The government has confirmed that ALL non-domestic rented buildings will need to meet an EPC Band B by 2030.  The Energy Efficiency (Private Rented Property) (England and Wales) Regulations (the ‘PRS Regulations’) initially set a Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard (MEES) of EPC Band E for private rented properties, which has applied to all new tenancies (including renewals) since April 2018, and from 1st April 2023, will apply to all privately rented properties irrespective of whether there is a change to tenancy.  In October 2019, the Government consulted on proposals that would uplift existing MEES regulations, in order to set a new long-term regulatory target of EPC Band B by 2030 (or the highest EPC band a cost-effective package of measures could reach). This was an ambitious target that would drive clean growth and reduce emissions across non-domestic rental building stock.  There was widespread support in favour of this change, and following the release of a new Energy White Paper, the government has confirmed that this tighter long-term regulatory requirement will be put in place. This change will result in almost 1 million non-domestic buildings being cheaper to run, more energy efficient, and able to accept low-carbon heating systems. It is estimated to cover around 85% of the non-domestic rented stock, deliver up to 10.3TWh in energy savings by 2030, and 4.1MtCO2e of carbon (non-traded) over Carbon Budget 5 (2028-2032). 

Implementation of new Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards

The Government Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has released a new consultation which makes proposals to improve the implementation and enforcement of the new EPC Band B requirement. The consultation can be split into four key areas:  1. Review of feedback received from consultation responses in October 2019 and BEIS Enforcement Pilot, and summarise the key concerns raised.  2. Outline of the proposed new framework for implementing an EPC Band B trajectory  a. Phase in the requirement with an interim milestone of EPC Band C in 2027 to ensure early action is taken by the market  b. Introduce a compliance window designed to simplify compliance and enforcement  c.Move away from enforcement at the point of let, and introducing a temporary 6-month exemption to address the challenges of compliance for shell and core premises  3. Proposals to strengthen enforcement and on amendments to existing exemption requirements to support the new framework.  a. Encouraging compliance by placing a requirement on letting agents and online property platforms to only advertise and let properties compliant with the PRS Regulations  b. Assisting local authority enforcement of the PRS Regulations  c. Tightening exemptions by amending the validity period of exemptions to require a review at each compliance window, and introducing a standardised payback calculator to determine cost-effective measures  Invite views on how smart meters could play a role in supporting landlords to meet the PRS Regulations as part of the next phase of smart meter rollout Elmhurst’s Non-Domestic Team Leader, Josh Wakeling, has commended the government’s decision to implement this new long-term MEES target and is pleased to see them consulting on the best way to move forward with implementation:  “Following the release of the Implementation of the EPC Band B Future Target consultation, we are pleased to see the industry’s incredible support for the government’s preferred option for private rented non-domestic buildings in reaching the EPC Band B rating. We have always advocated that EPCs and the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards have a vital role to play in helping the country achieve its net zero targets and it is excellent to see this being implemented.” 

Summary

All EPCs MUST be AN EPC grade B by 2030 and a minimum of EPC grade C by 2027.

For More Info on Commercial EPCs please follow:

https://www.uklandregistryplans.co.uk/blog/impending-epc-legislation-change/

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EPC During April to June 2019,

• 23,000 EPC were lodged for non-domestic properties, a slight decrease of 4% compared with the corresponding quarter in 2018. Of these, 96% were lodged in England and 4% in Wales.

In the year ending June 2019, EPC

• 92,000 non-domestic EPC were lodged, an increase of 7% on the number lodged during the previous year. The increases may reflect the 10 year validity of EPC but may also reflect the new legislation requiring a minimum level of energy efficiency for private rental non-domestic properties.

The following table also displays on average the poor performance of our non-domestic buildings:

DEC’s

Public Buildings

During April to June 2019,

• 4,600 DECs were lodged in England and Wales, a decrease of 45% compared with the corresponding quarter in 2018! Of these 95% were lodged in England and 5% in Wales.

