What does an EPC Assessment Involve?

What happens in a standard EPC assessment is an EPC energy-accredited assessor will need access to your whole property in order to fully complete your domestic energy assessment. They look at a range of different metrics to determine how efficient your property is and all of these are put together to create a final Energy Performance Certificate.

The areas your energy assessor will look at include:

• The age, construction and size of your property
• Primary heating systems - including the boiler and heating controls and their energy efficiency
• Insulation - whether there is cavity wall insulation or loft insulation installed
• Any secondary heat sources including renewable energy sources
• Lighting - whether any energy-saving light bulbs or low energy light bulbs are in use
• Windows - if you have double glazing or higher

Once all of these areas have been assessed, then calculations are made and you are provided with a new EPC rating for your property. Alongside the Energy Performance Certificate, the domestic energy assessor will also provide advice on improvements that will help you improve your property's energy performance. A valid EPC lasts for 10 years.

The size of the property impacts how long the EPC survey takes. However, our domestic energy assessor will typically be at your property for around an hour looking at the different areas of your property. The domestic energy assessment is a non-intrusive look at your property, so you will not be expected to move anything or be around to aid the energy assessor.

Once all areas of your home have been assessed, it will take a few days to get all the calculations and report together to provide you with a final EPC rating. As soon as we have a report, we will send it over to you and you will then get an official certificate with your final EPC rating on.

As above, this is a non-intrusive assessment so there is no need to spend ages organising your home ready for your EPC assessor. However, there are a few things you can do to make the process smoother, these include:

Ensuring any work on the home are complete before the survey takes place. An EPC reviews your home at that particular time and cannot account for any works retrospectively, so ensure they're finished to be counted on your EPC certificate.

Keep hold of any paperwork that shows works that you've had done, for example, if you've had double glazing, you should have a FENSA certificate for this, and if there's loft insulation or any other type of existing insulation, then you'll have a guarantee for this too.

If you're hoping to quickly improve your home's energy efficiency rating before the assessment takes place, take a look at some quick and easy ways to make it more energy efficient. This can include replacing inefficient light bulbs with energy-saving light bulbs. If you're in Surrey or Sussex and need an EPC assessment, then give us a call on 01403 253439 to book your EPC certificate survey.

Energy Performance Certificates are valid for 10 years, so it can be used for property sales at any point during the 10 year period. If you've spent time working on your home to improve its energy efficiency, then you may consider having another EPC survey completed before the 10 years is up to understand how your improvements have increased the rating on your property's Energy Performance Certificate (EPC).

This is also a great selling point for your home, as a higher EPC rating can improve your property's value and make it more attractive to potential buyers who may check on the EPC register.