The Home Energy Rating

The home energy ratings will be hard to achieve

The current building regulations, require all new buildings, and some refurbish works to comply with very stringent energy ratings.

The energy ratings are calculated, during the build, but existing homes present a problem.

U-values required for new build homes can be near impossible to achieve, due to the structure of many older properties.

Glazing and loft insulation are the key areas to target, followed by reducing draughts from faulty doors and vents.

New 2007 UK Home Information Packs Must Include a Home Energy Rating

Selling a UK house after 2007 has changed. UK legislation insists that a prospective house buyer is provided by the house seller with a 'Home Information Pack' that contains a 'Home energy-001.html">Energy Report”. This rates each home for energy efficiency similar to how white goods are currently rated.

New legislation is being enforced, if the UK Government keeps to its announced schedule of introducing the house sellers “Home Information Pack”.

According to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: “The current home buying and selling process is slow, wasteful, stressful and causes far too much delay and failure. Home information packs are introduced throughout England and Wales from the beginning of 2007 to tackle these problems.

They will make the home buying and selling process more transparent, more certain, consumer friendly and faster”. And according to the ODPM the average cost of the home information pack will cost the house seller £635.00 to produce but “this is not an additional cost” since this money was spent before on survey reports etc.

Each domestic freehold property or domestic leasehold property with more than 21 years of the lease to run that is put up for sale in 2007 must include an energy efficiency statement or “Home Energy Report” very similar to the way that electrical white goods are currently rated.

Installing better insulation, more thermally efficient appliances and so on will be required if the property is assessed as below the “modern energy efficiency standards”. Properties built before April 2006 will all likely fail the revised building regulations for energy efficiency as new regulations from that date will be introduced moving the goal posts significantly for insulation levels.

So, virtually every UK property if assessed in 2007 will fail the energy audit if based upon the building regulations in force at that time.

The pressure on the seller will be to ensure that they only get ticks against the energy efficiency audit. For most sellers this will typically mean upgrading the insulation levels within the property.

Rooftherm (www.rooftherm.co.uk) have looked at the Home energy-001.html">Energy Report requirements. If the home falls down the ratings at the audit one of the best ways to beat the “energy efficiency rating” statement is to retro fit polyurethane foam to a pitched roof. Surprisingly, most houses do not have pitched roof insulation. This is ironic because this is the number one source of heat loss.

Spray applied polyurethane foam is the best commercially available insulation enjoying a 2 to 8 times better insulation factor per depth over any other home insulation products. Also, polyurethane spray foam seals and draft proofs and eliminates condensation too.

For most homes it can be fitted in a day and will last the life of the property proving to be an excellent investment, saving energy, saving money, providing a more comfortable home and will help save the planet for future generations.

For more information please visit Rooftherm at www.rooftherm.co.uk.