Do EPC ratings affect house prices?

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Scafol Surveying solutions podcast, where I'm delighted to be joined by Adrian Drummond. Adrian is a chartered surveyor who is assistant training and quality care manager and area surveyor at SDL, as well as an APC assessor, a SAR assessor, a domestic energy assessor and a retrofit assessor. Today we're going to be joined. Uh, today we're going to be discussing how energy performance certificates can potentially impact residential values and the role of retrofitting. welcome, Adrian. Did you want to give us a brief intro, uh, about yourself and probably an explanation as to how you've got so many titles within your job this morning? Absolutely, yeah. So I'm a training manager, uh, at SDL survey. I've been a chartered surveyor for a good long time now. I qualified in 2007, November 2007, just before the crash. So that was interesting. and then, uh, yeah, uh, I was in area surveyor for a long time, I think probably two and a half years ago now. I kind of moved into the training side of surveying. So I look after our academy, I look after our trainee surveyors. and, uh, I also provide CPD to our surveying staff as well. ongoing CPD, that is. But also in the last couple of years, we have, as a business, moved into the retrofit space. so I've been heavily involved in that project, training our guys to become, firstly EPC assessors and then onwards to become retrofit assessors. Uh, so you're probably the best man to speak to about this particular subject, though I see on LinkedIn, obviously, there is, he's always talking about how basically epcs can potentially affect the value of the property. and I'll be honest, it leads me nicely into my first question. So, does an EPC rating influence the market value of a residential property? And the buyers increasingly factor in these ratings into their purchase decisions. In your experience? Yeah, it's a good question, Roger, and the answer isn't straightforward, really. it's something I've been looking at fairly recently. I spoke at the pepper conference the other day and we talked about this, this topic. So, you know, I don't know how many times I had conversations with people where they'll say to me, oh, we've had a heat pump installed, or we've had a solar panel system installed. Therefore it adds, you know, x amount, ten grand or whatever might be on the value. I don't think the picture is quite as clear as that, really. there've been loads of studies out there, so the likes of saviles, likes of knife franks, they did something in both. I think it's 2022, where they did a survey of people, survey of people who purchased properties. And I think something like 70% said epcs were important to them, or 70, uh, to 80%, or at least they're more important than they were the previous year. And that kind of stands for reason, doesn't it? Because that's when the cost of living crisis kicked off. and if you think about the price of fuel, I think over a ten year period, there was about 37, 38% increase in combined, cost of gas and electricity. I've rocketed over the space of years, 72% increase. So it's not, it's not because people have suddenly become really aware of climate change. It's the pound in the pocket, isn't it? You know, that's kind of, uh, impacting why they're becoming more interested in epcs and why it's more important. That's the reason if you're going to buy property, you're going to want to buy property, which is fairly cheap to run, generally speaking. and various different studies. So, like I said, surveys. Sorry, Savilton, I. Frank, they were reporting figures like a 20% increase in value where you've got like a three grid difference. So going up from like an f to a c or e to a c, that type of thing. Talking about 20% uplift and value nationwide. Did a study which was, uh, figures a little bit more modest. So they were talking about it kind of only really affects the, of the spectrum. So those were very low EPC ratings versus higher ratings and kind of modest increases above three to 5%. Uh, uh. So Orion move did something similar as well, where they said, again, quite uplifted and valued. But I think from a severe point of view, from a valuation point of view, it's really quite difficult to understand how energy efficiency is impacting on value. For a lot of years we've considered value significant factors which everybody knows about. So things like condition, uh, accommodation fixtures and fittings, kitchens, bathroom. That's really important to people, isn't it, in the decision making? size, plot size, and of course location as well. Everyone knows about location, location, everyone's seen the tv show and all of a sudden we've got energy efficiency to consider as well. But trying to understand how energy efficiency impacts on the value is quite difficult. If you think about, I mean, some of these studies, for example, knife franks and Salvalds and Rightmove and all the rest of it, you know, they'll track properties which have been purchased and these properties may be in poor condition generally anyway, they may have data, kitchens, data, bathrooms, uh, they may not be very energy efficient because, you know, no insulation within the roof space, the boilers maybe is a little bit older, and people will buy these properties and they'll refurb them and they'll install