Energy Performance Certificates

The EPC shows you estimated heating, lighting and hot water costs, as well as carbon emissions released over a three year period. It also gives you recommendations about how you can reduce energy usage and keep costs down. Bear in mind that it’s a legal requirement to get an EPC every time you buy, sell or rent a property.

An EPC is valid for 10 years.

The EPC is there to tell you how energy-efficient your property is. You’re rated from A (very efficient) to G (inefficient).

You’ll need an EPC if you want to put your property on the market. As soon as you’ve ordered your EPC, we’ll send you your order confirmation so you can list your property for sale.

Again, you’ll need to have ordered an EPC before you can start to advertise your property for rent or lease. As soon as you’ve placed your order, we’ll get you confirmation forwarded to you. That way, you can start to advertise your property straight away.

During the assessment, the assessor will gather data and evidence to support their findings. If the householder doesn’t have evidence to prove insulation to the floors, walls and roof, then the assessor will state ‘insulation unknown’ in the EPC software. When this happens, the software then makes assumptions on whether it thinks there is insulation in the building, based on the age and construction of the building. Next to this assumption you’ll see the word ‘assumed’ - this isn’t a definitive decision on whether or not there is insulation present, but it’s what the software assumes to be the case.

The EPC site notes often include notes of observations, photos as evidence of these observations, and a floor plan. As part of our application reviews and/or audits, we might request to see EPC site notes recorded by your assessor. We’ll let you know if we need to see copies of these - just ask your assessor if they’re happy to send these across.