Background
Legal requirements, which have been in place since October 2008, dictate that
all properties must be able to provide an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC)
prior to sale or rental. This certificate records and displays information
about the energy efficiency of a building, providing a rating for the carbon
emissions produced by the property, and must be carried out by a qualified
Domestic Energy Assessor (DEA).
The process of completing an EPC manually can be very labour intensive. Prior
to the implementation of eTech’s SMART EPC solution, whg’s eight NHER (National
Home Energy Rating) registered colleagues would have to visit the property,
fill in their NHER forms and make notes, then copy everything to online forms
on their return to the office. This process took hours of work and meant that
they could only complete two EPCs a day.
The Solution
SMART EPC is a combined hardware and software package which enables DEAs to
generate EPCs with supporting site notes in the field, dispensing with the need
for manual Reduced Data Standard Assessment Procedure (RdSAP) forms. The
handheld PDA captures RdSAP data on site, together with observations, limitations
to inspection and site photos as supporting evidence. This automates the whole
process of producing an EPC and enables Walsall Housing Group to generate an
energy efficiency rating on-site. According to Gary Auburn, Project Planning
Manager for whg, “We particularly like the ability to take photographs with the
handheld as we have to take a front and rear elevation, which we can later use
for advertising the property, as well as the ability to draw floorplans quickly
and easily. We are now able to produce up to six EPCs a day as we don’t have to
go back to the office in between times to upload the information captured.”
Walsall Housing Group have been able to generate impressive time savings in the
turnaround of their EPCs through the use of eTech’s SMART EPC solution, and have
been able to carry out around 1000 EPCs in the past year with a target to carry
out the same number again over the course of the next year. Having their own
DEAs means that using SMART EPC is a very cost-effective solution and their
expenditure per EPC is roughly half what it would be if they were to use an
external supplier.
According to Gary Auburn, “We really like being able to get the EPC result
straight away. The software is very easy to follow and the traffic-light
system is failsafe, guiding us through the process step-by-step to produce
EPCs quickly and easily.”