new kitchens, new bathrooms, they'll do whatever repairs are necessary. Perhaps they're all inefficient windows and they replace them, maybe because they're not very energy efficient, but maybe just because they need replace them. and uh, also they'll add insulation and that will increase the energy efficiency of the building. But where's the value? And all of a sudden you've got, you know, 20 grand, 30 grand, 40 grand increase in value. But where's that, where's that come from? I think kind of traditionally it's going to be your repairs, it's going to be your kitchens, your bathrooms, etcetera. And it's, I think for years it's been quite easy to understand how replacing things like kitchens and bathrooms, impacting the value, because we can look at the abundance of market evidence available to us, so we can say, well, in this area of Middlesbrough, that's where I'm from, you know, probably with the data, kitchen will achieve x and on the same street, if it's got a new kitchen, it will achieve 1020 grand more. And we can evidence that the surveys, can't we? That's quite easy to evidence. with energy efficiency, it's quite often wrapped up in conditioner. And I did do, sorry, I'm just going off on one here, Roger. I did do, for the pepper conference, I did a bit of a poll, straw poll, not very scientific, but I did a poll on, LinkedIn and I did a poll in house with our, with our guys as well, just to ask them whether or not they had made an adjustment for energy efficiency in their valuation. uh, uh. And a lot of them said, I think it was about 30%, which is high frequency anticipate. Actually 30% said they had made an adjustment for energy efficiency when they were looking at analysing comparable evidence. And that struck me as being quite high, to be honest. but although the vast majority said no, and they said the reason for that is because quite often energy efficiency is wrapped up in the overall condition. Which goes to, the conversation we just had, about improvements in general, replacements of kitchens, bathrooms, repairs and all that type of thing. Some people said it may be something that sways people, uh, but not necessarily, uh, uh, high up in the hierarchy of value, significant factors for people. And some surveys said the market wasn't sophisticated enough respect of analysing, uh, energy efficiency properties. And actually some people said there was little or no evidence in their local market that uh, the energy efficiency probably has an impact on the value. And I think that last point is quite important from a locational point of view. I think the local market matters if you consider somewhere like Cambridge. So Cambridge, quite a prosperous, wealthy area, high education levels, high employment, and then you think it's something at the other end of the spectrum. So Middlesbrough from Middlesbrough, you know, there's quite a lot of poverty, education, again, massive generalisation, but probably, you know, education levels are probably not as high or definitely not as high as they are in Cambridge. And when people are looking at property, I think people are looking at, can I afford to turn my heating on this month or this week, rather than thinking about if I invest seven and a half grand, eight, ah, 910 grand now in a solar system and pv system, uh, it'll pay back in ten years time. It's meeting those immediate needs. So not a very straightforward answer, Roger, but I would say yes, EPC is becoming more important to people because of the impact, particularly of the cost of living crisis. um. But how much that impacts on the value is not a clear picture at this stage. Yeah. So basically what you're saying is, there is definitely an impact and it's moving more towards that, but currently it's unquantifiable. Yeah, it can be difficult, it's difficult for surveyors to quantify that and to evidence of, yeah, I think that's always. Hard on valuations as well. So my biggest bugbear is the definition of a market value is what someone's willing to pay after marketing and a hands on transaction and so on and so forth. so it very much comes down to the appeal of that particular property against another one. So, and again, it comes down to. You talk about the affluence in Cambridge, or the less affluence in, uh, Middlesbrough, as your examples. So if the ones in Middlesbrough are looking, because they need to make sure they can afford to put their heating on, it would be more of an appeal to have a higher energy performance rating. and then in Cambridge, again, it's more, ok, I can invest more in this one and get more return and save on my money. So the appeal is always going to be there to have a more efficient property. But the appeal is from two different viewpoints, I guess, is it kind of demonstrates that the EPC will have ultimately an effect on the peel of the property, and in turn, has effect on the value. But it very much depends on what viewpoint you're kind of looking from, depending on whereabouts in the country you are. Is that a brief? Yeah, I think so, yeah. And also kind of in that. In the hierarchy of things, again, you know, when somebody looks to purchase property, it's location is one of the big ones. Yeah. So yeah, I've got houses down here that, you know, got one with a beautiful sea view that is worth 1.23 million pounds, and then I've got another one about 300 metres away from it