EPCs and a (theoretical) plan of action

So I’ve been doing research in to the best way to start retrofitting once we finally have our property. And it seems the best place to start is with the EPC. An EPC is an Energy Performance Certificate. The person selling a house needs to obtain them before they can sell. So when moving in to a new property you will receive a copy (a lot of property sites include them among the photos of the property).

They contain the building’s current Energy Efficiency Rating and Environmental Impact Rating. The first is your houses energy efficiency, the second is your houses impact in terms of CO2 emissions. It also includes ways that you can improve the ratings. Examples would be things like:

Cavity Wall Insulation

Draught Proofing

Condensing Boiler

I think starting with the list of suggestions on the EPC of the house will be the best place to start as it gives a good breakdown of costs of each solution and the benefits gained (in terms of money saved).

But in addition to making my new home energy efficient, I also want to make it zero carbon (or as close as possible). I have thought about this a lot and I think the only viable solution is to remove gas and have a completely electric household.

Green gas does exist. I currently buy my gas from Ecotricity (love them, more on them later) using their green gas tariff. But although they currently source their green gas from the Netherlands, I don’t believe they are supplying 100% green gas to their customers. And Ecotricity is working on establishing green gasmills in the UK but even then I imagine it would take years for supply to meet demand, and in the meantime continuing to contribute to the demand for gas encourages exploration of controversial techniques like fracking.

Plus, although I could just switch everything over to electric and buy my green electricity through Ecotricity the bills would be huge (hopefully less once I completed all the energy efficient solutions). I think the price of gas is going to increase in the coming years in a way that electricity isn’t.

For me the ideal solution is to generate my own renewable energy for the house, making it completely energy independent (or as much as possible). I have a passion for renewable energy, so having solar panels or a micro turbine was always my plan, but even if that were not the case I think my plans for energy efficiency would lead me down this path.

So having considered all this, the list of retrofitting improvements I’m planning to consider for my futurefitted house is:

Solar panels

Wind turbine

Ground source heat pump

Electric oven (with induction hobs)

Low-e double glazing

Loft insulation

Cavity wall insulation

Draught proofing

LED lighting

Note: I'll justify the solutions I've picked and the choice for them over other possible solutions in further blog posts.

For now this seems like a fairly complete list, but it is only once we manage to buy a place and get the EPC that any firm plans can be made. It will be interesting to see how the reality differs from today’s plan.