BER Cetificate for home renovation

H

Henning G

Registered User
Messages
31
Hello,

I'm dealing with a home energy & renovation company that I'm thinking to hire to make my house more energy efficient before selling it, and they say that I need to have a current BER certificate before they come to see the house and make a plan/proposal. Is it normal ? I thought the BER certificate would be needed at the end of the work not before starting the renovation work. I subsequently contacted a compnay that they suggested and the BER Engineer quoted 350€ for a cert which to me seems very expensive, especially when I highligted the fact that I have an expired BER already (from 2011) when I bought the house, and absolutely nothing has changed since in terms on energy efficiency, insulation etc., so it would probably for the most part of it copy and paste the old BER and sticking in the new date. Please let me know your thoughts. The house is about 120 Sq/m located in Dublin

Thanks
Henning
 
350 is about right but can probably get cheaper. Your house might not have changed but how they calculate BER has. Whatever rating you were in 2011, you can probably take it for granted that it is worse now. Its one of the problems with BER certs.

If you are selling, why are you doing work? Unlike to be reflected in the price you receive.... the new owners will probably want to do their work. No point spending thousands on new doors and windows.
 
Thanks Sunny, I just want to do some relatively minor upgrades before selling it as it has a bad energy ratings, however I was suprised that I need a BER before the renovation.....
 
350 is about right - they have to do the entire thing from scratch again. Also be aware it could be a completely different rating this time around
 
Henning G said:
Thanks Sunny, I just want to do some relatively minor upgrades before selling it as it has a bad energy ratings, however I was suprised that I need a BER before the renovation.....
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Are you applying for a grant to do the work?
 
I paid 225 each for a few of them last year. As a job lot. And 250 for a single one in another part of the country. (None in Dublin which I assume is more expensive)

The idea of renovating to sell makes no sense as regards BER, as it's very difficult to move up the rainbow. Have you spoken to the auctioneer about this?
 
Henning G said:
Yes I will apply for the SEAI grants
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A valid BER is required before and after certain grant supported works. As others have said though, it was almost certainly cost you significantly more to carry out simple efficiency upgrades than you will recoup in a higher sale price.

If there was a glut or houses on the market it might help, but now you're only taking on a lot of hassle for a loss.
 
There is a register of BER certified technicians on the SEAI website and most of them will charge you a little less than the aggregator online sites who offer services by connecting you will charge if you ring them directly. What you are looking for is a technical assessment which includes all of the things that a BER tests for plus some additional checks. In practice most BER assessors are also certified to do technical assessments. Its strongly recommended to get this done, my BER assessor recommended getting him to come and independently configure the requirements as if you get it done in house by same company they will tend to base the assessment on their need to sell rather than your requirements.
 
Most of the recommendations are based on the output of existing BER which includes technical detail as to heat loss or performance so not surprising that they are looking for this. A technical assessor can also provide same thing (they are basically same set of skills except technical assessor is making recommendations a priority rather than measuring what is already done).
 
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