that's worth about 250,000 pounds. Because location is everything. They've got this amazing cornish coastal sea view on one of them, and the other one, they're up on a main road, with no parking and no garden. So, you know, location is everything. And there's an education piece to be had around kind of, you know, um. Uh, renewables and, ah, PV's. But if someone's got choice between probably which has got a CVU and no PV's, versus one which hasn't got CPU and PV's, well, you know, it's going to be. It's probably going to warm up with, the CVU, isn't it? there's an education piece around that. Um. And kind of on that note, actually, uh, we've got time for this, but anecdotally, there is a. There is. One of our surveys went up to look at a new build property up in the northeast, and there were properties built to part l. on that development and properties which were before part l. So the ones which were built before part l were gas boilers. and then part l properties are obviously enhanced fabric and also they've chosen to install heat pumps. You don't have to install heat pumps. Part l. It's a good way of achieving the standard, and they uh, tried to add a premium to the price of the ones built at part l, uh, advertising it as, you know, super green if you like, and energy efficient, etcetera. and so they added, you know, 1020 grand, whatever it was, more to the asking price and they couldn't sell them at a higher price because people unfamiliar with that technology, we've known combi boilers, known standard boilers for decades. so heat pumps were, you know, alien to people, in that area perhaps, and they ended up having to reduce the price in line with the ones which were built to standard specification pre barnell. And that's a cost of the builder? Yeah, it's a squeeze on proper margin. I remember speaking to a friend for one of the big, developers. He happens to be one of the mds for a large developer in the northeastern. He said to me a couple of years ago, when parallel was coming in, the cost of future home standards as well. This is going to cost me significantly more per unit. Uh, and my worry is that use of airs are not going to value them up. Which explained if it was in between, you and savours. but yeah, um. Not a very fond view of us, I don't think. But his argument was you're not going to value them. But actually my argument is, well we just reflect the market, we just reflect what is evidence in the market. We don't drive the market. So we look at consumer behaviour and reflect it accordingly in the valuation. Yeah, I think there needs to be a moment where there needs to be more education to the purchasers and then once that's kind of rolled out. And the problem I have sometimes is with a lot of stuff, there's a lot of the education you receive, it's nothing. What's the word I'm looking for? You know, you get geared towards certain things and you get sold stuff as opposed to given information that will help you make an informed decision. So you'll get a company saying this is super green and they'll put a green label on it and then you think, oh, because it's green and there's a green label on it, it's really good for you. Like you know, food for example, is a good way of doing it. If something's labelled up really well and it says organic or green or something like that, you think, right, that's going to be good for me. That's about, it's not, it's just well marketed and it's kind of sorting out what is actually good information to give to the consumer, I guess is the best word, or the purchases so that they can all of a sudden get an understanding of why buying a house for 10,000 pounds more is better than buying one for 10,000 pounds less. That in actual fact looks the same, but in actual fact not the same. that's an interesting point. And actually, something around epcs, they are working on changing. Again, this was brought to the pepper conference and they're looking at kind of the way they label up the EPCs to make it clearer for people understanding how much it's going to cost them to run, how, you know, what the carbon footprint is, etcetera, in a much clearer fashion, much like, as you know, alluded to the kind of traffic light system that you'll see on food products, which, you know, it can only be a good thing, can it? Yeah. Uh, so moving on, with the home survey standards review in mind, obviously, with potentially a greater emphasis on energy efficiency, what kind of improvements or retrofit measures have the biggest impact on raising a property's EPC rating? and how do they translate into a financial benefit for homeowners? So we've obviously touched on the valuation side of things, but there is more than that in regards to a financial benefit. It's not just the increasing value of the house, there's obviously the monthly financial benefit and so on and so forth as well. Yeah, yeah. Ah, absolutely. It's interesting you bring up the home survey standards review. we had our national CPD event last week and we had a guest from the RSCs, Steve Lees, who's on the review, panel for the Home service standards. They did a survey, with members and with the general public as well. Recent purchase property and those who recently purchased property had said that. Something like 44% had said that EPCs were useful to them. And that's an increase from the last time there was a survey done, which