All energy efficiency improvement work will require time and money, but the effort and pounds are worth it.

Insulate The Loft

According to the Energy Saving Trust, about a third of heat in a badly insulated house goes straight out through the roof. If you have loft insulation put into your property, this will help keep the heat in. What’s more, it will also help save money too. For a three bedroom semi-detached house with central heating and no previous loft insulation, this equates to a saving of about £150 on typical annual energy bills, which is sure to be good news to your tenants.

Good quality loft insulation will last for at least 40 years. On average, the cost of having a loft insulated is about £250.

Insulate Hot Water Pipes

One of the cheapest and easiest ways of improving the energy efficiency of a property is to insulate the hot water pipes. Special insulating material simply needs to be securely wrapped around the exposed pipes.

This costs as little as £10 to do, so even if you do nothing else, do this!

Draught-Proof Your Property

Badly fitting doors and windows are prime culprits for letting heat out of a property. Consider putting in draught-proofing strips or draught excluders along doors or windows, so that the heat that is in the property will be retained.

The average cost of draught-proofing a three bed semi is in the region of £200.

Currently, anyone selling a property in the UK is required to have an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) before they put the property on the market. However, even though the EPC is in the pipeline, the full details of how energy efficient a property is aren’t always available for early viewers.

In a bid to get over this issue, and help encourage home owners to become more energy efficient aware, a new EU Directive will come into force in 2012 making it compulsory for all EPC ratings to be published upfront with for sale adverts, so that everyone will know the ratings before they even look at a property.

If you’re thinking of putting one of your investment properties on the market in the next few years, then experts are advising that it’s a good idea to check the energy efficiency of your property now and, if necessary, get energy improvement work done sooner, rather than later.

In addition to improving individual properties, the new legislation will also help the government on its bid to reduce household carbon emissions by 29% by the year 2020.

Energy Performance Certificates became a legal requirement for residential landlords in October 2008. They have to be obtained before you begin marketing your property for rent and, if you fail to do so, then you could end up being fined £200 by Trading Standards.

The Energy Performance Certificate provides a rating about how energy efficient your property is. It uses a rating system from A to G, with A being the most energy efficient, and G the least efficient; the average level is about D. You’ll need to have your property looked at by an energy assessor and, as well as providing your rating and certificate, they will provide ideas for how you can make your property more energy efficient (you don’t have to take these ideas up, but it can be useful if energy efficiency is a concern).

In fact, research suggests that tenants are becoming more concerned about environmental issues, the cost of household bills and the impact a building has on the environment, so the extra advice may help you make practical steps to improve the overall efficiency of your property and make it more desirable to tenants.

Find more about how to go about getting an EPC. Once you’ve obtained your EPC, it’s valid for 10 years and you can take the next step towards advertising your property for let.

According to the latest strategy plan from the Department of Energy and Climate Change, any landlords letting properties will have to upgrade the energy efficiency of the property to a minimum standard before they are allowed to let it out. For example, loft and cavity wall insulation would have to be put into older properties as a condition for being allowed to rent them out.

This isn’t the only new proposal though, as there’s also the suggestion that homes with low energy efficiency will lose their value – so if you don’t do anything to help improve energy efficiency, when you come to sell the property, estate agents will be advised to provide a lower than average property price.

The theory behind these new proposals is that landlords and homeowners will be more likely to pay for energy efficient home improvements, such as improved insulation and solar panels, if it will improve the value of their property. There will be further rewards for those who embark on improvements, in the form of council tax rebates of over £1000 a year for property owners improving insulation.

All these plans are part of the government’s “Warmer homes, greener homes” initiative, which aims to help cut carbon emissions by a third by the year 2020. Currently, nearly a quarter of British carbon emissions stem from the energy used in homes.

What do you think – do the plans sound viable to you? If you have an older rental property, have you done anything to improve its efficiency?

The Chancellor first put forward the idea of a boiler scrappage scheme in his pre-budget report in December 2009 and the full details have been quickly put together. The idea is that landlords and homeowners in England trade in their old, inefficient boilers and receive a discount of £400 towards the cost of a new boiler.

To qualify for the scrappage discount, the boiler must be a G-rated or worse. Also, if you’re under 60, then the boiler you’re scrapping must be in working order and the main boiler used to heat the house.

The scheme currently only applies to properties in England and landlords who rent homes and home owners are eligible; social landlords, housing associations and boiler installers aren’t.

However, British Gas and npower have recently launched their own versions of the boiler scrappage scheme, in competition with the government, and these both cover properties in Scotland and Wales.

If you’re not sure if your boiler is G-rated, then the Energy Saving Trust suggest:

• If it’s a gas boiler and has a permanent pilot light, then it’s likely to be a G-rated boiler.
• If it’s gas fired and over 15 years old, it’s likely to be eligible.
• If it’s oil fired and over 20 years old, it’s likely to be eligible.

You could also check your boiler eligibility on the Government Boiler Efficiency Database or the SEDBUK Boiler Efficiency Database.

The downside of the scheme is that it will only be available to the first 125,000 people to apply – so get your skates on if you think you’re eligible.

You can find more information about applying for the scheme on the Energy Saving Trust website.