Over the whole of the year ending June 2019,

• 30,000 DECs were lodged, representing a decrease of 16% compared with the previous year

New Build and Existing Domestic EPC

Domestic EPC In the quarter ending June 2019,

410,000 domestic Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) were lodged in England and Wales:

• 85% (342,000) of these EPCs were for the sale and letting of existing dwellings; an increase of 17% on the same quarter last year.
• 17% (68,000) of domestic EPCs were for new build dwellings and conversions; an increase of 3% on the equivalent quarter in 2018 and a continuation of the upward trend in EPCs for new dwellings since 2014.

In the year ending June 2019:

• 255,000 EPCs were lodged for new build dwellings and conversions in England and Wales, an increase of 9% on the previous year and the largest annual total for new properties since 2008 when the statistical record began.
• Most EPCs for new build dwellings and conversions were lodged in England (246,000; 9% up on the previous year). The remaining 8,600 EPCs for new build dwellings and conversions were lodged in Wales, up 11% on the previous year.

Amongst all the statistics and graphs the following table stood out:

For existing homes there appears to be very few ‘A’ and ‘B’ rated homes, and the vast majority are still ‘D’ or below! It is clear that we have some way to go to meet our new ambitions in terms of zero emissions and more energy efficient homes.

In contrast, it appears that the vast majority of new builds are ‘B’ rated. Yet, there remains more ‘C’, ’D’ and ‘E’ rated homes that pass building regulations than those which are ‘A’ rated. This shows the impact of having minimum standards approach to regulations and also the ability to use older regulations (via transition periods). This approach has to stop if we are to meet the ambitions of the country.

Comments from our Accreditation body on this

Stuart Fairlie Technical & Operations Director at Elmhurst states. “We welcome the release of the data for English and Welsh homes and buildings. The growth in existing dwellings is certainly attributed to the private rented sector Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) policy and the 10^th year anniversary.

The country is also building more new homes and Elmhurst analysis which combines Scotland and NI figures puts us on rolling 12 months of 299,000 new builds constructed, which is close to the Government’s target of 300,000 per year. The dip in Non-Domestic EPCs for the last quarter comes predominantly from the diminishing MEES effect, which began earlier in the commercial rental market.

The reduction of DECs, is very disappointing. We believe that this reflects a lack of enforcement or apathy within the market, which is concerning when these buildings should be ‘showing the way forward’.

This is something that Elmhurst will be lobbying for in terms of public buildings and showing wider industry leadership and the way forward. Overall, the market is positive, but the statistics indicate that each sector has some way to go to if we are to meet our climate ambitions.”

To get a free EPC quote please click here

For further information:

MHCLG Official Statistics Headlines:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/821898/EPB_Cert_Statistics_Release_Q2_2019.pdf

MHCLG Official Statistics Live Tables:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-energy-performance-of-buildings-certificates

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• Age of buildings, for example older single skin solid walls have much higher heat leakage levels than a newly constructed one. 

• Orientation of the building, can it maximise the natural daylight. 

• If its got a neighbouring property, adiabatics always help the heat loss. 

• Air permeability of the property (doors, chimneys etc) if there is a lot of air coming into the property 

• Glazing, has the building made use of double glazing to lower its U values. 

• Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning (HVAC) Systems. How’s the building heated/cooled and how is it controlled 

• Lighting and Controls, what bulb and light fittings are used and how are they controlled. 

The list goes on but these are just a few conditions that affect the rating. 

As the person responsible what can I do to maximise the EPC rating for a low cost ?

Lighting 

BEST Compliance will always recommend a cheap and mostly advantageous improvement, this would be to swap all the pendant light fittings in the property to LED equivalents

It should be noted in most cases this can dramatically improve the rating by at least a whole grade, but there are some instances that improvement isn’t as great. Some of the older incandescent lights are that inefficient at producing light , 70 of the 100 Watts go on heating, the programme that produces the EPC takes this into account in the heating element of the building. So when you swap these to LED the programme instantly has to get heat from elsewhere in the building, normally an electric heater, as there both very similar efficiency no real improvement has been gained, but cost savings will show in the lighting.

HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning)

EPC’s really don’t like Electric heating in poorly insulated properties (pre 1995), the programme has rules to which you must know in producing commercial EPC’s one of these many many rules states: if no heating is present in a room, except for a few exceptions the HVAC must be set to Electric heating, it states this as the default setting, or even easier to understand the worst case scenario. There are occasions when you have very little alternative but if you can remove them, for instance if you have a radiator in the room, please do so.