was back in 2019, which was 35%. So the interest is increasing, which is reflected in the studies done by the likes of NY, Frank Saville's Right Move, etcetera. and also 30% said they would like to know if the property had potential for energy efficiency improvement as well. Which I thought was an interesting. Because that wasn't something which was asked in 2019, but was asked this time around. Uh, uh, and I think that's quite interesting in terms of the advice that we could possibly provide as chart surveyors, in respect to energy improvements, but in terms of the improvements that can be made. So probably when insulation is first, I think that's pretty well known. Fabric first is, is the probably the best return, for investment. So, you know, one third of heat loss occurs through walls. A, uh, quarter is through your roof, uninsulated roof coverings. You know, it'll cost you the latest figures. I think it's about two and a half grand, three grand for your average semi to upgrade. Uh, to put insulation into your public walls, you're going to save about 200, 300 quid a year. terrace, uh, properties obviously cost lessen. and you'll probably save less as well. Size, etcetera, roof covering, sorry, roof insulation. So adding some Rockwell insulation, mineral, uh, insulation, it's going to cost you maybe about 900 quid on average, up to 270 milliseconds. And you're going to get around about 230 pounds, saving a year. Again, latest figures. So in fact, the EPC, the way the EPC is set up is it will, you know, the recommendation section, EPC, it will recommend first, insulation. So wall roof insulation. And then it will recommend cheap and easy wins. So things like changing light bulbs, uh, draught proofing as well. Interesting. You know, if you were to, uh, insulate your hot water cylinder, on average, it's going to save you about 50 quid a year. Uh, so a little kind of small wins like that. And then it will move on to recommending bigger ticket items like replacing your boiler with a more efficient boiler, if it's a gas boiler, and then onto your renewable text or things like your, heat pumps, pv's, the more expensive stuff. And winter, if you get a wind turbine, you're laughing because you know the engine efficiency rate and rockets. But the problem with that is it's very restricted in terms of planning. but yes, you can, you can really improve your energy efficiency if you happen to live in the countryside. Uh, you will be able to install one and your energy efficiency will rocket. well, yeah, I mean, one of the, one of the big things, which isn't including APC's, but to make your house more energy efficient is thick curtains. Actually, if you get a good set of thick curtains, that's a really good way of them to retain the heat in your, in your house. I think it's something like 2020, 5% maybe heat loss of your windows. So it's quite significant. Should we be, should we be mentioning the measuring thickness of curtains. Uh, on a building survey, maybe not. We'll have to come to the level two. Yeah, we'll see in the new home survey standardisation. Yeah. It's interesting though, because is this the kind of level of detail or. I mean, a lot of what you've done is. Again, I use this word because I'm quite impressed I pronounced it properly. A lot of what you said is actually quite quantifiable there. So in regards to doing a building survey now you do a level three and you get to that kind of energy matters, bit at the back, you're talking about your insulation and your ventilation and stuff like that. Um. Is that the kind of detail that we should be going into? I mean, you obviously talk about insulation, you go into a roof space, you're going to measure how much insulation is in the roof, you see some spray foam on the roof and obviously you gulp. And then all those scenarios, it's very specific what building regs are and how they're above or below. Um. But can there be even more detail in the minutiae of the energy efficiency of the property? I think so, and I think we'll see what the home survey standard review comes m up with. But I think it's something we'll be moving towards. Yeah, I think people are becoming more conscious of energy efficiency improvements and they will want to know what they can do, um. to that property to improve that rating. One, of the. I mean, obviously with the last home service standard, we were expected to do, uh, to cheque for discrepancies in epcs. And that's. That's really interesting because I went through the training to become uh, an EPC assessor originally, uh, and then become a retrofitted for the assessor as well. And having done that, that kind of opened my eyes really to how properties are, ah, assessed for energy efficiency. And if you've not gone through that process, there are things which you might identify as a discrepancy on a level two or a level three which are in fact not a discrepancy. Uh, they do things differently. So for example, if you've got a staircase which you can walk down facing forward from a loft conversion which is non compliant, so it hasn't got building regulation approval, they will measure that space, that will form part of their overall measurement. So you might not understand that and you will look at an EPC and think, well, the floor is way out there. Obviously there's discrepancy there. Um. Um. But in fact it's actually where the data