dahayeser wrote: » Hi guys, up until now I have only assessed one property built pre 1990. That was a 1960's mid terraced property with some upgrades and it came out as a D rating. Yesterday I assessed a 3 bed semi 101 sq m with a small extension. The main house built in 1954 (94 sq m) and the extension 7 sq m built in 1973. A few quick details .. The wall area 80 and 20 sq m for house and extension respectively, assumed 300mm cavity. Total exposed perimeter of 29.5The good / ok Pvc double glazed windows and doors 16mm air filled 75mm attic insulation 30mm cylinder jacket on 110 litre cylinder living room 15.5% of totalThe bad Timer clock but no other heating controls 15% low energy lighting Primary pipe work uninsulated & no cylinder stat 68% efficient gas boiler adjusted to 64.6% Thermal mass medium-high .. based on - 40% of GF solid 60% suspended - medium Solid external walls - heavy Solid seperating walls - heavy 90% of internal walls also solid - heavy The ugly 3 chimneys & 3 vents Secondry heating sys was a 20% efficient open gas fire 60% of ground floor is suspended I was expecting an E2 or at worst an F but it came out as a "G". I would have expected that the dreaded "G" would be reserved for electric heating, single gased windows, no attic insulation, detached, early 1900's etc ?? Does this sound odd to those of you with more experience ? I have been meticilious with my survery and calculations? Any thoughts much appreciated.
dahayeser wrote: » Cheers men. PM me your address topcatcbr and there will be €1 and 2 smiley faces winging their way to you in todays post! I'd done the calculations alright - changed the boiler, stuck in a flueless gas fire, increased attic insulation etc I was just amazed thatthis house scored so badly give that there are so many tiers possible below this.. I it seems wrong that this house is graded the same as a house built 75 years earlier,has no attic insulation, poor condition single glazed windows and doors, electric storage heating. We have almost 3 times as many grades in our BER scale compared with the UK based on this I would be inclined to think that it may be a bit too technical at the the top level or the scale and a way too general at the lower end.
nouveau_4.0 wrote: » Where can the layman find information about BER ratings? My house was recently rated C1. How does this compare to the norm, what does it mean? Can I try to improve it? Is it possible to get it reassessed afterwards? Ect. Any links to a good site with this type of info?
topcatcbr wrote: » My understanding of this is a system which cannot provide hot water only has an emersion as secondry hw heating. That means primary heating by means of an open fire or stove with backboiler will have an emmersion shown. all other systems will not. The point made to me when i asked this was with all other systems the rads can be turned off by the valves which would mean the boiler was then capable of providing hot water only wthout providing backround heat in the summer. backboilers are not capable of this. There does not need to be any zoning or sofisticated boiler controls or even an isolating valve.
brianmacl wrote: » This is something I raised with the trainer in the BER course and was told that unless there were zone or sofisticated boiler controls then one had to assume that secondary heating was used during the summer.
mcm09 wrote: » Link to one and a half story house drawing - http://www.hvva.org/hvvanews7-5m.JPG (just to give a picture of what I am on about!) I haven’t come across this out in the field but my own house is a one and a half story. While the room in roof option for existing dwellings it doesn’t apply to half stories. Here is how I approached it when practicing on my own house. The external walls come up about 1 meter before the roof takes over. I include this in my wall measurements and get average ceiling height for the dimensions tab. What I am wondering about is the roof. Here is my proposed solution - I put 2 entries for roof. One for the area above the horizontal ceiling where you have some attic over it. i.e. the highest point of the ceiling before it starts to slope down to the external walls. This part was straight forward, I treated it like any other roof. Got the area, measured the insulation and selected insulated at joist level in DEAP.The other roof entry is for the part that slopes up from the external walls. There are 2 areas like this one to the back and one to the front of the house. I got the area of both and added them together for one entry. Removed the area of the 2 velux windows to the back Removed the opening for the dormer window to the front. This actually sits in to the wall so I removed the appropriate portion of the area from the roof and the balance from my external wall measurements. Got the area of the roof over the dormer window and added this to my main area. I then entered this roof area in DEAP as insulated at rafter level – insulation unknown. I ignored the small wall areas to the side of the dormer window – I assumed this would be okay given the loose way DEAP allows you calculate the room in roof. What do you guys make of this procedure? I hadn’t been shown a method of doing this in training so I logical it out as best I could. Any comments, criticism or advice more than welcome. Thanks in advance
mcm09 wrote: » Thanks for the reply topcatcbr, My thought on the room in roof was that it was a facilitate to simplify the the partitions that the room in roof would have bordering unheated areas to its sides and give a general u-value for the entire envelope. As these areas don't exist in a half story I would have thought you wouldn't use the room in roof option.
dunie001 wrote: » I recently completed a BER on a highly insulated Passive House. It came out as a B3:eek:...for the simple reason that DEAP forces the assessor to select Electricity as the main Heating system where no other system is observed. If I could have put in NO main heating system and entered the secondary heating system as Electricity (which is the setup in the house), the Rating would shoot up to an A3 immediately... For some odd reason, DEAP doesn't accept that some houses may not actually require any main heating systems at all...only a secondary one to boost temperatures in cold nights in winter... The house has a Heat Recovery Ventilation system as well... I've no option other than to give a B3 Rating, and I feel defeated by DEAP and SEI that they have that stupid backward rule. Anyone have any idea if the situation could be battled out with SEI so that no main heating system can be selected if applicable and there is adequate proof????
brianmacl wrote: » I was always tought to cover my arse when doing anything with property, considering the value of it I felt it was good advice. I keep decent records of conversations and deals done and I have brought this approach over to BER Assessments. Over that last two weeks, I have come accross a few situations that were not covered by my training course and where not in the DEAP manual. so I emailed SEI, however I have found them very slow to respond and in some cases they haven't got back to me at all. Is this unusual? has anyone else had this experience?
dunie001 wrote: » I've no option other than to give a B3 Rating, and I feel defeated by DEAP and SEI that they have that stupid backward rule. Anyone have any idea if the situation could be battled out with SEI so that no main heating system can be selected if applicable and there is adequate proof????
