Landlords delay rental property EPC upgrades

This isn’t really a shocking update, given epc assessors are advising landlords not to act now and wait for clarity

Reply to the comment left by Sam B at 24/01/2025 – 11:29
Hi CWI has not been down graded, the most likely reason is the build date the assessor used. I suspect the original used a date post 1976 (this is when thermal block is assumed to have been used), where the last assessor has used an earlier date. This can effect the EPC by around 3pts. You can see which date the assessor used by looking at the date band on the link here. https://propertychecker.co.uk/

Reply to the comment left by Jo Westlake at 24/01/2025 – 17:54
A lot of it is misleading and that’s really the point. All the misleading information makes EPCs themselves meaningless.

There’s no point spending £30K installing a heat pump and everything that you would need to make it work only to find that the house is cold and to get it up to a comfortable temperature you have to buy and run electric fan heaters. You are being expected to take an enormous financial risk but you probably aren’t going to qualify for grants, it’s capital expenditure so you already can’t offset the cost against rents, and you have to service the cost of that extra finance yourself because you can’t offset the cost of that additional finance either.

And when it comes to trying to find out reliable information on the performance of for example ground source heat pumps, the life span of either ground source heat pumps or photovoltaics then it’s really difficult.

But the modern condensing gas boiler that you buy today is £2.5-3K, it’s very much more efficient than the one you bought ten years ago and you can actually rely on the performance information that the manufacturer and installer provide you with.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 27/01/2025 – 17:21
The main efficiency jump was when new or replacement gas boilers (with very limited exceptions) had to be condensing models. That requirement came in twenty years ago in 2005, a period when I bought a few properties to make student HMOs and was replacing existing boilers. Generally Worcester Greenstars and if I recall correctly they were A rated around 90% efficient.

Unless you are replacing something over twenty years old (ie not a condensing model) I would suggest the increases in efficiency are pretty marginal for swapping an existing condenser with a 2024 model.

More sophisticated control with zoning and ‘Hive’ type control can of course make the use of the system more efficient.

My early days as a landlord had some efficiency horrors, back boilers with permanent pilot lights and virtually no control – relying on the boiler thermostat with no room stat or TRVs. Then when on demand electronic ignition came in the 1990s models, doing away with the pilot light, that seemed the height of sophistication!

Reply to the comment left by Keith Wellburn at 24/01/2025 – 16:33
I wonder if many other Landlords find the high ceilings in period properties actually help keep mould at bay?
I would think a room with a higher volume of air deals with humidity better.

Reply to the comment left by Keith Wellburn at 27/01/2025 – 17:55
I’m sure you’re right about condensing vs. non condensing but I replaced an old condensing gas boiler with a new gas condensing boiler in my own home in 2020 and I really noticed the difference in both performance and efficiency.

That’s one of the difficulties with justifying moving to heat-pumps. The existing technology is already good and getting better.

The tax system is expecting you to “take one for the team”. And it’s a big one.

I’ve got one flat with no gas, though a supply has been fitted now that runs along the outside wall – so we could easily connect to it.

My only hope of a C rating under the current system is to fit GCH (last EPC said it’d give me 29 points which is just enough). Crazy – in a few years we’ll be being penalised for using gas and not the green electricity which will be around by then.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 28/01/2025 – 10:20
The old boiler may not have been set up too well. I had a condensing Vaillant boiler fitted in 2007 and still have it.

I don’t think the installers were too familiar with it (there was hot competition between boiler brands at plumbers merchants with incentive schemes, discounts etc). All modern boilers have modulation (variation of the heat output between about 5kW and maximum rating whereas in days of yore the burner was either on or off) as well as ‘anti-cycling’ settings to prevent different parts of the control system fighting each other and firing the boiler only to cut it off again a few seconds later.

I worked out the anti cycling hadn’t been set up properly and was able to change it as a householder setting via the onboard electronics – it was taking about half an hour to get the boiler output up to working temperature. The installers admitted they were unaware of this setting. Then it was some years later when a Vaillant specialist engineer told me that the top end of the ‘range rating’ (ability to cap the boiler below its maximum output) was set too high and turned it down a bit resulting in much improved running efficiency.

Not saying this has happened with you but it gave me food for thought – and is why I’ve gained knowledge of modern boilers after initially being disappointed in my then brand new Vaillant (generally acknowledged to be a good boiler) and using my technical interest to try to resolve things.

Old boilers just used to chug away, pilot light always on and the gas valve being open and shut electrically allowing the gas to ignite and the flames to rise and heat the water in the heat exchanger.

Now there are often bigger circuit boards in boilers than TVs. The gas valve operates at ‘zero pressure’ (rather than the mains gas pressure) whilst a compressor sucks out gas in variable amounts according to the requirement of the burner (depending on the operating requirement of the boiler and system as calculated by the electronics). Burners are likely to be downwards firing and electronic ignition replaced pilot lights several decades ago. Then of course the condensing aspect reclaims heat that would otherwise have been expelled from the flue as waste gasses. (Bearing in mind if the flow temperature is set too high, the condensing aspect becomes less efficient, maximum 60 degrees C is suggested).

Reply to the comment left by Keith Wellburn at 28/01/2025 – 11:23
I agree with you. I’ve been a tenant: In the old days you knew you had a ‘bad landlord’ if the pilot light in the boiler and the flame in the gas fire were burning yellow rather than blue. 🙂 Even if there were no regulations I would service a boiler as I wouldn’t want a tenant’s death from carbon monoxide poisoning on my conscience.

And yes it could be to do with setup. When I had my last boiler installed I had a system flush and did all the things you do to make it work well. Even so, the effect was quite dramatic: House was warmer, bills went down. The thing is still performing well though; it’s very reliable. Ed Miliband wants me to do something different, unproven and unreliablle.
He is mentioned in this article:

https://www.express.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/2006549/rachel-reeves-triggers-uprising-labour-left-tax

When I read this article I just felt “…yes to everything in this article.”

As I saw the press releases from the Davos summit last week I do confess to feeling some sympathy for Rachel Reeves for the first time as she tried to encourage wealthy foreign investors to invest in Britain. It looked as though the fact that she’d made some mistakes was just beginning to dawn on her and was trying to do something about it. Whenever I’ve seen Rachel Reeves’ (and Angela Rayners’) policies I have experienced what is known as ‘cognitive dissonance’.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/basics/cognitive-dissonance

I.e.. “…you say you want to grow the economy…but you then increase employers’ national insurance…you say you want to build houses…but you punish investors for investing. You say you want to decrease rents…and you pursue policies that will both contribute to the lack of supply and also lay on additional costs, all of which drives rents up.”

And I experience the same cognitive dissonance when I see anything at all from Ed Miliband. “You want us to make our houses better for the climate and better for tenants but you propose no change at all to the tax system that would make it worth doing.”

Those of us who live in houses or rent to other people have to deal with the reality that the likes of Ed Miliband, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves create for us. Our tenants do too. They are not asking us to make our houses colder and drive their energy costs up. Some of them want to be able to continue renting band D houses and they don’t want to be kicked to make way for renovations only to find that *if* the houses are made available to them after the renovation the rent has skyrocketed.

Make it worth it!!!!