is captured from an APC assessor point of view. Other things like they will measure below 1.5 head height in a loft space. We would class that as limited use area under RSS property measurement. and also if you stick a radiator in a garage, why you want to do that? Some people use them for gyms. Yeah, they will measure that as part of the, gross, uh, internal area as well, which we wouldn't do. So having that knowledge of being an EPC assessor, retrofit assessor, you are better prepared, I suppose, to identify discrepancies. in the EPC. Uh, I watch someone. Do you talk about that? I thought leading up to this podcast would be kind of handy as well. I went and watched Shadow, uh, the guy doing energy performance assessment. and it was interesting how they went about and what they were looking for because it was not what I thought it would be. you say their focus was on things that I wasn't thinking it would be focused on. but uh, the one thing that did come back to me is it's very black and white. You can do a building survey and there is an element of, um. You follow a trial and there is an element of an opinion based kind of. This could be caused by that. It's non intrusive and you making recommendations based on what you can see. Whereas in EPC you're inputting effectively raw data into something. the raw data is the construction, the amount of insulation. There is obviously assumptions such as you'll assume this and you'll assume that, but you'll put it into the, uh, programme. Yeah, the system will make assumptions, but you can't, as an EPC says, that's the interesting thing. So the system will make assumptions based on the, uh, build. There are data built around changes in building regulations, uh, and it will assume a certain amount of insulation if it's built in the 1970s or 1990s or whatever it might be. But the problem, ah, we had, so when I was training our guys is that obviously we've got this. We know buildings. Yeah, we know houses. We've been in this business for a long time and we will automatically make assumptions about things. and you're not allowed to do that. You kind of have to remove your surveying hat a little bit when you're doing APC's. Um. Um. Um. And just. It's basically a snapshot of what you can see in front of you, which is really quite difficult for some of our guys, really. It was a really steep learning curve. And it's a very. I think when we first moved into this world, we thought, how difficult can this be? and it isn't difficult. It's just a different way of thinking. You're almost taking a step back and then approaching it from a different angle. You're looking at the same subjects. Yeah. But, uh, you might be looking at from the side as opposed to the front. I guess it's just different aspect that you're looking at. The, uh. Route for assessment on the past 2035 is a little bit kind of more in tune with what we do anyway, because there's a condition survey element of that, uh, which wouldn't be as detailed as a level two. But we have that knowledge and I think that kind of puts us in a really good position as RSCs members, as charter bears who do level twos, level threes, day in and day out. it just gives us that depth of knowledge where we can provide good information, to the retrofit coordinator, who can take it from there. So, moving on to another question, then. How does cost of retrofitting compare to the potential increase in the property value? are there any government incentives that make this more attractive for homeowners? Obviously, we've talked about the value in the property and so on and so forth, but, you know, we're looking at the kind of black and white now. Uh, someone owns a house and they're thinking, I want to get a retrofit and I want to make my house more energy efficient. Is it in line with the benefits? So if it sounds silly, I looked into getting solar panels. I did, and it was a couple years back. Someone said, oh, yeah, I could put solar panels on your 15,000 pounds. And I was like, cool. Yeah, it would take me the best part of 15 years to get that 15,000 pounds back. And when you weigh it up, you're thinking, there wasn't enough data in regards to saying that 15,000 pounds investment on my house won't give me 15,000 pounds in the value, and they're saying it's going to take me 15 years to get that money back. So what is the point? Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, look, it's. Don't quote me on those figures. That was a couple of years ago. But, yeah, it's still, I mean, let's be honest, this technology is still expensive. Uh, and again, it kind of ties into how much people value these improvements. insulation is obviously the best, uh, thing that you can do. We'll give you the, uh, bigger gains right. We did a survey recently whereby if you upgrade from a d to a c, it's on average it's going to save you about 600 pounds a year. Just mentioned solar panels there. Demand for PV's has rocketed over the last few years. I've got PV's and Barry, I think if you've got PV's alone, it's going to cost you about seven grand, I think, on average, still batteries another four or five grand on top of that. So like you said, you know, the payback time on that, you know, if you're saving, I don't know, 600 pound, uh, a year, it's going to take you, a significant period of time to get the payback on that. so you make decision, are you