do our bit for the environment..."
Everyone is so used to hearing (and uttering) clichéd platitudes like that they've forgotten to ask themselves what, if anything, it actually means - let alone whether there's even any truth in it in this context!
Vacuously blaming "climate change" and "carbon" for everything, and using it as a tool to impose all sorts of punative and actually unnecessary and counter-productive regulations, taxation and all the rest... or by other people to "virtue signal" and try to make themselves seem knowledgeable or important when they are obviously neither... has become the unquestioned norm.
There's no going back now that so many people have been successfully programmed to accept this bizarre modern religion - that one day will be seen for the mass-delusion it actually is....
...most of these "believers" have been dupped, intimidated or just worn down into obediently regarding it all as "the truth"... a "truth" which must be mindlessly "believed" in because, after all, nobody wants to be a "denier", ie a sinner who "questions their belief", let alone wants to be ostracised by society - and "cancelled" on social media - for their heresy!
More disturbingly, large numbers of them - especially politicians, and also "captains of industry" or wannabes - don't know or care whether it's true ("real science") or not but find it an incredibly useful and/or lucrative band waggon to ride.
The sad thing is its too late now as this has gone so very-very far and successfully permeated every area of official and unofficial policy and decision making everywhere... all we can really do, I think, is remain sane and sceptical as we bob around trying to stay above water while being forcibly swept along in this enormous sea of believers!
Who do we believe Martin or Anthony ? I know where I would put my money.
@AA every day, for sure!
Google “Vital Direct” Click on “about” in website menu. Is this you Martin?
And looks like he is looking for some free advertising BAN HIM
Could be a different Martin Gibbons. After all, the one commenting here says he’s not an energy assessor but a chartered surveyor. The one at Vital Direct is also a chartered surveyor who is part of a company providing EPC’s. Not sure what the difference is.😉
Gibbons is the right name for this person. EPCs should last until the property is altered and not before. The criteria do not change with age. I've had an assessor give a low rating because he could not get into the ecternal wall (solid brick - no cavity) to inspect the well insulated dry lining. The whole thing is riddled with problems, i've even the council tell me to install air expelling fans. When I tell the tenant that one of these will throw out 80 cubic meters /hour (about half a kitchen) and that this includes all the air they have just paid to heat to be replaced with cold from outside, they are horrified. Rightly so. Where are details telling us just what landlords can do to the best effect.
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