Hips increase energy efficiency awareness

Posted: 12 Oct 2007 11:47:48 GMT

The fact that Home information packs (Hips) are mandatory for many home sellers has increased awareness about energy efficiency.

The fact that Home information packs (Hips) are mandatory for many home sellers has increased awareness about energy efficiency.

That is according to London & Country, which says that until Hips were introduced, few people gave much thought to the efficiency of the property they were about to buy.

Hips contain an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC), which grade individual homes on their energy efficiency and offer suggestions on how the property could be made made more efficient.

L&C says that this is helping to bring the issue to the forefront of peoples' minds and many home sellers are keen to take the advice included in the EPC onboard.

"Everyone is trying to look at energy efficiency. I'm not sure that, if it wasn't forced upon them in the Hip, that people would have gone and got independent reports and made the energy efficiency changes. So that is a good thing that will come out of it in the longer term," said a spokesperson for L&C.

She added: "The fact that a proportion of the people said 'we might go and do some of the things flagged up in that report' says that overall we should see some improvements in the housing stock in the UK, in terms of energy efficiency. There is an intention there."

Hips are currently only mandatory when selling a home with three or more bedrooms but a full-scale rollout is planned.

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