Building log book documents 

Its imperative these days to keep a building log book, in here you will keep all your building documents, plans, fire risks, fire alarm, Insulation, Boiler Installation certificate, Gas safety checks etc. 

When our assessors come to site we will always ask you for any documents on the property. We are mainly looking for scaled plans if there are any, so we can speed up the survey especially if its a confidential visit also if any extensions have been built, and more importantly model numbers for the HVAC, the date roof and wall insulation was installed and the U value it adheres to and if any glazing has been installed again what year it was installed. 

If these documents are not available, the assessor will use their experience and visual surveys to determine this, although were very good at finding this information out sometimes its not possible and it has to go into the programme as a default year or our best estimate. 

Any Special Installations 

If any renewable energy or underfloor heating is installed its best to ensure all documentation is present or sent via email to BEST Compliance so we can get accurate results.  

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Energy Performance Certificate were introduced 1^St August 2007 along side the ill prepared Home information Packs (HIPS). EPCs continued to be a required piece of legislation when HIPS were dropped from legislation in May 2010.

They are a direct result of European Union Directive 2002/91/EC relating to the Energy performance of buildings, as transposed into British law by the Housing Act of 2004 and The Energy Performance of Buildings (Certificates and Inspections) (England and Wales) Regulations 2007 (S.I. 2007/991). 00100000fef

What are they?

An Energy Performance Certificate basically looks like a Graph. From A to G, with A being the most efficient and G being most inefficient. EPCs are lodged on the government central database called Landmark and are registered and accessible to the public for a period of 10 years.

When Do I need an EPC?

An EPC is a legally binding certificate and are triggered at Legal points such as when the property is to be built or marketed for sale or to be rented or whilst not legal however is now a requirement from Financial institutes when a property is to be refinanced.

What are the penalties for not having a valid EPC?

Under the new regulations Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) are under local authority in particular weights and measures. The fine for not having a Valid EPC at the legal trigger points vary from £5000 – £150,000 or 12.5% of the ratable value, whichever is highest.

Recent Changes for EPCs

Energy Performance Certificates have had new legislation attached called The Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards, these in principal add a minimum grade to the EPC for you to be able to lease / rent out your property. This Minimum grade is an E grade at the moment.

It is estimated 18% of all property fall in the F or G bands with a further 20% in the E band. With the impending update of the Building Regulations part L EPC grades will fall in our experience between half a grade to a full grade when this happens. Our estimates after this will be the a third of all properties will fail MEES and will need to be refurbished to a level that will pass MEES.

MEES does not legally affect properties up for sale however Banks and other financial Institutes will NOT lend against poorly rated buildings as they see it as a Toxic debt.

What Properties are Exempt from EPCs?

There are certain exemptions to Energy Performance Certificates

• Places of worship
• Temporary buildings that will be used for less than 2 years
• Stand-alone buildings with total useful floor space of less than 50 square metres
• Industrial sites, workshops and non-residential agricultural buildings that don’t use a lot of energy and are unoccupied. i.e. Gritting Salt Stores
• Some buildings that are due to be demolished
• Holiday accommodation that’s rented out for less than 4 months a year or is let under a licence to occupy
• Grade I listed buildings – you should get advice from your local authority conservation officer if the work would alter the building’s character
• Residential buildings intended to be used less than 4 months a year

 BEST Compliance can confirm if your building falls under an exemption

What is the average grade for an EPC?

This is a very difficult question to answer as each building is different and will have merits on the lighting, Heating, Insulation, Location etc. However, the median grade of building EPC we give is around a D to an E grade, but as explained this will differ with every building.

The post What is an EPC? appeared first on BEST Compliance.

Last week Theresa May announced what we reported that the UK has taken legislative steps to becoming the first major country that will be zero carbon by 2050.

