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Green for go

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Catherine Deshayes

Improving the energy rating of your home is a sure fire way to add a little bit of value to the property - so get insulating, double-glazing or cladding before the winter sets in - and here's a more pressing reason to do so - the Energy Saving Trust is pushing for a new law to be introduced which would mean that properties with low energy ratings would be banned from being sold or rented from 2015 onwards...

Government advisory body the Energy Saving Trust is keen to push through a new law that would ban all those properties which achieved a low energy rating of F or G on the EPC from being sold or rented out.

This drastic new idea would mean that all properties were forced to improve energy ratings, be that through cladding your hot water tank, insulating your loft, injecting cavity wall filler into the walls or adding double glazing to the windows.

The EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) which is now part of the Home Information Pack that must accompany each home put up for sale, rates a property's energy performance.

F and G are amongst the lowest ratings a property can achieve and signal that the home is not at all energy efficient.

The Energy Saving Trust (EST) is now calling for more grants to be made available to people looking to insulate their homes or create water saving features in order to make them more eco friendly.

For those property owners who don't want to change their properties to achieve a higher energy efficiency rating, the EST says there should be legislation to force them into doing so.

Their energy -inefficient homes - of which there are estimated to be around 5.5 million in the UK - are contributing to climate change and carbon dioxide production.

If the Government is to meet its targets to cut domestic carbon emissions by 29 per cent by 2020 then tough measures are needed.

An EST spokeswoman said, "Our figures show that if all the F and G homes were upgraded to just meet E standards we would save 9.4 million tonnes of carbon emissions a year."

Picture by val-j