Energy Performance Certificates

An energy performance certificate is required to be availed to potential buyers or tenants for both commercial and residential properties being leased, sold and/ or built as spelled by law. The certificate is meant to enable the buyers or tenants to make decisions that are informed relating to energy efficiency of the property being bought or rented. The energy performance certificate came into enforcement in 2008 and now it even requires even building homes for personal use to make use of them. With these kind of certifications the properties are rated A to G. Property energy efficiency is rated in the alphabetic order with A being the most efficient and G coming the last in energy efficiency. With the certificate one is also required to be in possession of a report that may give details of intended improvements on energy efficiency. Who needs an energy performance certificates?. Everyone who is building, leasing or selling a property is required to have the certificate. Failure to which one might be penalized up to 12.5% of property value that is rateable together with another default penalty depending on the property complexity, use and size. Even then, it is not a must to have an energy performance certificate for the following property types, one, temporary construction which will be use for less than 2 years, two worship place constructions, three, non-dwelling buildings which stand on areas that are not more than 50 meter squared and four low energy demand agricultural buildings that are non-residential, industrial sites and workshops. rnAgain the construction must consist of a roof, walls and make use of energy to require the EPC. If a building consist of one heating system then the owner will be required to have one certificate but if the building has a number of separate heating systems then one will be required to have a energy performance certificate for each part offered for sale or leasing. Finally is some portion of the building are to be altered for other uses like accommodation, then the owner of the property must apply for another energy performance certificate that will cater for such provisions. How to get energy performance certificates. The certificates are only availed by energy assessors that are accredited. The assessors must understand the property construction, its layout, its use, controls used, the services offered and lighting. In short the assessors must understand the construction space total energy demand and then submit the information to a software package that is approved by the government of which will be responsible for the production of the certificate. The energy performance certificate must be obtained or ordered prior to the marketing advertisement of the property. Some of the important information that an energy performance certificate must contain include the property address, the property building's floor area in total, the type of property, inspection date and the certificate serial number and date. Finally there are both domestic and non-domestic types of energy performance certificate. The use of energy performance certificates have received a lot of criticism from many housing industry organizations and companies which have lead to the EPCs suffering deficiencies in evaluating house efficiencies.