Net Zero drive has left our home unsellable: Couple who spent £40,000 following government advice to turn house eco-friendly are hit with near rock-bottom energy efficiency rating
A couple who spent £40,000 to make their home energy efficient are furious to be confronted with an F energy rating.
Tori McKillen and her husband Mhinder Mehta want to sell their home but can’t because most mortgage providers won’t give loans to buyers for properties with an F-rated energy performance certificate (EPC).
Ms McKillen, 54, and Mr Mehta, 57, are furious they followed government advice and plans to improve the energy efficiency of their homes with a series of green home improvements – but are left baffled by what consumer campaigners claim is a flawed system.
The couple put their £400,000 three-bed semi-domestic property in Horseheath, Cambridgeshire, on the market in 1936 to downsize, but were shocked to receive the lowest energy rating.
Ms McKillen said: ‘You try to do the right thing and then you regret it. We feel like it’s bad luck; After everything we’ve done, F feels like a failure.’
He added: ‘We think there is a need to expose the ineffectiveness and impact of a very weak EPC system that penalizes clean electric energy options.
‘We have taken all possible steps towards energy efficiency.’
The couple eliminated the property’s polluting oil heating system and installed an energy-saving electric boiler, double-glazed windows, cavity wall insulation and district heating; This system saves energy by allowing homeowners to set different temperatures for different parts of the house.
Tori McKillen, 53, and her husband Mhinder Mehta, 57, are trying to sell their Cambridgeshire home
Couple had to remove spray foam attic insulation they had installed as part of another plan
Shocked to receive lowest energy rating for £400,000 home
Ms McKillen said it made no sense for ministers to penalize Britons for using electricity while pushing them to use electric vehicles, which require electric charging points at home, as part of the Government’s Net Zero drive.
He and Mr Mehta say they too were ‘stuck’ after being forced to remove spray foam loft insulation they had installed under another Government-recommended scheme because the form of insulation was also rejected by some of the UK’s biggest mortgage lenders.
The couple then had to spend thousands re-roofing the property to remove the spray foam insulation.
And they gave Ms. McKillen, who works in medical communications, and Mr. Mehta, an analyst at the University of Cambridge, another slap in the face; Their EPC report recommends they spend tens of thousands of pounds on solar panels and a wind turbine, which will get them up to the E rating they need to sell the house.
Consumer campaigners Which? They branded EPCs ‘unreliable and in urgent need of reform’.
Ms McKillen said: ‘Some lenders won’t loan with an F rating and we can’t let it with an F rating.
‘There are significant flaws in the methodology used for EPCs as electricity is considered expensive and therefore scores poorly.
‘Heat pumps don’t seem to work very well either, as they run on electricity.’
Couple spent tens of thousands of pounds to make their home energy efficient
They removed the oil heating system and installed an energy-saving electric boiler
Ms McKillen added: ‘Our local MP was appalled to hear this, given its complete disregard for the Government’s entire green energy policy.’
The couple’s MP Pippa Heylings submitted a written question to Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government Steve Reed, seeking to know his plans for EPC reform.
Mr Reed’s Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Samantha Dixon, said the Government was analyzing feedback from consultations on the certificates.
The government said last year that landlords must meet reasonable energy efficiency standards in homes they rent by 2030.
All private landlords in England and Wales will be required to meet EPC C or above by the end of the decade, at a higher level than the lower EPC E level currently required.
Under the plans, homeowners will have the opportunity to choose how they meet energy efficiency standards, with options such as attic insulation, cavity wall insulation and double glazing.
They will also have other options such as solar panels, batteries and low-carbon heating such as smart meters or heat pumps.
The government is proposing a maximum cap of £15,000 that homeowners will not have to spend to meet the EPC C rating; There is the potential for a cap of £10,000 if tenants are charged lower rents or if homes are in lower council tax bands.
The Committee on Climate Change, which advises the UK government on how to achieve its target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050, has recommended that all homes have an EPC rating of at least C by 2021.
But at the time, according to CCC figures, there were 19 million homes in the UK with an EPC below C; This raised concerns that once the new rules came into force, the owners of these properties would view them as unsellable and unleasable.
