Energy advice that starts with your building, not a sales pitch

Reviewed October 2026

What you get

An EPC ends with a list of recommendations. They are a useful start, but they are generated by the software and they cannot know your budget, your plans for the house or the order you would like to do things in. Energy advice picks up where the certificate stops.

• Where the property stands now, element by element: walls, roof, floors, windows, heating, hot water and lighting.
• The options, modelled. We test combinations of improvements and show what each does to the rating.
• A sensible order. Some measures only make sense after others. Getting the sequence right helps you avoid paying twice.
• What to watch for. Ventilation, damp risk and anything about the building that limits what should be done to it.
• A written summary you can hand to an installer or keep as the plan for the property.

We do not fit or sell insulation, heating or solar panels. Installers are among the firms we work with, because funded schemes need the assessments and coordination we provide, but what we tell you about your building is what the survey shows.

Fabric first, and why the order matters

Sound advice usually starts with the fabric: the roof, walls, floors, windows and draughts. Reduce the heat a home loses and everything that follows gets easier. A smaller heating system will do the job, and it will run more efficiently.

Ventilation comes with it. Make a house more airtight without thinking about fresh air and you invite condensation and mould. PAS 2035, the national retrofit standard, was written because too many well-meant improvements had exactly that result.

Heating and renewables usually come next. A heat pump does not need a perfectly insulated house: the Energy Saving Trust is clear that one can work in a home that has not been fully insulated, provided the system is designed for the heat the home loses. But the less heat a home loses, the smaller the system it needs and the less it costs to run. Solar panels can go on at any stage.

Heat pumps, solar panels and batteries

We are often asked whether a home is ready for a heat pump, whether solar panels will pay for themselves and what either would do to the EPC. A survey gives the facts each answer starts from: how much heat the building loses, what the roof offers and what the rating is built on. Our guides cover the rest.

• Renewable energy for homes: what to fit, and in what order
• Air source heat pumps: cost, suitability and the £7,500 grant
• Solar panels and batteries: cost, payback and export payments

The questions we are asked most

Help with the cost

We can point you towards the schemes that currently exist. Eligibility is always decided by the scheme itself.

• Warm Homes: Local Grant. Delivered through local councils in England for low-income households in privately owned homes rated D to G.
• Boiler Upgrade Scheme. A £7,500 grant towards replacing a fossil fuel or electric heating system with a heat pump, with an extra £1,500 until March 2027 for homes on oil or LPG with no mains gas.
• No VAT on installation. Insulation, heat pumps, solar panels and batteries fitted in homes are zero-rated until 31 March 2027.
• ECO4. Closing on 31 December 2026, with no successor scheme planned.

The government is also setting up low and zero interest loans for home upgrades under the Warm Homes Plan. When we last checked, the lenders had not been announced. Our guide to grants and schemes has the detail and the sources.

How it works

1. Tell us what you are trying to achieve. A band, a budget, a warmer back bedroom.
2. We survey the property, or work from a recent assessment of ours if one exists.
3. We model the options and write up what we found.
4. We talk it through with you and answer questions.

If you go ahead with work under PAS 2035, we can also provide the retrofit assessment and coordination.

Sources: GOV.UK Warm Homes Plan (21 January 2026), Boiler Upgrade Scheme and Warm Homes: Local Grant pages; HMRC VAT Notice 708/6; Energy Saving Trust; Elmhurst Energy guidance for homeowners on retrofit; TrustMark. Advice is specific to each property and this page is general guidance only.