BER assessment- is a drive by inspection acceptable?

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Tivida

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Need an updated BER for a solar panel grant. Agreed a price of €300 with an assessor and agreed that Id allow him till Friday this week to find someone else needing a BER in my area so he could do two jobs at once. That was last Wednesday and now today I get a text saying (unknown to me) that he was here yesterday, took photos and just needs a photo of the fireplace and back of the house to complete it. I was uncontactable yesterday but he just showed up without telling me he was going to.

Just wondering is this normal practice? Im kind of miffed spending €300 for an inspection that doesnt even go inside the house when its all about the fabric of the house. He hasnt seen whats in the attic either and is presumably going off the previous BER done 6 years ago.

What do others think? Is this acceptable?
 
Tivida said:
What do others think? Is this acceptable?
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I certainly wouldn't be impressed (and neither, I suspect, would the SEAI be) with that sort of carry-on.

Mine, also a second assessment and also for the PV solar grant, took well over an hour and the assessor was very thorough and took loads of photos and measurements for the BER data input process, as well as going through all of the documentation from the previous BER. (It cost me €300.)

I suspect that your chap assumed that you just wanted him to do a cursory, box ticking BER so you'd get the grant, so he didn't bother to carry out a proper assessment. I certainly wouldn't be happy with that kind of carry-on.
 
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We had the walls pumped and the assessment after took over 2 hrs and was very thorough.
 

Thanks for your reply.

Yeah I later had a look through the SEAIs Code of Conduct for BER Assessors and while it doesnt explicitly state the assessor has to get inside the house he has definitely broken a number of their rules.
I think you're right that he thought it was just a box ticking exercise but he still wanted €350 initially till we agreed €300 as I knew I could find someone local for that.
Im not happy with it as he hasnt even been inside my attic, nor does he know about a north facing wall I insulated and he may not have copped I installed triple glazing. If he wants the €300 he's going to have to come back and do it properly or else discount it for me to provide these internal photos he needs for his audit compliance with the SEAI.
 
Just shows you that the ber rating is complete rubbish and a box ticking exercise. Surely they should be doing an actual scientific heat escape measurement. Its crazy that so much credence is given to this rubbish rating
 
Audits are carried out on BER Assessors but they’re fairly infrequent, random and ask for documents and proof of the assessment to be forwarded to them. He could probably just give them a photo of any fireplace, pass the audit and nobody would ever know.

While €300 isn’t cheap and the more BER’s you do the faster you get they’re still a fair bit of work ticking boxes and filling in info.

It’s like when a bank gets an auctioneer to value a house. How many of them actually go into and look around the house? Genuine question I’ve no idea but didn’t happen to us.

The issue is with older houses if you spend 15 minutes looking at the house from outside compared to 2 hours walking around accurately recording everything you'll still come up with the same result. Adding 50mm insulation to one north facing wall isn't going to move it into another category on an older house. The difference that makes on the overall rating is almost insignificant. I haven't played with the system in a few years now but by memory if the assessor found the oil boiler outside somewhere that would give far more information and weight on the end result than all the walls, windows and attic combined.
 
joe sod said:
Surely they should be doing an actual scientific heat escape measurement.
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There are other threads on this one already, but while the BER is far from perfect. it would be far worse if a comprehensive study was required like you suggest. Like who's going to spend €5+ on before and after assessments to qualify for the €2k grant???

The purpose of the BER is to arrive at a ballpark, and to do so inexpensively. The system was never designed, and never purported to be scientifically accurate. It aims to be a good indicator and if the assessment is carried out correctly, it serves that purpose.
 
Had one done recently post solarPV install. Told the guy I needed it for remortgaging to indicate that I care about the result, not just the piece of paper for the grant. The assessor was in the house twice, after he wanted to check a few things from the first pass back at base. Now he does live locally and I was working from home so second visit was handy enough for him, but still a thorough job was done.

You cannot possibly derive an accurate BER rating from a drive-by, even with a prior BER to work off. I'd steer well clear tbh!
 
Reactions: Leo
The guy who did mine took a number of calculations and measurements - the result is based on things like, what size your walls and windows are, what they are made of, when they were installed, roughly. Any BER from photos only would be only a very very rough estimate and not useful if you want to go forward and do other works based on it. And if you are selling it would be unfair to the buyer.
 
For example they don't check appliances to see if they work - so you could have what I bought - a house full of broken storage heaters.
 
joe sod said:
Just shows you that the ber rating is complete rubbish and a box ticking exercise. Surely they should be doing an actual scientific heat escape measurement. Its crazy that so much credence is given to this rubbish rating
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We all know this from day one. My assessor didn’t get into one flat and I told him just do it the same as the flat below.
 
Bronte said:
We all know this from day one. My assessor didn’t get into one flat and I told him just do it the same as the flat below.
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Well that would make sense as if they had not been modified the BER would be identical - flats are generally more limited in what changes you can make anyway.
 
Reactions: Leo
I would have no issue with this. The BER is a bit of a joke anyway, riddled with assumptions that are no more accurate from inside the house than out on the road. It is a bit of a scam, in many cases you can end up doing 2 or 3 of them in as many years if getting panels, pumps, or other grants.
 
The lad who did mine measured all the rooms and the windows. Wanted info on solar panels. Wanted output for fireplace. He gave recommendations for improving things in future. He took some amount of photos too. I'm pretty sure he counted all the lightbulbs and checked what type they were.
 
Got one done last month (for €200 all in) and the guy spent about half an hour checking things - measurements, photos, windows/doors, lighting/heating/plumbing, gas boiler model, immersion, attic insulation etc. He wouldn't have had all the relevant details if he had not entered the property.
 
presidenttttt said:
I would have no issue with this....
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So you are happy to have someone charge you a fee, without doing the job that you are paying them to do?

While I take your point about some of the flaws in the requirement for a BER and how it's prepared, I think endorsing the "drive by" approach, only makes matters worse, tbh.
 
I hear you. Look the more customers and BER agents devalue the BER (or expose it) the quicker it will be done away with
 
presidenttttt said:
I hear you. Look the more customers and BER agents devalue the BER (or expose it) the quicker it will be done away with
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You must be joking, knowing this country, it'll be replaced by something more expensive, and more rediculous - but it'll printed on recycled toilet paper, and delivered by one of only three cyclists using the S2S route :-(
 
Getting the BER done just to get your solar grant money is a complete farce & I wrote to the seai to say this (never heard back). It's purely to get someone to verify you got the panels. If they got rid of the BER they could reduce the grant by 300, or make it cheaper for someone to get panels installed
 
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