Top tips to improve your refurbishment’s energy rating

When your building is empty and you want to refurbish and enter dilapidation negotiations with the previous tenants, here are eight points you should consider before proceeding:

1. Have your building energy rating checked in its current state before any negotiations or refurbishments works
2. Check the impact of a full strip-out of current tenant fittings, lighting, HVAC etc and question if the existing fit-out meets minimum energy efficiency standards
3. If you strip-out a unit back to an empty shell before having an energy assessment, an energy assessor will have to use default conventions i.e. Tungsten lights, electric heating, 50% efficient hot water – this will probably result in a G rating
4. Assess the proposed refurbishment impact on the energy rating
5. Provide full and detailed specifications to your energy assessor as EPC convention defaults will not give you an accurate assessment of your building. The provision of lighting designs and full HVAC specifications will ensure you get the most accurate rating that you can rely upon
6. Failure to test refurbishment proposals before works are undertaken can result in greater costs if the subsequent rating fails to achieve minimum energy efficiency standards. Further works may be required and the existing refurbishments undone to meet the minimum energy efficiency standards
7. Imminent changes to the carbon factors for electric and gas coming in alongside the latest building regulations will be included in the EPC calculation engine later this year. This means that all-electric buildings will be achieving much better EPC scores
8. If you’re wanting to achieve net-zero as a business strategy then you must consider removing all fossil fuels as part of any refurbishment and assess the addition of renewable technologies to your building. You may have an A-rated building – this does not necessarily mean it is net-zero