Shocking new research shows that Energy Performance Certificates are inaccurate at best, useless at worst, and easily rigged.
A Sunday Times report over the weekend revealed the results of sophisticated and highly detailed research by a firm called CarbonLaces.
The firm claims EPCs overestimate energy use by up to 344 per cent - yet they remain a key part of current and expected legislation affecting landlords and other home owners.
CarbonLaces compared the EPCs of more than 17,000 homes with their actual use, as logged by smart meters every half hour for at least 300 days, to calculate their energy bills.
The Sunday Times reports: “The average metered gas and electricity use for all the properties studied was 125kWh per square metre a year — 91 per cent lower than what their EPCs claim (239kWh/m2/yr).
“The lower the EPC rating, the bigger the overestimation. For properties with the worst rating of G, EPCs estimate they use 656kWh/m2/yr. Yet their smart meters show they use only 151kWh/m2/yr — a 344 per cent gap.”
This inaccuracy is “quite staggering” says Madhuban Kumar, the founder of CarbonLaces.
She says EPCs overestimate not only energy use but also carbon emissions, by between 20 per cent (for EPCs rated C) and 308 per cent (for EPCs rates G).
The lengthy Sunday Times report also claims that EPCs on new build homes are open to widespread abuse.
For new homes, EPCs can be issued on design data alone. The [design] software assumes everything is perfectly fitted, but this may not always be the case.
The paper cites an example of workers on a new home “going around the skirting boards, sealing it all with mastic and foam.” He then had to rerun tests until the home passed — only for carpet fitters to cut out all the sealant again.”
One expert tells the paper: “All they do is make the plaster wall box airtight, while the building itself is very leaky. Give me a garden shed and enough mastic, foam and plaster board and I can make it airtight . . . It’s nothing to do with making sure that they’re energy efficient. It’s to do with ticking a box.”
This issue is of critical importance to landlords because the government has pledged to reduce energy consumption from buildings and industry 15 per cent by 2030, with aspirations for properties to have a minimum EPC rating of C in England and Wales by April 2025.
Under current government regulation, landlords are not expected to spend more than £3,500 on upgrades to meet the current EPC requirements for a rating of E.
However, proposed changes could see all rental properties requiring an EPC rating of C by 2028, and a potential increase to this cap to £10,000, meaning landlords could be required to spend more to meet minimum requirements.
You can read the full and very detailed Sunday Times report here, although for some readers it may be behind a paywall.
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Essentially pointless crap
Sums up the whole climate con
And this is exactly why I am doing absolutely nothing, IF it comes in as stated, then I evict and sell to FTB’s. Nice and simple.
Sell? At the rate things are going landlords will be required to gift their properties to FTBs. All part of Levelling Down of course.
Nick - A little academic exercise I went through recently:
If I gift a house to the tenant, I would have to pay the CGT. So as things stand, I can't even give it away!
Bill, Well it's Backwards Britain we live in now...
@Bill Wood - brilliant. Best point yet. 🤣🤣🤣
I've got a novel idea. Why not just have the last 3 years of actual energy usage feeding into a rating? No pointless tick boxers required.
Never happen … way too logical 😂
Have known this for years on residential ones alone.
Neighbour sold house, new EPC, jumped up to a C from a low D although they did nothing. Lots of Averages moved to Good for no reason. Full of assumptions.
Our current house says easily 50% extra heating kWh than we use. I coukd get 5 EPCs done and they would all have a different score.
I do like the concept but the method is highly flawed and always has been.
Cris, can’t rate a property on energy actual used, some Tenants are careful about it while others are not, the number of occupants may well vary and the ones that shouldn’t be there.
Yeah but it's a truck load more useful than the current bs.
Hardly breaking news - its what LLs have know all along. Given the assumptions that are made and the fact that almost anyone can become an assessor it surprises me that they have been given any credence. Still good to have it in writing to wave under the Governments nose. Means there is clearly no point in spending good money - exactly what I am doing!
It's hardly something we didn't know. The whole EPC farce is a crock of sh*t!!!
EPC legislation needs a Judicial Review !
Even the sums in this article are wrong.
239 is 91% higher than 125, but 91% lower than 239 would be about 23, with 125 being just over half of 239.
Many of the current working generations don't seem to have any feeling for how numbers work.
No wonder companies can sell them a coffee for a fiver or sell them cars they'll never own!
Your maths is correct but I fear your logic is wrong
Can you clarify where my logic is wrong?
91% lower than 239 is meaningless as a ratio. 239/125=1.91, 125/239 is the reciprocal of 1.91, ie 0.52. All figures are rounded to 2 decimal places.