BEST Compliance couldn’t be happier at this news, in our opinion its 20 years to late however it’s a major step forward. However, we are just over the first year of MEES where the target is set to an E grade, this will likely be upgraded to a D in 2025 and a C grade in 2030. BEST Compliance are averaging around 25% of buildings fall into the current Fail band (F or G). It has been quite difficult getting some landlords to understand the legal obligation and improving the property. This will only get tougher as the Pass grades increase and at the moment a C level would be extremely difficult to ascertain on certain buildings.

Zero Carbon is A+ on the EPC grade, Indeed we have 31 years to get there so its attainable, however as with MEES most landlords will ignore this until the deadline has been reached, MEES even had some Highly placed Directors in Real estate companies ignoring the legislation thus giving their clients terrible advice.

It is our opinion every building in the country CAN NOT reach zero carbon by upgrading buildings alone, and as such the government will need to offset the CO2 from these properties. This can easily be rectified by have schemes in place such as Solar, Hydro, Wind Farms along with Carbon capture and other schemes. However, these are not cheap and as such we believe a green tax will be introduced to everyone that owns property (Domestic or Commercial).

How will Green Tax be ascertained?

BEST Compliance believe this will be worked from an EPC or equivalent then, We believe an equivalent will be in place as we believe that EPCs are not suitable for this exercise as it uses bench marks given by government and as such they will need more personal information using real energy bills.

We also believe the 10-year lifetime of an EPC is far too long and is not accurate past either a new tenancy or a maximum 5 years.

We believe a green tax will start from a 0% for zero carbon and will increase by a certain percentage for every band. G grade being most expensive. It should also be noted if this is the case and when vehicles have all gone electric by this period, electricity gain will be added to this bill. Imagine how much the government will loose when fuel tax has been eradicated, it will be added we believe to the future Green tax.

BEST Compliance are looking at all eventualities and are preparing our clients for the future this means looking past the 10 years we currently predict for our clients but to a 30 year programme.

The future is Green, accept it, prepare for it or be stung.

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The United Kingdom have become the first major economy in the world to pass legislative law to end our contribution to global warming by 2050.

The United Kingdom has already reduced emissions by 42% compared from the 1990 levels. The new goal will be to bring all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, The previous target of at least 80% from 1990 levels.

Green energy is at the heart of its modern industrial strategy, the government also claim that employment in the Green technology sector could grow by up to 2 million and the value of exports from the low carbon economy could well exceed £170 billion a year by 2030.

The UKs 2050 net zero target was recommended by the Committee on Climate Change, they are the UKs Independent climate advisory body.

The new legislation wont mean that every property will be zero carbon with renewables on every building for instance in our area, all emissions will be balanced by schemes to offset an equivalent amount of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, such as Wind / Solar farms and the planting of more trees or using carbon capture and storage.

James Murray of Business Green said “This is a truly historic moment in the story that will define the century for us all and this is much bigger than many people realise. It is a moon shot, a war effort, an industrial revolution, a cultural transformation, all rolled into one.”

Martyn Reed, Elmhurst Managing Director, welcomes the introduction of this new law that supports the commitments that have been alluded to over the last two years within both the  Industrial Strategy and the Clean Growth Strategy. Theresa May obviously wants to be remembered for something other than a failed Brexit and this is probably her best opportunity.

He goes on to say: “Elmhurst members have enjoyed a 23% increase in the volume of energy assessments and with this renewed commitment is has never been a better time to be involved with energy assessments” 

BEST Compliance personal opinion on this is a positive but cautious on how to achieve this goal. We are set to take 20,000 tonnes of CO2 out the atmosphere this year through our EPC Alpha plus, however with no funding on commercial properties and in the current climate Landlords simply don’t have the luxury of significantly improving there properties.

We are also wary that a Green tax will be introduced on higher emitting properties to pay for the Net zero schemes and these potentially could be set from your EPC grade as at this moment in time they are the only recorded log of CO2 on buildings.

If this will be the case BEST Compliance are with the view that EPCs need to drastically improve from the benchmark energy view to actual energy usage reading very similar to how DECs are prepared, Using real bills.  From our experience though, gaining 12 months’ worth of energy bills is extremely difficult, so EPC assessors may be able to use smart meters in the future to gain this information.

Overall though Theresa May will hopefully be remembered by Theresa’s Law rather than her Brexit failure, and we can be a world leader in the Green Sector along with China bringing jobs, products and all importantly a greener sustainable future.

