What Do People Actually Know About EPCs?

An Energy Performance Certificate rates a property's energy efficiency on a scale from A (most efficient) to G (least efficient). It's produced by a government-accredited Domestic Energy Assessor and is required by law before a property can be sold or rented.

But beyond the legal requirement, an EPC contains something genuinely useful: an assessment of the building's energy characteristics, estimated running costs, and a list of recommended improvements. Most people never look at it that closely.

After carrying out more than 1,000 EPC and energy assessments on homes across Shropshire and beyond, I've noticed something rather surprising. A lot of people simply don't know what an EPC is, what it does, or why it matters. And that's not necessarily their fault.

For many homeowners and tenants, an EPC is just another document associated with a property. Something produced when a house is sold or rented, filed away somewhere and promptly forgotten — until they suddenly need it.

This is one I hear surprisingly often. I arrive at a property to carry out an EPC assessment and the occupant expects me to be an electrician, a gas engineer, a meter reader — or sometimes simply someone who is going to take a quick look at the boiler.

An EPC assessment is none of those things.

An EPC assessor is assessing the energy characteristics of the property. That means looking at things such as the construction of the building, walls, floors and roofs, windows and doors, heating systems, hot water provision, insulation, lighting, renewable technologies, heating controls, and the property's dimensions and layout.

And yes, that means I need to actually look around the property. If you'd like to understand exactly what happens during a visit, the domestic EPC survey page explains the full process.

Here's another situation I encounter regularly. Someone has bought a property. They have viewed it, negotiated a price, had a mortgage agreed, exchanged contracts, and completed. And somewhere amongst all those documents was an Energy Performance Certificate.

Did they read it? Often, no. Did they understand it? Sometimes, no. Did they know the property's EPC rating before making an offer? Not necessarily.

And yet the EPC can contain useful information about the property's energy efficiency, estimated energy costs and potential recommendations for improvement. It isn't just another piece of paperwork.

For landlords, an EPC isn't simply a document that is nice to have. Energy efficiency requirements can affect whether a property can legally be let, subject to the applicable rules, exemptions and circumstances. That makes the EPC much more than a tick-box exercise.

Currently, all rental properties in England must have a minimum EPC rating of E. Properties rated F or G cannot be legally let without a registered exemption. Proposed 2030 regulations would raise this minimum to C for all tenancies — and the new Home Energy Model (HEM) methodology is expected to come into force from 2027, changing how properties are scored.

A landlord needs to understand the property's current rating and, importantly, what that rating means in the context of the regulations applying to their property. A recommendation on an EPC isn't automatically a legal requirement to carry out that improvement. Likewise, a property's EPC rating doesn't tell the whole story about the condition of the building.

The certificate, the regulations and the actual property all need to be considered together. For a full breakdown of the compliance picture, the landlord EPC compliance page covers MEES, the HEM gas boiler cap, and the grandfathering strategy.

There is another area that many homeowners don't think about: mortgages. Some lenders offer mortgage products or pricing that take a property's energy efficiency or EPC rating into account for certain products, subject to their own current eligibility criteria. This varies by lender and changes over time, so it's never a guarantee of a particular rate or offer.

The important point is simply this: your EPC is no longer necessarily just about selling or renting your home. It can form part of the wider conversation around the financial value and energy efficiency of a property.

If you want to see the numbers, our sister site Energy Guardian has a Green Mortgage Calculator that lets you model the difference a better EPC rating could make to your borrowing costs. If you're thinking about what your current rating means for your options, check the instant quote calculator or see if we cover your area.

This is where things get really interesting. An EPC is not a prediction of exactly what you will pay for energy. It is a standardised assessment based on the characteristics of the property and assumptions used by the EPC methodology.

Your actual energy consumption depends on how the property is occupied and used. Two houses with very similar EPC ratings can have completely different energy bills. One household might heat every room all day; another might heat only the living room for a few hours. One person might take long, hot showers; another might take short ones. One family might have a tumble dryer running several times a week; another might hardly use one.

The EPC can't know your individual lifestyle. And that's why the gap between what an EPC says and what actually happens in a home is such an important conversation.

For a deeper look at this, Energy Guardian explores why your EPC doesn't predict your energy bill .

I've spent years walking through people's homes carrying out EPC and retrofit assessments. And one thing is abundantly clear: a house is not a number.

An EPC rating is useful. The underlying assessment is useful. The recommendations can be useful. The regulatory requirements are important. But none of those things can completely describe what it is actually like to live in a building.

That's why I believe we need to start looking at EPCs differently. Not simply as a certificate to obtain — but as a starting point for understanding the relationship between your home, your energy use and your energy costs.