BER assessment done....

abbey2000

Hi,

I had a BER assessment done on my house. The house is a detached 3 bed bungalow and I found it very very cold, and very hard to heat up. I was worried that there might be a problem with insulation or something.

The BER assessor said that the attic insulation is ok, but that there is a poor quality beading in the walls. Would that cause the house to be very cold? It would take the house a good 4 hours to heat up in winter once I switch the oil on. And I have the rads on in all rooms at all times. And even when it does heat up, its just not that warm? I have an open fire in the living room to, and would have that on every night in winter.

Is there any other sort of assessment I can get done? I hate my house being this cold and feel that something must be wrong somewhere.

icbarros

If the advisory report that your BER assessor must have given to you does not provide you enough advice to find out the problem you can get a air tightness test, this will detect areas of heating loss. You can also have done a thermal imaging for your house, this is used to identify patterns of heat loss from your property that are invisible to the naked eye. Thermal imaging is conducted using a high tech infrared camera. This camera is able to determine the pattern of heat loss through the fabric of the building and heating systems.
The two tests complement each other. Their combined use indicates air leakage within a property. Once these have been identified, solutions can be decided upon that will increase the energy efficiency of your house.

Carlow52

abbey2000 wrote: »

Hi,

I had a BER assessment done on my house. The house is a detached 3 bed bungalow and I found it very very cold, and very hard to heat up. I was worried that there might be a problem with insulation or something.

The BER assessor said that the attic insulation is ok, but that there is a poor quality beading in the walls. Would that cause the house to be very cold? It would take the house a good 4 hours to heat up in winter once I switch the oil on. And I have the rads on in all rooms at all times. And even when it does heat up, its just not that warm? I have an open fire in the living room to, and would have that on every night in winter.

Is there any other sort of assessment I can get done? I hate my house being this cold and feel that something must be wrong somewhere.

Sounds to me that you did not get a full BER report with recommendations as to how to improve.

The AT and TI tests referred to in post 2 are quite expensive, with uncertain results from the TI in particular, so I would be doing some more research/analysis before going down that route

How old is house?
What rating did u get?
what type of windows?
what type of external doors?
Are they reasonably weather tight?
How much insulation is in the attic?
what types of floors do u have? concrete/timber?
How did he determine the poor quality beading issue? by taste:)

SilverBER

icbarros makes a good point. A BER assessment wont give you anything except an averaged rating for energy usage and the advisory report is, at best, vague. I dont know how your assessor can ascertain that the beading in the walls is of poor quality unless he was given some information on it or had xray vision.

d'Oracle

icbarros wrote: »

If the advisory report that your BER assessor must have given to you does not provide you enough advice to find out the problem you can get a air tightness test, this will detect areas of heating loss. You can also have done a thermal imaging for your house, this is used to identify patterns of heat loss from your property that are invisible to the naked eye. Thermal imaging is conducted using a high tech infrared camera. This camera is able to determine the pattern of heat loss through the fabric of the building and heating systems.
The two tests complement each other. Their combined use indicates air leakage within a property. Once these have been identified, solutions can be decided upon that will increase the energy efficiency of your house.

I'm getting sick of hearing this rubbish.

An AT and TI are, by themselves of little to no use.

Do NOT get a thermal Image done. It is a picture of where your house loosing heat. By the sounds of it, this is everywhere. A TI will tell you nothing of use.

Unless you plan on making your house Air tight, dont do an Air Tightness test. It tells you nothing, NOTHING, of use. Any architect or contractor who is working in energy conservation can tell you that your house is probably not air tight.

The AT and TI are no use on their own to a homeowner. Infact, unless the homeowner is self building, they are no use.

OP, Read around about insulation and energy saving measures.
If this is a real problem for you, contact an architect or a reputable contractor. A local energy agency or the green pages may help you find one.

BER advisory reports are only any good when the assessor knows what they are talking about, which can often not be the case and wont get better with any amount of exams.

