Energy Efficiency Advice

Unlike many firms offering Energy Performance Certificates here at Green Pebble we are energy efficiency specialists. This means that not only are our Domestic Energy Assessors fully qualified and accredited to carry out inspections and issue Energy Performance Certificates, but they also have an excellent knowledge of how you can increase your home’s energy efficiency and the types of financial assistance available to help towards the cost of installing energy efficiency measures.

Before you get an Energy Performance Certificate – our advice

We want to help make sure your home achieves the highest energy efficiency and environmental impact ratings possible and are more than happy to provide you with advice on the most cost effective and practical ways to do this. As well as improving the rating you will receive on your EPC, making some energy efficiency improvements before the inspection will also mean that you benefit from lower energy bills before you move home.

Simple, low-cost tips

1. Replace all of the bulbs in fixed lighting outlets (i.e. not portable lamps) with energy saving bulbs. These can be purchased at any DIY store or supermarket for as little as £1 each and making sure that all of your bulbs are energy saving can account for up to 1 point on your energy rating.
2. When we carry out an inspection we look at the type of jacket on your hot water cylinder, its thickness and how well fitting it is, as loose fitting jackets are much less effective at trapping heat. Whether you have a normal, spray foam or even no jacket on your hot water cylinder then making sure that your jacket is at least 80mm thick and well fitting could help improve your energy rating quite significantly. Adding an 80mm jacket to an un-insulated cylinder could improve the energy rating by around 5-7 points (and even more in some cases!). Jackets can be purchased from most DIY stores for around £10-£20.
3. The recommended level of loft insulation is now 250-270mm so if there is less than this in your loft then adding some DIY loft insulation to part or all of the loft space could help to significantly increase your energy rating. Rolls of insulation 100mm, 150mm, 170mm and 200mm thick can be purchased from larger DIY stores for around £12-30 each, depending on the brand and material. Improving your loft insulation from around 25mm of insulation to 250mm could improve your energy rating by 4 or 5 points.

If you are willing to make a slightly greater financial investment then making improvements such as installing thermostatic radiator valves (TRVs) to all of your radiators and fitting a heating programmer and room thermostat can improve your rating by several points. Installing cavity wall and full loft insulation can reduce your home’s heat loss by up to 33% and 35% respectively.

These measures can cost from £100 for heating controls to £500 for professionally-installed insulation measures depending on factors such as the size of the property and any existing insulation/TRVs etc. For insulation measures, most households could receive a discount of several hundred pounds on the usual cost of installation and some may even qualify for totally free insulation.

Visit www.est.org.uk/gid or see our partnerships page for more information.

After your inspection – our advice

Once your Green Pebble assessor has completed the inspection of your home and generated your Energy Performance Certificate we will write to you advising you of the recommendations for improving your home’s energy efficiency and will provide you with details of any grants for which you may be eligible. In addition to large-scale grant schemes run by the Government or through energy suppliers, many local authorities run grant and loan schemes to help their residents install energy efficiency measures. A list of links to some of the local authorities we work with can be found on partnerships page.

Remember, if you have any questions or need any advice on improving your home’s energy efficiency, you can always contact us.