Improving BER Rating

Paul_Mc1988 wrote: »

Insulation is the starting point. It's where most of the savings are made. Low power led lamps are next as they are cheap and long lasting. If the house is getting re-plumbed some good heating controls would be decent.

As Paul said insulation is key upgraded burner to a condenser is vital and surprisingly proper vent covers are things that will jump your rating right up

aloooof wrote: »

Apologies if this is off topic, but any ballpark ideas on what it may cost to get a D or E rated house up to B rating? I know it's "how long is a piece of string" territory, but any info you have would be much appreciated. (We're at the beginning of a process of renovation and don't know where to start, so all advice greatly accepted....)

The first place to start is to understand the difference between the following 2 questions:

1. do you want to get a better BER on paper (say from E to ?
2. do you want to make a cold house affordably comfortable?

On question 1, you can spend quite a lot of money "upgrading" the house so that, on paper, it will be a "B" rated house but in reality it performs like a "D" and cools down rapidly as soon as the heating is turned off for example. The main reason for this underperformance is the over-reliance on box ticking and not enough effort going into understanding the reason on why the house was cold in the first place. Also, toooooo much emphasis on insulation but only paying lip service to airtightness/ventilation.

On question 2, you first need to understand what is going on in the house by testing/surveying it for the 3 forms of heat transfer. Only after this testing is complete should intelligent and targeted upgrade measures be taken which, in general, can have little to do with major insulation or heating upgrades.

I recommend anyone starting out on a renovation to consider these two questions.

Sleepy wrote: »

I don't necessarily disagree but I think the current price differential between new A rated houses and older homes in the same area that would benefit from modernisation doesn't currently match the cost of the work needed to bring the older home up to that standard.

Like others have said, when comparing older houses to new builds, the older houses usually have other advantages for comparison.

For me, in the D18 market 2-3 years ago houses in estates built in the 70's and 80's were achieving very similar prices regardless of modernisation or money spent on them. From what I can tell, the price margin on those propertys is now increasing and the older colder houses are sitting there for much longer.

Pheonix10 wrote: »

Great post. Curious about what would typically be the top 3 things in terms of improving B and reducing heating costs.

1. airtightness
2. insulation
3. efficient heating

in that order

Sleepy wrote: »

Would you, or anyone else, have a ballpark cost for getting these tests done on a early 20th century terrace house of circa 100sqm? Any links to those providing the testing would be good (or even the correct phrase to google, my searches just return BER surveyors).

The air-tightness /ventilation question is an interesting topic for me as our house is a mass concrete build with no wall insulation (and limited scope for adding any due to conservation status on the exterior) and no DPC.

Try googling for 'domestic heat survey' or 'thermal imaging survey'

Sleepy wrote: »

Would you, or anyone else, have a ballpark cost for getting these tests done on a early 20th century terrace house of circa 100sqm? Any links to those providing the testing would be good (or even the correct phrase to google, my searches just return BER surveyors).

The air-tightness /ventilation question is an interesting topic for me as our house is a mass concrete build with no wall insulation (and limited scope for adding any due to conservation status on the exterior) and no DPC.

Ballpark between 4 and 600 euro to include blower door, thermal imaging and full written report.

Google "Heat loss survey"

gwakamoley wrote: »

I've recently moved in to an end-of-terrace 60 year old house. It's rating was advertised as F, bordering on G.

The first job we did was replace the old oil boiler with a modern gas boiler, and get modern rads with TRVs and a proper controls system. This made a huge difference to how easy the house is to keep at a nice temperature. The BER rating is now on the upper end of E.

And you know what, it's such a comfortable house to heat. The heating only comes on for a while to get up to temperature and rarely comes on again for the evening because the house is actually well insulated, but because the BER assessment has so many assumptions and estimations about old houses you'd swear from it's rating that it's an ice-box.