thinking on staying there long term or you're not? If you're not, then perhaps it's not worth it at this stage, you know. there is more interest in solar panel systems, renewable energies, I think. Again, Rightmove did a survey recently. Wherever search terms for solar panels that jump from five in the position to 65th, people are interested in this technology. And heat pumps went from 1000th position to 130th as well. and there's all sorts of technology coming online as well. Have you heard of this, vehicle, uh, v two h system that's in process being developed so you can get. So my battery system's five kilowatt battery with your car. If you think about your electric car, that's a 50 kilowatt battery cell in your driveway. Yeah. So if you can, if you can harvest energy at a cheaper rate overnight, store in your car and power your home during the day, I mean, it's a no brainer, isn't it? Provided you're not going to go on a long journey the next day. Yeah, yeah. It's like plugging in a battery, basically, isn't it? It's literally, yeah. So it smartly shares energy between your house and, and, and the car. So really interesting technology. But like you say, you know, all this stuff at the moment comes at a premium. I think it will come down in time, I think, uh, uh, in Scandinavia. so I went to Sweden in, February for a skein holiday. And it was cold, it was -26 degrees, absolutely, literally reason, and coldest place I've been and stayed in this as a friend of mine. Got a timber framed lodge there. Beautiful, uh, beautiful part of the world with a heat pump. Uh, and it works. It was too hot. Right. It opened the window at nighttime that's how hot it was. These things have been around in Scandinavia for years. They work and the market is primed for it over there. So I think you can buy a heat pump installed, fitted for like €4000, you know, which is a stark difference to what we repair for an SrC pump in the UK, which is something like ten to 15 grand. Also to factor in the fact that the costs have been out there, but the cost, they get paid in Scandinavia. So 4000 pounds, €4000.08, 4000 pounds. In regards to their average pay, it's actually a lot less as well. So yeah, there's a countermeasure there. Yeah, absolutely. And their market is deep water at present, isn't. Ah, well, I say I still struggle with it and again it comes back to what is best. And I guess this is the role of that kind of retrofit. I mean I said I was trying to read up on the RICS uh, retrofit standard, to try and find out what their kind of take on it is. I think obviously we briefly talked about this in the past. You said that they're kind of, I don't think saying playing catch up as such, but they're trying to get more of a. Because they realise this is the direction it's going in. But as a surveyor I see it from one side of things, one side of the coin, but then when you flip on the other side a, you know, a homeowner m it's difficult because I don't feel informed. I'll go back to that. Informed. So I look to solar panels. you know, I've been told I've dealt with a lot of residential letting in the past and people say I need to get one of these uh, dimplex light storage heaters, high heat retention night storage heaters which, you know, they're brilliant, but, and I've been told to stay away from other things. but then how much of that is just because there are bigger brands and have more money to advertise and what is actually, you know, obviously im not going to ask you what the answers are, im not expecting you to know. but it kind of, it moves on nicely to my next question. So what challenges do older heritage or listed properties face when it comes to improving the UBC ratings? and you know, are there retrofitting strategies that work best and flip that further down? Because there's potential EPC regulations coming into the lettings market in future years where it's got to have a minimum of a c to be able to. Obviously there will be some kind of exemptions and so on and so forth. but that will affect the selling market because you're looking at potential investment properties and all of a sudden something that could have a good return all of a sudden isn't lettable. M mhm. Absolutely. Which is going to impact on the value, isn't it? yeah. Uh, and uh, yeah, I mean, traditional buildings, it's difficult. So 25% of housing stock in this country is traditionally constructed. Solid brick or stone. some of those are listed as well. So obviously you have all the complications around listed building consent as well when you're trying to, uh, retrofit, uh, a property. Um. Uh, sorry, I'm. Can you hear that drawing in the background, Roger? Don't worry about it. Our bathroom is getting done, uh, at the moment. So. Yeah. this is Bill. Consent obviously complicates the picture. Uh, anybody who's worked with the planning department, with their planning department trying to get plan permission, or even just a homeowner trying to get plan permission can be difficult. They're often understaffed. Uh, list of buildings, you know, probably it's going to be unlikely you're going to get external insulation, but that is not always the case. So my friend lives in a list of building in Cambridge. So I talked about Cambridge a couple of times today. It's got very close friend of mine lives there. He actually lives in a really interesting list of building. It