Energy efficiency of homes

Energy efficiency is a big deal in mortgage world; as the Government has tasked the regulators to improve the energy efficiency of Britain's housing stock. They are doing this by bringing in targets for lenders mortgage books - meaning lenders need to have more energy efficient homes on their books than inefficient ones. They are tackling this currently by offering "green mortgages" to those with energy efficient homes of A, B or sometimes C rating; which translates to lower interest rates for these home owners. At the moment the benefit is negligible, but as the benefit of a green mortgage grows it could well become worth a home owner spending money on green improvements to get their EPC rating up to the required level to qualify. The good news is that many of the improvements needed to move from the lower bandings are , relatively, low cost for a big gain in terms of the SAP points (the way your EPC rating is calculated), it's when you try to move banding at the high end that the costs jump massively; moving from D to C is a lot cheaper than from B to A. If your house has an EPC certificate you can find it here: https://www.gov.uk/find-energy-certificate, the certificate will also give suggestions on improvements you can make and gives a (very) rough cost of those improvements.

There is almost certainly a risk that people living in energy inefficient homes will see a fall in value as sustainability criteria for new homes becomes more strict. If a home can be made energy efficient via retrofit of energy efficient heating systems and insulation it is likely to come at a premium cost which will be factored in to any purchase price offers whereas if the property can't be retrofit it will become obsolete as energy prices rise and the gap between efficiency of new and existing homes increases. Heating systems are the obvious, cost effective way to improve the energy efficiency of an existing home, however, without decent double glazing and insulation throughout, any improvements will be in vain. Once you start looking at double glazing, heating systems and insulation the costs become prohibitive, even with Government subsidies and investment. As soon as the costs break into the tens of thousands the money surely would be better spent on building new, future proof, energy efficient homes under a programme that replaces the worst 10% of homes with 10% new homes in a planned programme of development. Landlords of both small commercial and residential portfolios are definitely shedding big swathes of their portfolios, likely due to economic factors as much as energy requirements. The new EPC rules that are due to come into play in 2025 will be prohibitively expensive / impossible to comply with for many dwellings, especially for accidental and part time landlords.

I have certainly seen some landlords selling off low EPC homes. The landlords of our country certainly feel victimised by ever increasing regulation of the rental industry. In terms of real world changes people can make to improve their EPC, I think the biggest one is LED lighting. If you haven't already, it is the simplest thing to change and improve your EPC rating in some cases. Wild suggestion, but if the government invested into solar panels on properties across the UK it could help hit our energy targets as a country, and help reduce the cost of living. I understand now is not the time to wildly spend money as a country though, so may not be an immediate solution. It could even be targeted at pensioners initially to help those in the most need.