One thing that's really dragging down our rating is there's a garage attached to the house which is being included in the rating despite it being non-habitable because it could be a "utility room". Insulating that would bring us up to a D2. That sums up how much of a box ticking exercise the BER is. The lawnmower would be delighted with the extra heat.

Personally I find our E rated house more comfortable than the stuffy A rated houses of others people I know.

stuffy a rated houses? what do you mean?

Cyrus wrote: »

stuffy a rated houses? what do you mean?

I find them almost too warm and the air can feel dead and stuffy. Maybe that's just me but that's my experience anyway.

gwakamoley wrote: »

I find them almost too warm and the air can feel dead and stuffy. Maybe that's just me but that's my experience anyway.

I've had this before, A rated houses that are almost claustrophobic they're so stuffy.

Went to a cousins house at Christmas last year and the weather was mild anyway. No heating on or anything but the house was roasting. Tried opening the vents that were part of the windows but some of the older people then were complaing about drafts. Could not win.

My own parents got their 1990's extension redone last year and its gone from being the coldest part of the house to by far the warmest. They have the vents open most of the year just to let a bit of cooler air in.

Not to say an energy efficient house is a bad thing, but they can nearly be too effective at times.

Bluefoam wrote: »

So... A rated houses are bad because theres a possible controlable draught when you open a window, but old houses are better because they have consistent draughts?

Not what I said at all. Where did I say that A rated houses are bad? I said that I have experiences stuffiness in them, agreeing with another poster.

If you read the conversation, people are simply saying that getting an old house up to A is not always necessary. That getting up to a good B or something is quite achievable and perfectly comfortable for most.

There are more than 2 options available, its not a choice of A or F ratings only.

gwakamoley wrote: »

This was my point. That a poor rating on an old house does not tell the whole story because the assessment system is fairly flawed and could be perfectly comfortable for many people.

i think we can agree the rating system is flawed, but we can also agree that new build a rated houses are built to the best available standard regardless of how some arbitrary steps can get you from and E to a D rating or whatever.

also the comfort of the house is one thing, the cost to heat it is the other.

Cyrus wrote: »

i think we can agree the rating system is flawed, but we can also agree that new build a rated houses are built to the best available standard regardless of how some arbitrary steps can get you from and E to a D rating or whatever.

also the comfort of the house is one thing, the cost to heat it is the other.

Foolish assumption. They're most likely to be built to the lowest possible price that can achieve compliance.

Cyrus wrote: »

in general terms that will be a higher standard than what was built before it.

and i know how my a rated house is built, its to an excellent standard.

I wouldnt have any concerns about housed built from 2014 onwards re build quality, its probably the 20 year period before that that would give me issues on that score.

The issue for me is that 90% of new builds just arent to my personal taste and the density requirements in my preferred area mean that they're all going to be relatively close together, so things that were important to us, like being detached, having side access and a big back garden were unlikely in a new build.

My OH likes to be able to play music loudly which would not be great in a 3 story terrace. He also has a lot of bikes, so the hosue we bought enables us to have a massive shed at the back of the garden, but still plenty of space. He has side access to bring them in any out (they went through the house in our last place which drove me spare because the walls were in bits)

All of these factors were more important to us that an energy rating.

On the subject of the of the value of the BER.... I've not found our new house that bad, although granted its not been extremely cold yet.

We're getting some work done in the coming weeks to insulate the attic which should help. The windows are double glazed (although some of it older double glazing) I really don't think its going to be that bad.

Long term plan is to rip the place apart in 5+ years so we'll manage with warm jumpers until then

beauf wrote: »

Its usually dependent on the builder you use.

A bad builder will be consistently bad, likewise a good one will be consistently good.

The only way to know good anything is, is by measuring and testing it.
Air tightness and low heating costs can be calculated.

again i am speaking in general terms, building regulations now are much more stringent than they were before, therefore in general houses are built to a higher standard.

the same bad builder will build bad houses regardless, but they will be worse when stds were less onerous.