Tips before getting a BER Cert?

I am planning to get a BER Cert for my house. Any quick & easy & cheap tips before I get it done that might help to get the best possible rating for my house?

Also - anyone care to chip in with what price I should be paying?

Thanks.

am told ensure you have energy saving bulbs only.
also attic insulation is cheap , so if you havn,t a good depth , put down a few rolls.

+1 on the light bulbs. Had a BER last year and the guy specifically mentioned this in his report. Not usre if it made a major change to the rating but it didn't do any harm either.
We paid €150 for our assessment in march last year. There were cheaper ones available but this guy was associated with the Eastate Agent we were using. There were also more expensive guys available too. In the end we went with the one reccommended - he was also very prompt and even gave us a few tips on what to look for ourselves during our house hunting stage.

The SEAI [broken link removed] has a few tips to improving our BER, but isn't great really. Some of their more technical documents on testing procedure might guide you, if you're aware of what and how they check, you might see some potential quick wins.

They're only a bare indication of the potential heating requirement of a house and the assessors carrying out the surveys for people can have very different results, even on the exact same house. When one considers that a building contractor can be one, or have one as a worker, surely it begs the question, "Will they write up a bad assessment? give a "C" instead of something else, etc, etc, etc. Who checks them out, who surveys the survey? Very dodgy business this, but it's a must have for a seller.

A tip for choosing a BER assessor is to check the BER ratings of the houses on your road, apartments in your block on Daft.ie. Choose the assessor who has given the best rating. Recently I got a very low BER rating on an apartment in an old renovated property. I noted on Daft.ie that others in the same development got much higher ratings. Due to the nature of the property, it is highly unlikely that anyone has undertaken any major improvements. I'm very disheartened as this will affect the letting and resale of my property. I have taken up the matter of the inconsistencies with SEAI.

noproblem said:

assessors carrying out the surveys for people can have very different results, even on the exact same house.

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I would be surprised if this was the case, I had one done last year, two bed apartment in Louth, cost €115, the guy explained how it worked, he put everything in and the system spat out a rating.

Surely with the exact same house, the only way you would get a different rating is if you omitted details or put in incorrect details.

Ber Assessors have to follow a code of practice set by SEAI and are monitored to ensure compliance.

https://www.seai.ie/Your_Building/BER/BER_Assessors/Code_of_Practice.pdf

Capricorn 1 said:

Recently I got a very low BER rating on an apartment in an old renovated property. I noted on Daft.ie that others in the same development got much higher ratings. .

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My apartment got a higher rating than others in the same block, there can be several reasons for this.

I think mine got the higher rating because it was ground floor, middle. Upper apartments had pitched roofs also the first and last, upper and lower apartments had gable walls, those in between didn’t.

Good tip though.

twofor1 said:

I think mine got the higher rating because it was ground floor, middle. Upper apartments had pitched roofs also the first and last, upper and lower apartments had gable walls, those in between didn’t.

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Yes, all that detail goes into the SEAI software and is correctly (as these can have significant affect on the thermal performance of a unit) factored into the calculation.

Thanks for all the tips everyone.

I have noticed very different ratings for similar houses in the same estates locally. Maybe it is worth finding out who did the good ratings - just in case!

The light bulbs is a quick win. Got the husband to buy a load of the energy saving bulbs in Belfast yesterday - so much cheaper there than here.

Just wonder when you get the cert and it says say the rating is E2 so the energy usage is estimated to be 368.48kWh/m2/year, what floor area is used for this calculation and is there an average elec/space-heating split of the kWh?
Am looking at a place which is E2 rated and is 280 sq m on the estate agents website.

If you use 281 by 368 by 0.2 euro/kWh for elec the bill is euro 56 per day
Thanks