Electric storage heaters and bers

limrickguy44

I own a semi detached house on the outskirts of Limerick and put it to sell recently. I had to get one of them BER certs done for it. It was built in the mid 90s and has electric storage heaters and water heated by electricity. My ber cert came to an E1. The BER company said that the main reason my rating was so poor was down to the storage heaters not being to energy efficient. Is this right, and what could be done to improve the rating, re a new heating system?

CJhaughey

Basically the way the BER works is to penalise the use of electricity and fossil fuels, so the only way to improve the rating is to use renewables and insulate as well as you can.
Solar thermal for DHW could be worth something.
You will have to look at the costs involved before trying to do anything about the cert.

blackpudlian

Electricity is heavily penalised in the BER scheme, fossil fuels much less so.
It is not true to say the only way to improve the BER is to use renewables.
To improve your rating you'd need to get away from electrical heating, i.e.
a gas or oil boiler providing hot water & space heating. This is not a simple or cheap change to make but it will improve your rating to a D, at least, maybe higher.
A solar panel would improve it further.

Three things to bear in mind:
(1) this does not mean the house requires more energy to heat it
than an equivalent house with an oil boiler (it will use slightly less energy, in fact), something you can point out to any potential buyers;
(2) the chances are that most people looking to buy a house will not be making the BER the deciding factor. The other usual factors (location, location,...) are still much more important to most people so I wouldn't be too concerned with the E1 rating from that perspective;
(3) the company who did your BER assessment should have given you a report indicating how you would improve the BER, they are legally required to do this so if you haven't received such a report you should chase them up on it

Energysaver

limrickguy44 wrote: »

I own a semi detached house on the outskirts of Limerick and put it to sell recently. I had to get one of them BER certs done for it. It was built in the mid 90s and has electric storage heaters and water heated by electricity. My ber cert came to an E1. The BER company said that the main reason my rating was so poor was down to the storage heaters not being to energy efficient. Is this right, and what could be done to improve the rating, re a new heating system?

Electric heaters are 100% efficient in that if you put in 1kW of electricity you will get 1kW of heat out to directly heat your house. However, the BER rating is based on primary energy use and electricity is considered secondary energy and is generated (in Ireland) mainly from primary energy resources such as oil, coal, gas and peat with only a relatively small proportion from renewable resources such as wind. In order to deliver 1kW of electricity to your house, the ESB uses approx. 2.7kW of energy from primary energy fossil fuels due to the low efficiency of electricity generation and the losses associated with the transmission from the power station to your house. Therefore, even though your heater is actually 100% efficient, it is effectively only about 37% efficient it terms of primary energy use (1/2.7 * 100%). Compare that to a modern condensing oil boiler which is typically over 90% efficient. To generate 1kW of heat from a domestic oil boiler would only require about 1.25kW of primary energy from oil (taking account of boiler efficiency and the energy required to extract, process and deliver the oil to your house).

Therefore to heat your house with electricity requires about twice the primary energy that would be required using oil, hence a lower BER rating.

To improve your BER rating you must reduce your primary energy use. This can be done by:

• Improving the insulation.
• Improving the airtightness of the building (but make sure there is sufficient ventilation as required by the building regs) - i.e. stop unnecessary drafts around windows, doors and attic hatches.
• Using primary energy more efficiently - reduce or eliminate electricity for heating and hot water. Use modern efficient condensing oil or gas boilers instead.
• Using renewable energy such as solar thermal panels for hot water.

As mentioned in other posts, you should have received an advisory report from your BER assessor.

rayh

Energysaver wrote: »

effectively only about 37% efficient it terms of primary energy use (1/2.7 * 100%). .

Energysaver - In your post you use a 37% efficiency or the 2.7 factor which I assume you have taken from DEAP, but do you know where this factor comes from as I understand that electricity generation in Ireland is 40% efficient and we loose a further 14% in transmission to our homes which I calculate as a 2.9 factor or 34% ?

Energysaver

rayh. The 2.7 figure was an approx. figure that I used just for illustrating my point and it may well not be 100% correct. If you think it's 2.9 then I'm not going to argue. Not at this time of night anyway:)

Phaictan

Does the BER rating take into consideration whether your electricity supply comes from a supplier such as Airtricity and hence is (mostly) a renewable source?

Or do they tar all electricity supplies with the same brush?

CJhaughey

Phaictan wrote: »

Does the BER rating take into consideration whether your electricity supply comes from a supplier such as Airtricity and hence is (mostly) a renewable source?

Or do they tar all electricity supplies with the same brush?

All equally bad in the Big bad BER.:D
You might be with Airtricity but the next occupant might use Dirtbag Coaltricity, so the assessment is of the dwelling not the occupants choice of elec. supplier.

Chimpster

worldcitizent wrote: »

<SNIP>

:rolleyes: