As you look ahead at the year to come, make sure to mark April in your calendar – some pretty important changes are happening.
As you are probably aware, as of April 2018 all properties let out in the private rental sector will be required to have an EPC rating of at least an E; anything below will be unlawful to let. This will apply to new tenancies or renewal of tenancies from 1 April 2018, and to existing tenancies from 2020. Expect civil penalties of up to £4,000 should this requirement be breached.
The bottom line is that if you have an F or G rated property, energy efficiency improvements must be carried out to bring the property up to an E rating before it can be let again.
Why is this happening?
Essentially, the legislation is designed to ensure that properties meet a minimum requirement of energy efficiency, in order to help meet government environmental targets. Eco Matters are very much of the view that the improvements made necessary under the energy efficiency are ultimately of benefit to everybody; residents will save money and be more comfortable in their homes and in return will be happy ambassadors of your business! Not to mention the environmental benefits we are such a big fan of!
We understand that in reality, all of this can take a backseat when considering the potential inconveniences caused by the legislation. It means examining your block and its current EPC ratings, working out the most cost effective ways to increase the ratings, organising the work, filling out paperwork, coordinating tenants… and repeat across all your blocks! Time consuming and on the face of it, expensive sounding.
However, it doesn’t have to be that way. The first thing to note is that under the government’s ECO scheme, there is funding available for many of the energy efficiency measures recommended under the legislation. Many of the measures can be done completely free of cost; others will be heavily subsidised.
What exactly is ECO?
It seems to be everywhere, yet many people are still unsure of what it is all about. In short, ECO stands for Energy Company Obligation and is the government’s primary energy efficiency plan designed to tackle fuel poverty and carbon emissions. The funding actually comes from the large energy companies. There are two ECO categories, CERO (Carbon Emissions Reduction Obligation) and HHCRO (Home Heating Cost Reduction Obligation), under which the various measures for improvement fall and these determine what kind of funding is available.
What exactly is ECO?
So improving your property’s energy efficiency will be cheaper than you thought (or perhaps completely free) – but it is still going to be a hassle to sort out, right?
Wrong! This is where Eco Matters comes in.
The first thing to do is look at the EPC rating to see how close the property is to the E category or above. This is something Eco Matters can do for you. Once we have got this information, we are specialists in working out the most cost effective way of dealing with the property. This will depend on factors such as the building’s age and location, the number of outside walls, the number of bedrooms, the type of heating, whether your tenants meet a variety of criteria which affect the level of funding… the list goes on.
There are nearly 50 measures that are eligible to comply with Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards – here are a few that we feel are the best! Naturally, we are somewhat biased towards them;
- Cavity Wall Insulation is cheap (very often totally free) and quick to install – we’ve installed cavity wall insulation on very large blocks in under two days. The work is covered by 25 year insurance backed guarantee. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be careful with who you pick to do the job – always use a well regarded and trustworthy installation company.
- Loft Insulation is also often free or can be done for very little cost. Again, a trusted company is a must. A good company will check for and rectify hazards, such as down lights without covers, and the insulation will be fire retardant.
- Flat Roof Insulation is typically more expensive, although there is still be funding available to help towards the cost. The majority of flat roofing we organise is work that is already planned and has to happen anyway – people often don’t realise that they are still entitled to claim funding for this! Although one of the pricer measures, we believe flat roof insulation can be a great long term investment for blocks.
It is about working out the most eco friendly option for your property, balanced with the most cost effective way of doing it. This may be of a case of simply putting covers on boilers, or switching to energy efficient light bulbs. It may be doing flat roof work and gaining a grant towards this. It may be considering cavity wall insulation which, depending on eligibility, could be covered entirely by funding!
Whether you consider yourself eco-warriors like us, or not, due to the upcoming legislative changes now is the time to focus on your properties’ energy efficiency.
Who are Eco Matters? What works can we organise?
Set up five years ago, Eco Mattersis a Sussex based company that provides insulation to residential blocks of flats. In founder Peter Dunsby’s own words, ‘I wanted to make a difference and do whatever I could to combat climate change. We fell into working on flats by accident; now it’s what we do day in, day out… if we can save people living in flats, money on their heating bills and attend to fire safety then we think that’s great!’
In these five years we have organised insulation from Glasgow to Plymouth to Eastbourne and nearly everywhere in between. We look at a block of flats, we work out the best options to improve the insulation or to make the heating system better, and then we work out what grants there are to help meet the cost. Sometimes we can do work for free, sometimes we can get a grant for work that has to happen anyway, for example, renewing and insulating a flat roof.