The article uses the term 91% lower which I interpret to be 9%, which is about 23 in round figures. I would normally say 91% less but note that we tend to say 91% higher although 91% more is also used.
Apart from quoting the exact term used, which is an unusual use of lower, I don't see how my logic is wrong.
Robert, I am generally in agreement with you. But I would say regarding 91% lower than 239:
1% of 239 is 2.39. Therefore using your logic (or our logic) 2.39 x 9 (for the 9%) is 21.51. Therefore the figure is 22 in round figures rather than the 23 you have stated.
Nick
I agree with you.
In my defence I had finished my entire education before the calculator was in wide use, although I used a slide rule at University.
My 23 was an approximation based on it being less than 10% of 239, working mentally without any calculator or other device.
Thank you for your explanation Robert. I used a calculator. I think you did very well to reach 23. You are a better man than I!
Robert your maths impeccable but why should anyone be concerned with 91% lower than 239, it just does not make logical sense. 52% of 239 which equals 125 makes sense.
The statement allegedly from the Sunday Times “The average metered gas and electricity use for all the properties studied was 125kWh per square metre a year — 91 per cent lower than what their EPCs claim (239kWh/m2/yr)" is incorrect it should read
“The average metered gas and electricity use for all the properties studied was 125kWh per square metre a year — 48 per cent lower than what their EPCs claim (239kWh/m2/yr)"
We're going round in circles.
My point was that much of the younger working generations don't actually understand numbers and percentages, including the original author.
Whilst 239 is indisputably 91% more than 125, the converse claim that 125 is 91% lower or less than 239 is nonsense, as easily seen by those who can still do sums without a calculator.
That's the only point I was trying to make and using calculators to suggest my mental arithmetic was slightly inaccurate is missing the general point I was trying to make about how people can be paid for writing articles when they really haven't a clue what they're writing about. We used to have a blond former journalist who wreaked havoc with such "talents".
I agree.
I’m glad we all got there in the end!
I assume you are referring to Bojo Robert!
Don't worry this Government or the next will sort this issue out, they have a proven track record and we have seen how expertly they have sorted Brexit and dealt with the Covid crisis.
I think most of you need to show some faith!
Back to the real world, my options are becoming limited and I think that in essence I need to crack on with selling some more properties. I was defo selling 2, on top of the one i've just sold. Now I'm looking at selling 4 in order to balance the books.
For those whom fixed deals are ending, I wouldn't worry about doing the math first I'd go see a broker and see whom is willing to re-mortgage a portfolio Landlord as there aren't many out there that will do it.
I recently put in a ground source heat pump in a fully insulated barn conversion (insulated like a new build!) The EPC came back a D! I think that sums it up
If we knew how the 'easily rigged' bit worked we could all get Cs! We all know it just about the piece of paper - not the actual performance!
Indeed it is Tricia, the kind of paper I will be interested in handing over for a C will have Charles Darwin on the back. The whole thing is such nonsense that I wouldn’t even feel guilty 👮🏻♀️
I was interviewed on BBC TV news the day they were introduced and said this at the time - that accuracy and their ability to protect the planet were non-existant. I’ve stood by this view ever since. Hilariously, shortly after this in 2008 I fully refurbished two identical twin houses side-by-side in a terrace. Every detail was identical but two different assessors attended. One said the house was a D because the concrete walls were not (could not easily be) fully insulated. The next assessor came to the house next door and gave it a B because ‘all the heat would go out of the roof but you’ve fully insulated that’ !! Go figure.
I insulated my whole building of 100 flats with 110mm of rockwool at a cost of half a million. One flat went down from a D to an E, at which point I gave up.
I spent 250k updating my flat to epc c , double glazed windows , low voltage lighting , efficient boiler etc etc new insulated flat roof , wall insulation, triple glazing at the rear …
Place next door build c 1900 with the originals windows rattling away single glazed and quite literally falling out , gets a c too , I looked it up - it got a c due to wait for it - low voltage lighting , utterly pathetic
🤦♀️
Please vote for the opportunity to debate for tax relief in the parliament:
We can not post the link directly due to restrictions, it is -
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/627785?reveal_response=yes
The problem I noticed is if you original got a poor rating, the next accessor will look up on line to see what you got, so that’s in his mind and it will take a lot of work to move him from that position.
Depends how professional the accessor is in his/ her work, some will be, some won't be, I've found a very good lady in my area who will always do her best for landlords, being a landlord herself, as I've said before no different to a car MOT, and we all know how they vary from tester to tester and garage to garage
Andrew. I think there was a shortage of accessors, if anyone applied for the job a good chance they’d get it, hence they are apprehensive about putting their foot in it they don’t want to loose their job.