used to belong to Ken Clark, you know, the Tory MP. and he's having uh, external installation installed at the moment. Now he had render on his is properly externally anyway. So the external installation he is having installed kind of complements what it would have been originally. So it kind of retains that kind of heritage. but it's expensive stuff, you know, and he's got the means to do it the other way around. Kind of uh, upgrading the fabric would be to install internal insulation. But of course you've got the disruption internally. You've got the fact that you may have to kind of work around certain internal features which which are listed. So it's kind of a specialist market. Now in those circumstances you would take a holistic approach. So perhaps a kind of a combination of, kind of small measures which are sympathetic to the heritage of the property. Uh, you can make changes like, I don't know, adding secondary glazing rather than replacing the windows themselves. Or you could install kind of draught proofing measures, smaller draught proofing measures. My friend has got pv's, but it's the discreetly positioned so when they're kind of out of sight from the public highway, changing boiler systems, fairly discreet, that type of thing. But ultimately I think the lesson learned from, again, my friend who's refurbishing this property is he took a very kind of collaborative approach with the planners. now he works in this kind of business anyway, so he's got a rapport anyway, the planners. But his message was really, that was kind of key to kind of getting these works done and getting the ball rolling because list of buildings are very difficult. But even if a property's not listed, if you live in a conservation area. I live in a conservation area and obviously I knew Bob at the time didn't quite consider the full ramifications of it. No, I had, I knew the windows were 90, uh, thirds property bare windows, single glazed. They're rotten and able to replace them. And you know, somebody just kind of highlights the importance of putting on your level two reports alerting bias to the, to the fact that isn't conservation area and that is going to have ramifications. So replace my windows. It probably costs, you know, two to three times more than it would if I just installed PVC windows. It's really quite significant again, you know, it's, it's, it's a challenge, when it comes to traditional buildings. Uh, and I've just done something recently for our CPD event, last week, which is around the jps. So have you heard of the joint position statement? Yep. Investigation of moisture effects, uh, effects of moisture in traditional buildings. And that talks a lot about the unintended consequences of adding, uh, modern materials, making alterations to traditional buildings. So in terms of retrofit, if you think about adding insulation, for example, where you add insulation, you've got to be careful with traditional buildings because often they were constructed with materials which need to breathe. So if you add uh, external insulation, and you've not carefully considered, you know, the redirection of rainwater goods or the humidity internally, and you start to get, problems with dampness in the walls which can impact on the insulation, that insulation gets wet, it can actually act as a conductor, would be better, it'd be more energy efficient if it wasn't there in the first place, in that case. And you saw horror stories as well around retrofit. Even in the news this week. There was something on BBC, wasn't there, about poor retrofit work? And this poor lady, I think was rainwater goods were defective and it damaged all the insublation and caused significant problems internally. Um. Uh, so as you know, with my kind of charts RCS home survey had on retrofit and particular poo retrofit work is going to be a bigger and ongoing issue going forward. That's another area on a building survey that obviously surveyors might have to have a keen eye on. It's particularly on older buildings. Like you say, it's one thing having this retrofitting measures implemented, but they need to be uh, fit for purpose. And I mean again, you look at the older historical buildings and stuff like that, you know, it's all well and good trying to seal up a property and keep all the heat in. But ultimately there has to be an element of ventilation, for example, which you know, in essence is counterproductive to trying to keep all the heat in a building. But obviously there's a reason you need it because of the general materials and makeup, of that building, particularly when you're looking at the transfer of moisture, uh, in and out and so on, so forth. So I think that will have that. I would like to think that when they look at the home survey standards review, Mister Lee's and his gang of uh, people that are obviously well on top of it, I'd like to think that that's probably a folk, they must have a focus on that particular element. