My phone rang today and on the other end was a gentleman sounding rather, shall we say, flustered. He said he needed an EPC urgently as his property was due to complete in a few days and had been let down by another supplier - not this again!!

Turns out he’d made the fatal mistake of being tempted in after doing a search on Google by whichever company was simply offering the lowest price EPC and assuming that all suppliers were equal and would deliver what they promised…first mistake

We all want a good deal on things we purchase and EPCs are no different but at the same time we’ve all got too many memories of being tempted by what appeared at first glance to be an amazing deal and then coming to the realisation later on that your ‘deal of the day’ may have been far from that.

If we look at the EPC then as assessors we are mostly all self employed and with that comes the day to day costs of running a business which aren’t insignificant including having to pay the government a fee for each EPC we lodge onto the database (around £8) and then with fuel, wear and tear, consumables including PPE, professional development costs and a whole host of other things, it becomes clear that you can’t offer EPCs at say £39 or so unless corners are being cut somewhere or that person doesn’t intend being in business for very long.

Anyway, back to the story. So our customer has paid his money online and sits back waiting for the phone call from the assessor to book in the appointment. A week passes and no phone call so a quick call to the companies office and he’s told that they are struggling to find an assessor local to him but be patient and they’ll be in touch soon…

Let’s look at why they might have struggled to find an assessor close to this gentleman. Pretty much all of these national companies are essentially just middle men with no employed assessors who just either auction off the job to the lowest bidder or they’ll offer such crazy low fees to the assessor that they invariably struggle to fulfil jobs but like all things in life there’ll always be people prepared to do it which is what these companies feed off.

Anyway, another week passes by and our client calls back again - this time getting a little miffed - and is finally told that the closest assessor they can find lives is 25 miles away and surprise surprise he’s not prepared to travel that far for the money they are offering him and so they’ve given up and are going to refund him his money!! What marvellous service, two weeks wait and straight back to square one.

To conclude the story, i booked him for the following day after he rang me, EPC all successfully completed and delivered to him that same evening, job done. Yes it may have cost him a few pounds more but i know for certain which route he’d go down if he had to do it again. So please use a local and reliable assessor with good reviews, lots of experience and be prepared to pay a fair price reflective of their service. As the saying goes “you can have a good EPC or a cheap EPC - but there’s no such thing as a good cheap EPC”

At NN Home Energy Surveys we cover the whole of Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes and all our EPCs are just one price…£59

Clear pricing, no nonsense, great service and over 20 years experience in the property industry are what’s made us the regions first choice for EPCs. Take a look at our blog ‘Why Use NN Home Energy Surveys’ where you’ll find many a good reason to call us first. To book an appointment please call us on 07851 957628. I look forward to meeting you.

David