An energy performance certificate, while spouting the theme of energy efficiency and clean air for all, is not welcomed by all of its United Kingdom population. Some view it as a costly Big Brother piece of legislation, although most of these haranguers sincerely believe in renewable energy as a beneficial concept. They just dont like being dictated to.



June 14, 2006 was the birth of the energy performance certificates in the United Kingdom, first for residential homes for single family dwellings and later to be demanded of property managers and owners of residential rental property as well. There has yet been no talk on legislating commercial building construction or current commercial buildings.

Yvette Cooper, the UK Housing and Planning Minister signed and announced the energy performance certificate bill. Cooper talked about the upcoming regulation on Home Information Packs HIPs and their need for an energy performance certificate EPC to be included as part of the packet. The energy performance certificate will now rank the homes energy use from good a rank of A down to absolutely dreadful a rank of G.

One UK resident wrote on the Internet about his objection to another European directive comparable to rating washers and dryers, a practice he clearly abhorred. England and Wales are the areas of the UK mandated to adopt the regulations first, although by 2009 all homes for sale in the European Union EU will be required to have an energy performance certificates.

This dismayed UK resident says that, while this might seem like a great idea in principle, he has his doubts the actual practice will produce such terrific results. His concern is that the detailed calculation of energy use is time consuming and highly complex. While it might perhaps make sense for a brand new home, he said, it seems pointless for a home already built.

Here are his points.

The first objection he has to this energy performance certificate for existing homes is that the energy assessor would need to know how the house was built or how would she or he know what the construction is made of. How, for instance, could the energy assessor determine if any cavities were insulated if there were no visual clues. The visual clues, he pointed out, arent always there. It might be, he points out, that the homeowner might not know about any construction or construction deficiency, or might actually lie about it in order to obtain the needed energy performance certificate.

There really is no way to sensibly check without taking the house apart. How might the energy assessor know how well the heater and water heater work What if its hot outside and the air conditioning on How well could the assessor evaluate the efficiency of the heating unit, or even tell if its in good running order These are just some of the problems inherent in obtaining an energy performance certificate and the evaluation by an outsider on whether the home meets the criteria for the certification.

Evaluation for an energy performance certificate clearly isnt an easy process.