BER F

NewCorkLad

I'm looking at buying a house with BER F rating. It's a detached house built in the 1970's. The walls have recently been pumped with insulation and it has double glazed window's. It has a small extension built on to the side which does feel cold compared to the rest of the house. I know this is not a huge amount of information to go on but was just looking for some quick opinions. Is this something to be worried about or is this the standard for old houses and could it cost alot to make this a warm comfortable home. Wondering if its worth while getting an engineer in or should I just walk away. Thanks.

RITwing

Don't walk away just because of this. Changing out the boiler - alone - could cause the rating to jump to E or even D. You could expect to budget €25-30k on insulation upgrades and consequetial decorations and finishes to get to C. And stop there where ROI begins to tail off.

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BryanF

NewCorkLad wrote: »

1. I'm looking at buying a house with BER F rating. It's a detached house built in the 1970's.
2. The walls have recently been pumped with insulation and it has double glazed window's. It has a small extension built on to the side which does feel cold compared to the rest of the house.
3. I know this is not a huge amount of information to go on but was just looking for some quick opinions. Is this something to be worried about or is this the standard for old houses and could it cost alot to make this a warm comfortable home.
4. Wondering if its worth while getting an engineer in or should I just walk away. Thanks.

1. get an eng to do visual structural survey, waste treatment assessment, comment on planning & building compliance
2. the condition & layout of the extension will determine whether its suitable or if it should be knocked and new extension constructed. i my experience often times the 70/80's extension were poorly constructed DIY efforts and more often than not poorly laid-out/connected to the existing house. but only a site assessment will determine this
3. the question is what is in your budget to update air-tightness/insulate/plumb/wire/ heat (ie retrofit) i would allow between €200/500 per m2 excluding any requirement to extend - thats my 'quick 'blind' opinion'
4. only you can answer that armed with feedback from Eng, builder & energy assesor

NewCorkLad

Thanks for the quick answers.

Essentially the answer is get an engineer in. My main worry was that it would cost a fortune to make it livable in the short term no matter what, but if the upgrade of a boiler makes that much difference, its worth having a better look at the house.

MicktheMan

NewCorkLad wrote: »

I'm looking at buying a house with BER F rating. It's a detached house built in the 1970's. The walls have recently been pumped with insulation and it has double glazed window's. It has a small extension built on to the side which does feel cold compared to the rest of the house. I know this is not a huge amount of information to go on but was just looking for some quick opinions. Is this something to be worried about or is this the standard for old houses and could it cost alot to make this a warm comfortable home. Wondering if its worth while getting an engineer in or should I just walk away. Thanks.

Just because it has an "F" rating doesn't necessarily mean it will be cold or hard to heat, the same way an "A" or "B" rated house doesn't mean it will be warm, easily heated.
You won't know unfortunately until you live in it.

Having said that, sometimes it is a lot easier to do a proper energy upgrade on a 1970's house than a "modern" one.

If you had an experienced energy consultant / engineer do a survey and advise you your options may be a way to proceed with a bit of confidence of what you are buying.

Southern Comfort

Just saw your thread after I'd posted about a BER rating of F that I got for my holiday home. I expected to get a slightly better rating than that.

How much insulation is in the attic of the house you're looking at? Mine has 100 mm (4 inches) of fibreglass. I'm hoping to increase that to 300 mm shortly.

My house is easy to heat and holds the heat reasonably well. It's also a very dry house with no draughts worth mentioning.

I also had the windows and external doors replaced about 8 years ago and got "low e" glass.

I'm mentioning all of this because I expected that the BER rating would be a bit better......