Epc Certificate - Enhance Your Building's Energy Efficiency!

By Author: Gyan K
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EPC or Energy Performance Certificate has been made compulsory to all landlords. It has been made mandatory since 1st of October 2008 and is a legal requirement to provide all new tenants in England and Wales with this certificate known as Energy Performance Certificate.

It has been made a mandatory document along with an HIP. It offers a carbon footprint of households. Such certificates are not valid for any building that is not self contained. This means that if a tenant shares his rented house with another person and has given his room on rent and shares all the facilities at a buy to let property, then the building need not have this certificate. These certificates are valid only till 10 years and not beyond that. This is provided to a landlord by an Accredited Energy Assessor.

An accredited energy assessor will provide a certificate detailing out the carbon-di-oxide emissions of a particular building. An assessor will offer grades from ‘A to G', where ‘Grade A' stands for highest efficiency and ‘grade G' for lowest efficiency, ‘Grade D' can be considered an average score.

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... gives the building a standard energy and carbon emission efficiency grade from ‘A' to ‘G', where ‘A' is the most efficient. The average efficiency grade to date is 'D'. Along with the report they offer a recommendation letter to help enhance your building's energy efficiency. Based on these recommendations you can bring about some changes in your home. You can carry out some changes in your building and then reach out for an energy efficiency certificate. Get a solar heater installed instead of an electric geyser. Change your high power consumption bulbs and get lightings with lower power consumption. Seek advice on how you can make cost-effective improvements to improve your energy efficiency and reduce your bills. Get rapid reporting for anyone keen to sell their homes on the open market. EPCs are required when commercial or domestic properties are built, sold or rented. This means that sellers require them for private sales and landlords need to provide them to prospective tenants.

If you are letting property you will not need a HIP, however you still legally require an EPC to renew tenancy agreements or lease any property to new tenants. It is said that energy performance certificate is valid up to 10 years. Soon after this validity period expires, you need to renew it again.

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