Hip view (Home Information Packs and Energy Performance Certificates EPC

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State

On October 1^st Iain Wright MP who is the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State gave a speech at the Governor’s House in London on the final Rollout of EPC’s for both residential and commercial energy performance certificates in England and Wales. The following information is a few extracts from that speech.

“Six months ago, at the time Energy Performance Certificates for newly built homes and larger commercial buildings were introduced, I was invited to speak to some of you about the implementation of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive. At the time, I described the Directive, as a huge programme of work, a huge challenge and a huge opportunity - affecting all of us - private, public, property and energy sectors, and most importantly with the potential to affect every householder in the UK.”

As many NDEA’s and companies who employ non domestic energy assessors will agree, it has been a long arduous task from the introduction of home inspectors (HI) training all the way through to where we stand today in terms of preparing the IT systems, marketing etc and I believe that some companies may still not truly be ready for Jan 4^th.

“Today public buildings are showing Display Energy Certificates - rating how much energy a public sector building has actually used.

DECs are also a valuable tool in the fight against climate change. They show how building performance can be improved, saving not only carbon but public money. For the first time, visitors and staff can see just how much energy a building is using and also whether this has gone up or down over the last three years.”

As a search / home information pack provider we spend a lot of time in the councils around the country and the general consensus is that Display Energy Certificates are not being displayed, whether this is because they are being hidden or because they have not been carried out yet I don’t know, but I for one will be keeping my eyes open.

It has been reported to Pali ltd that some local authority building control departments are receiving standard domestic EPC’s (RdSAP) for newly constructed dwellings.

Since 6th April 2008  when a new building or a conversion from a non-dwelling to a dwelling is due to be signed off by building control it must have an On Construction SAP Calculation and an On Construction EPC. Not an RdSAP. This can be established on page two under “About this document”.

If the dwelling was completed  before 6^th April 2008 it will still have to have the full EPC produced by an On Construction Energy Assessor.

Any dwelling that has not yet been signed off by building control must have a Predictive Energy Assessment (PEA) before it can be marketed for sale or let.

Pali can assist in the production of all the different types of EPC required for developments or HIP’s. If you have any queries please contact Steve or Phil on 0151 691 1170. or phil@paliltd.com