Do You Think You Need a Commercial EPC?

If you think you’re business needs to be ready ahead of the new benchmark BEST Compliance will be happy to help Please call us on 0121 585 5211 or get a free Commercial EPC quote.

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Most of these buildings have came back as a F or G grade, and in doing so failed the all important MEES. The council had suspicions that these were not graded accurately and got BEST Compliance involved.

The buildings primarily were leisure buildings from Scout Huts to Youth Centres, over 60% were graded differently to what had been lodged. This didn’t sit well with us so we did research into how this came to be.

After reading the reports kindly provided by the council, we could see massive errors in the reporting and model simulation. The first mistake on one building being the construction type which has a massive effect on the property, the photo of the building on the report clearly had a circa 1980s Cavity wall with a recent extension and when reading the report we found that they had actually used the incorrect type of wall, they had used a solid brick wall with a roof with no insulation. This has a massive bearing on the EPC as a building with no insulation leaks heat like anything and as such requires a lot more heating making the building score very poorly.

Other factors were that the building was heated incorrectly the building was using infra-red radiant heaters however the assessor had used panel heaters.

From what we learnt from the names of the report was that they had used a sub-contractor to gather the data and relayed it back to their office, the data had obviously been gathered incorrectly or interpreted wrong. We then had a look at the author of the report, the author was not a qualified energy assessor, whilst this isn’t illegal its most definitely frowned upon and then it was supposed to be checked by an energy assessor which it blatantly was not.

The client had tried to contact the company that produced them many times without success.

Our client was facing a major refurb to get an E grade and could potentially of closed down a valued youth club. We were lucky the council employee was on the ball and put a stop to this early on.

The morale of the story is to always read through your reports and always ask questions on your property, all good assessors love to talk about the Assessment and help guide clients to a more efficient building.

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The Laundry had been struggling a little in recent times and the landlord was just keeping things afloat however the landlord had increased costs on the property and as such the rent review was necessary.

After the rent increase via the review had been attached the Landlord decided he could not take on the extra cost of £75 a month and as such refused to pay. This led to the tenant leaving the property and moving elsewhere, leaving the unit vacant.

The sad thing was that the solution was right in front of the Landlord / Tennant and agent.

Entering the building as an Energy Assessor the first thing you do is look up at the lighting and then for the heating elements, as this helps you understand what your dealing with. In this particular property I saw 24 100-watt T12 Tube lighting. Alarm bells start ringing for inefficiency, T12s were introduced in the 1970’s and are highly inefficient as a light source, they are actually more efficient as a heating source.

After doing some quick calculations on site and switching these over to equivalent LED tubes I roughly worked out that the electricity cost savings per month to the tenant would be around £90.

If the landlord had actually stepped up and replaced his highly inefficient lights, the rent review would have been passed, meaning the landlord would still have a tenant instead of a vacant unit, the tenant would be saving a little money each month and the agent would not have the hassle of marketing the property.

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The landlord straight away called an electrician who gave his advice, whilst being sound advice in terms of minimum requirements, the electrician had no idea about the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES).

Upon entering the property, which was a former Tattoo Parlour, we noticed the lighting was a complete mixture of 80s and 90s technology. A few electric heaters were scattered around.

The landlord had shown us a quote to be in the region of £24,000 to undertake the unnecessary refurb. Id like to point out that the electricians refurb when completed would have still been a F grade and as such still failing.

We offered the Landlord our invaluable EPC ALPHA plus, this report shows 3-4 strategies to obtain a minimum of a D grade and with costings and pay back periods.

The landlord chose our recommended strategy and asked for advice on who to undertake the works. The works were completed within two days, were we were able to come back and lodge and EPC on the property allowing the landlord to legally rent the property again.

After our report costs and electrical work, the price of the project was around a £1000 and the result took the EPC grade from a G grade all the way to a B grade, yes, a B grade.

We later found out that the landlord had also been able to increase the rent over the 7 year period allowing him to pay back the outlay to around 3 times, the tenant would also save energy costs from the increased efficiency which was more than the increased rent from before, so all in all a win win all round.

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