SilverBER

There are a lot of BER assessors out there who know very little about anything beyond measuring a room, counting vents and finding the efficiency of a boiler. I remember when I did the course listening to four potential BER assessors talking about how they would market themselves as Environmental Energy Specialists once the exam was passed and they were registered, they even swapped numbers so that they could stay in contact if any of them got too busy. I don't know what they did for a living except one who worked for a property management company. So it would be a mistake to take the advice of a BER assessor at face value. An architect or a proper contractor would be the way to go. The SEI HES contractors list would be a place to start or the RIAI but make sure that you know that they know what they are talking about. I was in a house this morning with a couple who were assured by a contractor that the walls they had internally insulated by him last year were compliant with current building regs - they werent.

MicktheMan

D'Oracle,
I'm getting tired too of you rubbishing two of many tools which I use daily in my profession. Tell me, where did you train to be a thermographer and air tightness tester and how long have you been using the tools? Also, what is the spec of your TI equipment?

To Carlow52,
If the OP had a BER done and still is clueless about what is going on in the house regarding heating, then I would suggest that the BER was very expensive. A proper energy survey employing all the tools required depending on the situation is, imo, worth the cost as the findings direct the client to the improvements required rather than a hit and miss method without any quantiative testing. This is the weakness of the current BER system.

Of course, and this applies to all advise on energy , the assumption is that the consultant is:
1. not trying to sell anything other than advice (i.e. independant)
2. trained
3. experienced
4. capable
5. knowledgeable

... and we all know that the real situation is far from these assumptions

d'Oracle

MicktheMan wrote: »

D'Oracle,
I'm getting tired too of you rubbishing two of many tools which I use daily in my profession. Tell me, where did you train to be a thermographer and air tightness tester and how long have you been using the tools? Also, what is the spec of your TI equipment?

No, but I do work extensively with improving energy efficiency of dwellings.
Asking where my training is from, or the spec of my equipment is, is pointless.
It does nothing to disprove the facts of the matter.

Telling people who have problems heating their home that they need a thermal image is irresponsible. Its unnecessarily expensive for the amount of useful information it produces. It does near nothing to help solve the problem. An architect or contractor may employ the services of a thermal image to identify problem areas, BUT IT IS NO USE TO A HOME OWNER WITH NO KNOWLEDGE OF BUILDING CONSTRUCTION.

Air tightness testing assesses the air permeability of a dwelling.
It yields a property that can be used to measure how quickly hot air escapes a building. To someone who reckons it is taking 4 hours to heat their house, this is USELESS INFORMATION.

The only use for air tightness testing in a house with cold problems is after something has been done about it. Just because you are trained in it, doesnt change that. Telling somebody in the OP's predicament that an air tightness test will help is like selling snake oil and I don't like it.

The real use for air tightness testing is as part of a committed effort to improve the air permeability of part or all of the building fabric. That and achieving the Passive House standard. Both of which are important and require the service of properly trained professionals.

MicktheMan

D'Oracle, the reason I asked about your training/equipment spec is that you come across as an expert on these tools. If you have no training or experience, how can you comment so authoratively on such tools. To put it another way, if you see a botched carpentry job, do you also rubbish the carpentry tools?

In my posts on this matter (both here and on the other thread) I have discussed the merits of this equipment as tools rather than solutions. And thats what they are, tools of the trade. I have never said that TI will solve anybody's energy problems. Perhaps this is a misconception out there, I don't know. But when I carry out an energy survey (note: not a BER) of somebody's home, I use these tools along with a plethora of other tools to identify the various problems. Obviously then the homeowner still needs to have the problems rectified, but at least they will be confident that if the work is done properly they will have a completely different home from both a comfort and energy point of view.

You seem fixated on the air tightness test rather on the blower door as a tool to identify air infiltration problems. I rarely do an official air tightness test but do use the tool as a vital part of the survey. It also educates the homeowner about airtightness and how it affects the heat retention properties of their home. I have yet to have a dissatisified client after my survey and report.

To finish, neither tool are solutions but are ideal for pinpointing weaknesses in the building construction either due to poor design or workmanship. I have had several clients who have used my detailed report to seperate the good builders from the cowboys by discussing the report with the prospective contractor and saying that they have retained me to return to check on their work.

Mick

p.s. I would appreciate if you would refrain from shouting (use of uppercase font). IMO, here is no place for that carry-on