Display energy certificates - transitional arrangements

Naomi Makin
Member - 3 posts

"how a building is performing" is assessed by how much energy is used in that building, and by extension , how much carbon dioxide is produced by the use of that buidling.
Since the emission of carbon dioxide by buildings, processes, vehicles etc is a significant contributor to global warming and climate change, are you suggesting you don`t care about climate change, when that in itself is one of the primary contributors to the exponetial increase in food shortage. Global warming can, and probably will further impact on world food shortages..... DEC`s are intended to reduce our emissions and that`s the bigger picture. Short sighted government bashing isn`t going to improve food shortage, concerted combined effort from worldwide governemtns, supported by forward thinking individuals might !

Steve Winterbourne
Member - 1 post

I'm fully with Peter on this one. Sadly, too many well-intentioned people have been caught up in the frenzy around the completely unproven theory of climate change (notice how its name has changed? It used to be called global warming until recent evidence showed that the earth has in fact COOLED DOWN slightly in the last year!). There is increasing evidence that the world temperature rises have reveresed, no evidence that the earlier rise was caused by man-made CO2 emissions, and lots of evidence that it wasn't.

It is unfortunate that unimaginably large amounts of money are or will be spent on solving a non-existant problem, when there are so many real problems out there.

Display energy certificates are nine tenths useless, but I concede they will give the public a stick with which to beat public authorities if public buildings continue to be energy inefficient and thus waste public funds on unnecessary amounts of expensive fuel.

Kevin Brown
Member - 110 posts

Sea bird colonies failng because prey species (sand eels) are moving north into colder waters, Cattle egrets breeding in Somerset, Little Egrets colonising the south of England. Sunfish and turtles now regularly encountered in British waters. I'm keeping open-minded about it, myself.

Ian Walford
Member - 24 posts

with rising fuel costs you don't beleive that knowing how much energy a building is wasting and hence how much money is being wasted?

janet burton
Member - 84 posts

Besides the advantages of encouraging public organisations to improve their energy consumption, there is the advantage of getting the public used to the idea of the certificates - they are now essential as part of the information that must be provided when you buy a home, and will soon be necessary on rented properties too.
It is an awareness issue - do you know how much energy your home or workplace is wasting due to poor insulation or badly controlled heating systems? Did anyone else see the news article on the 'hotspot' house identified by police as possibly a drugs factory, when actually it was just a poorly insulated (newly built) house in a street of well-insulated ones?

Andrew Walsh
Member - 6 posts

Agree that this appears to be a knee jerk reaction, which doesn’t actually address the issue of, poorly managed, insulated and run buildings.
Also lets not forget that the legislation only refers to “occupiers of buildings with a total useful floor area that exceeds 1,000 square meters, where the occupier is either a public authority, or is an institution that provides public services to a large number of persons and is frequently visited by those persons”
It is not, as some staff and building users appear to think, a standard requirement for all buildings, offices and work premises.

I think the main area of growth we will see in the requirement to have buildings rated will be the inccrease in consultants offering their services, similar to the amount of consultants who sprang up in the wake of the requirements top carry out Disability access surveys of buildings in light of DDA requirements…. I wonder what the carbon emissions will be for all the Company cars driving up and down the country filled with consultants and building managers eagerly surveying their building for energy rating certs,, or am I being cynical

Naomi Makin
Member - 3 posts

Two comments following on from Andrew`s contribution........

1) NOW it only applies to premises exceeding 1000m2, but there are already deadlines being discussed within CLG for application to all public buildings. I think ALL buildings full stop is only a matter of time, and
2) carbon emissions from company cars, that`s why the bulk of these surveys are based on desktop studies from consumption data against benchmarks.

Gemma Birch
Member - 7 posts

I think a vital point is being missed here.
When you go to buy a property whether it is for residential or business use, the ratings show you how to improve the property.
What the energy assessment does is give the purchaser an idea of how much it will cost if they were to implement energy saving ideas into the property.
If I was looking to purchase a business property I would be very interested in how much I would need to invest in for the building to be more energy efficient before buying it.If you ahve a building that has a bad rating and the assessment shows you what to implement and how much it will cost, I am sure you would rather buy a property that had taken those steps as it would mean you wouldnt be spending your money from the business on making the bills cheaper each year.

Would you rather have an energy eating house/property that cost you a fortune to run from your businesses profit or indeeed your own hard earned money if it is residential, or would you rather choose a property that does not need much work energy wise and gives out manageable bills throughout the year?

Obviiuskly if the building has a low rating you can implement changes but why would you want to pay for that?
There are no big red signs on buildings telling what power usuage etc are in them so how else can you see the good form the bad?

With the rise in bills all over the country and indeed the world now, I know that I would arther purchase a property residential or business where I would not have to pay out a lot of money in order for my property to save energy and money on bills each year.

Therefore I do not believe that it is a total waste of time and a means of just showing how rubbish a building is or indeed of sqeezing the public for money. Yes it is a bit frustrating to have to pay for a HIP pack (if residential) and and energy assesment (if commercial) but it has to be done and moaning about it isnt going to change it. It is information for all the buyers, investors out there. We should all be more enegry efficient and at the end of the day it will save you money. Isnt that something everyone wants especially with prices nowadays?