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4 minute read
What are EPC ratings and why do we keep hearing about them?
Matt Roberts, PR and media advisor
Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) ratings have been around since 2007. We are seeing more people talk about them publicly in recent years as part of the UK’s green targets.
England aims for all homes to have an EPC C rating or above by 2030, while Scotland is aiming for all homes to have an EPC B rating or above by 2032.
As a housing association, we also talk about EPC ratings a lot too. They provide us with a good idea of whether a home is going to be energy efficient.
If it is, it will have a higher EPC rating (closer to A rating, the highest score). The higher an EPC score a home has, the lower we would expect the cost to be to keep that home warm in the winter.
Almost all the 894 new homes we built in 2023/24 were of an EPC B rating or higher.
But we also know that it is important to bring our existing homes along with us on that journey. This is why we invest a lot of money into retrofitting our existing homes.
Retrofit is work done to an existing home to improve its energy efficiency. This means it is easier to heat up and will stay warm for longer. It also means the home can be heated by renewable energy rather than fossil fuels and will save customers money on their bills.
We can improve EPC ratings in a lot of ways, such as improving the doors or windows a home has or adding better insulation in the loft or roof.
We still have lots of work to do, but we see the benefits it has made for customers whose homes we have retrofitted.
It is also why we carry out surveys of our homes, to understand where our homes are currently at and what work could be done to further improve them.
In 2023/24, we carried out more than 8,000 surveys for this reason, and we plan to have always surveyed every home within five years of its last survey.