The Energy Performance Certificate, or EPC, tells you how energy efficient your property is.

The purpose of the Certificate is to give you or another person a clear indication of how much it will cost you or them to heat and light the property. It provides estimates in GBP of how much it will cost to light, heat and run hot water through the property in a year.

You must order an EPC whenever a property is built, sold or rented, and you must order an EPC for potential buyers and tenants before you market your property in England and Wales. In Scotland, you must also display your Energy Performance Certificate somewhere so that it is visible in your property when you are marketing your property for sale/ rent. You do not need an EPC for places of worship or for temporary buildings, but you will need one to qualify for the Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive.

The Energy Performance Certificate also lists estimated yearly CO2 emissions in tonnes and estimated yearly energy use in kWh/m2. It gives a property an Energy Efficiency Rating from A to G and also an Environment Impact Rating from A to G. Here is a digital scan of the front page of an Energy Performance Certificate created in 2010 for a 2-bed end-terrace house:

An Energy Performance Certificate is actually comprised of a up to 10 pages. Page 1 of an Energy Performance Certificate is as pictured above. It shows you how energy efficient your property is visually using a bar chart with A being very energy efficient and G being very energy inefficient. As you can see on the example Certificate above, that particular property has a lower than average efficiency rating (D-E) with carbon dioxide emissions of 5.2 tonnes every year (estimated) and an energy use of 348 Kwh/m2 per year (estimated). It’s important to remember when looking at an EPC that all figures on an EPC are estimated – none are exact.

Crucially, an EPC also tells you what changes you can make to improve the energy efficiency of your home and it provides a summary of your home’s energy performance related features. The elements that summary will include are your walls, roofs, floors, windows, main heating, main heating controls, secondary heating, hot water and lighting. It will rate these elements from Very Poor to Excellent.

How to get an EPC

You can get an EPC very easily. All you have to do is find an accredited assessor and they’ll assess your property and produce the certificate. To find an assessor, use the official Department for Communities and Local Government’s Find a Domestic Energy Assessor tool. Alternatively, use Google and search for ‘EPC Certificate + location‘ (put your location where we put location) and you will have a list of authorised assessors in your area.