Landlords delay rental property EPC upgrades

Reply to the comment left by Keith Wellburn at 24/01/2025 – 15:02
The big difference in price between electricity and gas is an issue, but one of the problems with heat pumps is that they put small amounts of kilojoules into a property over a long period of time. It’s not like your gas boiler where you flick the switch to turn the boiler on and half an hour later the property is warming up. You need very good insulation and also ‘heat hygiene’….not leaving doors and windows open, possibly also installing heat-exchange systems, in order to get a system to work well.

That of course also brings you into the thorny area of mould accumulation if tenants don’t open windows and don’t have dehumidifiers or don’t turn on heat exchangers. Air source heat pumps, heat exchangers and dehumidifiers all cost expensive electricity to run.

My tenants have never asked about their EPC and have never expressed any interest in replacing the gas boiler with a ground or air source heat pump. The numbers are even harder to add up when you find that the modern gas condensing boiler that you fit today is both more effective and efficient than the one you fitted 8-10 years ago.

So to make a lot of properties actually work at band C you are looking at a major refit probably with a lot of disruption and a big price tag. At the moment that’s capital expenditure and not only are you not allowed to offset that capital expenditure against your rental income, as capex you are going to have to finance it and if you are not incorporated you can’t deduct the finance costs against your income.

So the government would have to do a great deal to make it worth upgrading and also change the EPC system. At the moment it looks to me as though if you actually want to continue renting a property out the most logical solution will be to issue a section 8 notice under ground 6 in order to do a major refit.

By 2030 the EPC will probably be something else with different parameters, we will probably have a different government who may change the goalposts (again) or the whole PRS may have packed it in by that point and we’ll all be BTR shareholders…

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 24/01/2025 – 15:51
Totally agree, use gas CH very sparingly in my Victorian home, cast iron column radiators, high ceilings and lovely big original single glazed sash windows. Rarely heat the upstairs at all and have a log burner which I light for the evenings.

Often put clothes to dry in the warmed up room overnight. No mould problems and there will be one almighty standoff if the day comes when some clown like Miliband tells me to smother the original wall features (inside or out) in solid wall insulation or fit a heat pump.

Reply to the comment left by Keith Wellburn at 24/01/2025 – 16:33
For the EPC system to mean anything at all (it doesn’t in my view mean anything today) then it would need to recognise that something like modern efficient log burner (that of course runs on renewables) should improve your EPC, whether or not you have cavity wall insulation. The occasional issue with log burners is particulates and air quality but that’s not with all log burners. Some have systems that allow a double burn to remove particulates. And those that have back plates allowing you to distribute the heat around the home or heat domestic hot water are reducing your consumption of fossil fuels.

The fact cost of energy comes into the equation leads to some very misleading assumptions. Presumably the EPC is modelled around the gas and electric price cap tariffs. If someone has a heat pump, solar panels, a battery or an EV they have access to much cheaper electric tariffs. That cheap electricity can be used for all of their domestic use at whatever time period the tariff allows.

No point. Regulations and EPC measures can change, labour will probably go before 2030 and then it will get cancelled or pushed back again. Most of my property’s are c or d. So I’ll wait to see what the next party decides. It’s a net zero madness that don’t apply to social housing or private owned. Just a attack on landlords, otherwise it would be across the board, in my mind a D is fine, my home is a D. Conservatives would push it back and reform cancel it.

At the moment UK power is generated from roughly 40% gas, 20% nuclear and 40% renewables. Up the renewables, thereby saving the planet and dropping electricity costs longer term. Then we don’t need to worry so much about EPCs, or heat pumps. And we save the massive condensation issues that will otherwise ensue with properties hermetically sealed.

To think we were at the forefront of nuclear in the 1950s, And the 2010 coalition dismissed significant investment as it would have been the early 2020s before it came online.

‘Gridwatch’ has nuclear at only 10.4% today. As it’s pretty constant baseload I think 20% is overstating it somewhat.

(The anticyclonic conditions on November 5th meant we had only 5% combined from wind and solar).

Reply to the comment left by Neil P at 24/01/2025 – 18:13
Thats always been my argument, produce cheaper electricity, should be the priority and aim.
Also, how can it be right that only the PRS sector have to comply with these EPC regulations.

I’ve been quoted £30K to get my detached Edwardian solid wall house up to EPC level C. I make £1K profit a year at current interest rates. It’s completely unviable so I will sell up once I’ve secured my intended planning permission to re-develop the site.

I then aim to concentrate on development and will be delighted to be out of rentals for the first time in 30 years. There are going to be hundreds of thousands of people with nowhere to live soon, as landlords like me sell up. It’s very sad, but all the political parties, Shelter and the rest will just stand back and let other people reap what they have sown.