Worse than expected BER rating......

Southern Comfort

I have a hoilday home and recently had a BER assessment done on it. I don't really want to say where the house is. The man who did the BER is a nice guy who charged a reasonable price and did it when he said he would. Very easy to deal with.

Brief info on the house..... Built in late 70's. Single storey, detached. About 900 sq. ft. Cavity wall construction. 4 inch cavity pumped with white bead about 10 years ago. Attic is insulated with 100 mm of standard fibreglass roll insulation. All windows (incl. frames) were replaced with 24 mm double glazing with low E coating about 8 years. Front and back doors replaced with PVA ones. Only about a sq. foot of double glazed glass on each. (5 point locking system so totally draught proof). The main living/dining room and the hallway (small) have storage heaters and the bedrooms have electric convector heaters. Living/dining room area has laminate wooden floors with no insulation underneath. The bedrooms have carpet on the concrete floors. There's an ordinary fireplace with an open chimney (no baffle plate, etc.). The only vent is for the cooker hood. Immersion for hot water. Cylinder, replaced a few years ago, has full manufacturer's insulation coating.

I got an F BER rating on the house. I was a little disappointed with this. G is the poorest rating available, I think. I would have expected that the work done on it would have brought it up a bit higher than that.

Thoughts anyone............?

MOTM

Southern Comfort wrote: »

I have a hoilday home and recently had a BER assessment done on it. I don't really want to say where the house is. The man who did the BER is a nice guy who charged a reasonable price and did it when he said he would. Very easy to deal with.

Brief info on the house..... Built in late 70's. Single storey, detached. About 900 sq. ft. Cavity wall construction. 4 inch cavity pumped with white bead about 10 years ago. Attic is insulated with 100 mm of standard fibreglass roll insulation. All windows (incl. frames) were replaced with 24 mm double glazing with low E coating about 8 years. Front and back doors replaced with PVA ones. Only about a sq. foot of double glazed glass on each. (5 point locking system so totally draught proof). The main living/dining room and the hallway (small) have storage heaters and the bedrooms have electric convector heaters. Living/dining room area has laminate wooden floors with no insulation underneath. The bedrooms have carpet on the concrete floors. There's an ordinary fireplace with an open chimney (no baffle plate, etc.). The only vent is for the cooker hood. Immersion for hot water. Cylinder, replaced a few years ago, has full manufacturer's insulation coating.

I got an F BER rating on the house. I was a little disappointed with this. G is the poorest rating available, I think. I would have expected that the work done on it would have brought it up a bit higher than that.

Thoughts anyone............?

Looks like you've posted twice. Maybe delete 1 of them...

sydthebeat

Southern Comfort wrote: »

I have a hoilday home and recently had a BER assessment done on it. I don't really want to say where the house is. The man who did the BER is a nice guy who charged a reasonable price and did it when he said he would. Very easy to deal with.

Brief info on the house..... Built in late 70's. Single storey, detached. About 900 sq. ft. Cavity wall construction. 4 inch cavity pumped with white bead about 10 years ago. Attic is insulated with 100 mm of standard fibreglass roll insulation. All windows (incl. frames) were replaced with 24 mm double glazing with low E coating about 8 years. Front and back doors replaced with PVA ones. Only about a sq. foot of double glazed glass on each. (5 point locking system so totally draught proof). The main living/dining room and the hallway (small) have storage heaters and the bedrooms have electric convector heaters. Living/dining room area has laminate wooden floors with no insulation underneath. The bedrooms have carpet on the concrete floors. There's an ordinary fireplace with an open chimney (no baffle plate, etc.). The only vent is for the cooker hood. Immersion for hot water. Cylinder, replaced a few years ago, has full manufacturer's insulation coating.

I got an F BER rating on the house. I was a little disappointed with this. G is the poorest rating available, I think. I would have expected that the work done on it would have brought it up a bit higher than that.

Thoughts anyone............?

completely expected.

the points your home falls down on starting from the worst.

1. your main heating system is electric panel heaters. By the time you apply the energy conversion factor (ie how inefficient our grid system is) these heaters are running at about 40% efficiency.

2. The age of your house. Although youve blown your walls, your floors would still be deemed to be uninsulated. 100m in your attic is nowhere near good enough. 300mm is standard.

3. the size of your house. The assessment is tougher on smaller houses, especially single storey ones due to (a) having much more heat loss area in the envelope (b) having a higher living area percentage which means your living area as a ratio to the total floor area is higher in a small house.

4. the open fire place. this is a 30% efficient heater which is assumed to give you 10% of your heating needs.


if you put another 200mm quilt into the attic and changed your heating system to a condensing oil boiler rad system with decent controls, you should hit the C band.

but the single biggest issue is your electric panel heating system as being your main heating system.

Southern Comfort

sydthebeat wrote: »

completely expected.

the points your home falls down on starting from the worst.

1. your main heating system is electric panel heaters. By the time you apply the energy conversion factor (ie how inefficient our grid system is) these heaters are running at about 40% efficiency.

2. The age of your house. Although youve blown your walls, your floors would still be deemed to be uninsulated. 100m in your attic is nowhere near good enough. 300mm is standard.

3. the size of your house. The assessment is tougher on smaller houses, especially single storey ones due to (a) having much more heat loss area in the envelope (b) having a higher living area percentage which means your living area as a ratio to the total floor area is higher in a small house.

4. the open fire place. this is a 30% efficient heater which is assumed to give you 10% of your heating needs.


if you put another 200mm quilt into the attic and changed your heating system to a condensing oil boiler rad system with decent controls, you should hit the C band.

but the single biggest issue is your electric panel heating system as being your main heating system.

Thanks Syd. The guy who did the BER did say that the heaters were a major negative factor in calculating the result. It's a holiday home that's used mostly in the summer - rarely used during the rest of the year. I had to get the BER done as I rent it in the summer. I had planned to add a lot more insulation to the attic anyway but I don't see myself changing the heating system unless it's going to have usage during the rest of the year.

You refer to the panel heaters and how inefficient they are. Are the storage heaters regarded as being inefficient also?

Southern Comfort

MOTM wrote: »

Looks like you've posted twice. Maybe delete 1 of them...

No I only posted once...

sydthebeat

Southern Comfort wrote: »

Thanks Syd. The guy who did the BER did say that the heaters were a major negative factor in calculating the result. It's a holiday home that's used mostly in the summer - rarely used during the rest of the year. I had to get the BER done as I rent it in the summer. I had planned to add a lot more insulation to the attic anyway but I don't see myself changing the heating system unless it's going to have usage during the rest of the year.

You refer to the panel heaters and how inefficient they are. Are the storage heaters regarded as being inefficient also?

yeah pretty much the same, only slightly better

one thing to understand is that the BER assessment is not a reflection of how you use the house, its a tool that is used to compare like with like

galwaytt

....for a holiday home, for summer holiday lets, the BER is quite irrelevant.

Your main consumption for a holiday home in summer lets is DHW supply, so that might be something to look at. As for the rest, BryanF kinda nailed it really.

Unless you're getting mega-rent for it, it'll may not pay to upgrade the heating system.

BryanF

You mean Syd

galwaytt

BryanF wrote: »

You mean Syd

yikes ! mea maxima culpa !!