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, it is part of uh, past 2035. I mean, you know, consideration around ventilation requirements when you do make improvements. So when you do the retrofit assessment, part of that assessment involves a ventilation survey and just thinking more broadly about. Well if we do x, we need to think about. Yes. So if we install insulation, we make this property more airtight, then we need to consider ventilation as well. What is the effect of that increased heat and humidity and a property going to have on the fabric of the building? Um. Um. Uh. And that is particularly important I think with traditional buildings which were designed to breathe. Yeah, I mean, so I did have another question around kind of legislation and taxation, but I'm aware of how long we've uh, we've been going, but I would just want to ask one more thing. So as uh, a man in your position with all your very cool and knowledgeable titles in your job description, then what do you advise? Say I'm a surveyor. Now where should I focus my CPD and you know, extra learning going forward or I'm a company owner and I've got employees. Where do you think this is going to go in the future. Uh, in regards to the correlation not only between EPC ratings and the potential effect it will have on value, but also the correlation between energy efficiency and building survey standards, with regards to what we need to understand that we don't necessarily understand at the moment to the depth we may need to. That was a very long winded question, sorry. Uh, well this is only going to go one way, isn't it? The government is committed to net zero, by 2050. ah, we're a long way off, at the moment. the retrofit works are ah, needed. There was some study which I was looking at before. So Ed Miliband's got obviously this maize target for 20 3340 thousand homes need to be upgraded every year, uh, to hit that current rate. We're nowhere near it. It's looking at least twelve years before we're on target. So it's only going to go one way. I think consumers are uh, increasingly so going to be uh, more aware of uh, renewable technology, uh, its impact on their bills, the impact on uh, the, the environment. Climate change is not going away. It's in the news every single day. So people are going to be more educated about uh, we've talked about the problems around education, around these renewable sector, uh, uh, renewable technology. But again over time things like heat pumps will become more normal, in the future. Home standards comes out next year. Every single house, new build house that comes on the market will not have a gas connection. Uh, the only way to achieve that standard is through a heat pump right now. So this is going to become more normalised. We need to have uh, we need to educate ourselves about this technology. We need to keep our eye on the market and understand what is important to consumers. EPCs might not be at the top of that kind of hierarchy of value, significant factors, but increasingly so I think it will do in time. and again, as you talked on legislation there, legislation changes. We did have a 2035 proposed ban by the last government for gas boilers. As we move towards those dates, what's going to happen to house values? Again, something just keeping your eye on the news. Understanding how the legislation impacts on the market changes tax regimes. It's early days for the new government, but if you look at other countries like Sweden, they have a carbon tax. Now the carbon tax is not an individual homeowners, but it's on fossil fuel companies. And obviously, you know, people who are running gas boilers in Sweden will be, you know, costs are passed on only from fossil fuel companies. So it will be passed on to the consumer. It will be more expensive to run. I think it's really quite high tax in Sweden. It could be other things like stamp duty changes as well. Changes, stamp duty, land tax, uh, uh, you know, for less energy efficiency, properties, variable council tax reins, high capital gains, etcetera. So all these things matter. They will have an impact on our sector, that will have an impact on values. And it's something as ah, RCS professionals that we need to be aware of. Yeah, I think, Mike, I don't give advice out very often, but I think it's important for surveyors to be more forward thinking, proactive about this in regards to their particular knowledge base, rather than reactive in regards to. Don't wait for these changes to happen. Let's uh, let's basically anticipate based on what we've learned in the past and what we know and where we think we're heading. And obviously, yeah, you can obviously change direction should things change, because governments change their mind and change dates and push stuff back. But effectively, I think what you've demonstrated here, particularly with the uh, you know, the detail that you've gone into in regards to, you know, percentages, savings and so on and so forth, I think we're all in agreement that something is going to happen. There is going to be a shift. So I think as an industry we need to kind of shift our focus and with this, from the. RICS website. Sorry, RICS launching a pioneering new standard to revolutionise retrofitting practises across the UK. So if RICS are on board, I think obviously surveyors need to take note and start to get an understanding of where we're heading to. Adrian, mate, it's been an absolute pleasure, uh, thanks for your in depth knowledge on this particular subject. hopefully our listeners find it useful. I certainly have. I say it's always a learning day when I do these uh, podcasts. So thank you ever so much for your time, mate. It's um. Yeah, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you, Roger, thank you for having me.