I am baffled by the info given. m2 is not squared, either it's m with a raised 2 or it should say squared. The figures should say energy consumption calculated is widely exaggerated, nearly twice in the first example and by 3.3 times in the second. It's either kwhours or it's kw per square foot and then you multiply it by the number of hours.
The thing about the EPC rating it’s now being used to determine the licensing fee.
The legislation clearly states licensing Schemes are not for profit, how then has the Application fee of the 16 page original paper Application gone from £598.00 to the current Digital Application fee of £1’550.00 +, are Computers that much more inefficient.
Also further there’s now £100.00 penalty if you use paper.
I don't know a single, well-informed domestic landlord who has not already improved their stock up to EPC Grade C. Its so blindingly obvious. Why would we want our customers living in fuel poverty, spending money on gas and electricity (that goes straight off to Norway and Qatar) when that money would be better spent on some rent increases - or just paying the current rent!
EPCs came in in 2008, the MEES Regs came in the 2015, the Government has done the right thing and given all landlords, both domestic and commercial, bags of notice - 8 years to be precise.
The only landlords I've seen that push back on making their assets better and fit-for-the-future, are the tiny minority on this website! I sometimes doubt that these contributors are actually landlords at all. They don't seem to be rational, well informed or invest for the long-term. I think they may be in the wrong business.
The Sunday Times article is interesting because, from what I've read in the professional property press this week, their whole so-called analysis has back-fired and actually proved the positive case for EPCs, not the reverse. Their evidence shows that folk living in the worst houses and flats in the UK use less energy than the EPC model would suggest. WOW, really??!! Well, the EPC model assumes that the tenant heats the whole property to 20 degree all winter long. Only Jeff Bezos could afford to heat an EPC Grade F or G house all winter long. That's precisely the point. The tenants living in EPC Grade E, F and G homes ONLY HEAT ONE ROOM, and they don't do that very often. CarbonLaces have PROVED how accurate EPCs are and their 'research' proves that 8 million families are today living in terrible fuel-poverty. Which means they don't have the CASH TO PAY THE RENT.
I, and every professional landlord I do business with, will continue to improve our investment assets through careful energy efficiency upgrades. Normally best done when the unit is in between tenancies.
Some good points raised but a bit narrow minded. Everyone is different and there are always different circumstances for everyone.
I haven't upgraded my properties because the government hasn't actually confirmed everything must be grade C and above. They are just proposals. Completely unreasonable too. I don't want to overspend.
Whilst I don't want money going to Norway or Qatar etc it's of little consequence to me. I can't stop that.
I don't want to lay out lots of money without it being necessary. I have put insultation in one loft without 1 singe word of thanks. Instead before it was fitted she made more complaints about a broken door handle in (the 3rd in 2 years) of one of the internal doors and cracked the sink without a single thank you for having them replaced.
THEY PAY THE RENT LATE. AT PRESENT THEY ARE NOT PAYING AT ALL.
The more you do for some people the more they ask for more. I have made improvements only to be hit within minutes of agreeing for other things too.
I'm not familiar with CarbonLaces. I will look at them. But there are far too many stories on here of people with bad stories about EPCs and their inconsistencies.
Totally agree Nick, I've done some minimal improvements to some worthwhile properties, but I'm not spending big money until I know more for sure, and even then if I consider it unviable the upgrades won't be done, the tenants will be evicted and the properties blown away in the auction room, I can afford to do that as most were bought for peanuts in the 90s and I have zero debt
You're in a good position Andrew. The house I have referred to was only bought in 2015. I was aware of the Grade E but thought they may increase it to a D in a few years. C or higher would just be madness for the country's housing stock. Madness in all areas of the PRS is prevailing!
I am awaiting Bailiffs to remove the rubbish from the house. It's actually currently for sale online but not any takers. Will do it up when I get it back and still try and sell. I may rent it for another 6 months. I will have the pick of tenants this time around. Will look to get it to a D for a sale. It's an E now.
No way am I insulating all the walls from the inside losing square footage. I'm not doing it from the outside either. If we want Net Zero then I suggest BOJO keeps out of the UK's business and doesn't fly to the WEF. Harry and Megan don't need to fly here anymore either. Gove, Khan and Andy Burnham could stop producing hot air too. That will offset my emissions many times over for centuries.
Nick you forgot Charlie boy, his personal jets and helicopters, that'll offset my carbon emissions and a good few others as well , they're all hypocrites the lot of them
Andrew, they are all hypocrites.
Harry flies to environmental events for his family's security! I remember in 2008/09 all the US car makers directors flew in for a big dust up over their bailouts requested. They were all told to lose the jets when coming with the begging bowl!
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