Renovation Energy Performance Questions Checklist

Write down which rooms are used and when, which are heated and which are shut up and left cold, since assumptions about this drive almost everything else.

Rooms nobody heats are treated as heated in most standard assumptions, which is enough on its own to make a figure misleading.

Record how the heating is actually controlled in practice, including any radiator permanently turned off and any control that nobody in the household understands.

The gap between how a system is designed to be run and how it is really run is often where the discomfort comes from.

Note which windows are opened, in which rooms and in what weather, since the real pattern is rarely what anyone would assume.

Window opening is a household ventilation strategy that no assessment can see, and it interacts with everything that is proposed.

Record where laundry is dried, whether extract fans are used at all, and whether internal doors are left open while cooking or bathing.

Moisture produced indoors interacts with almost every improvement, and this is information only the household has.

Write down any expected change in how the property will be occupied, such as someone beginning to work at home or a room changing use.

Work planned around how the property is occupied today can suit nobody once a change the household already knew about arrives.

Photograph the data plate of the heating appliance and of any hot water store, and note where each sits and how easy it is to reach.

The data plate carries information that is otherwise very hard to reconstruct, and appliances are often boxed in during a renovation.

Record the exact places that feel cold, described by position within the room rather than by room name, since a cold corner and a cold room differ.

A cold corner suggests something local while a cold room suggests something general, and the distinction changes where anyone looks.

Note where you can feel air moving, at what height it is noticeable and in what weather, and mark each place on a rough plan.

Air movement felt at a particular height is a useful clue, and it is easily lost when described only as a draughty room.

Record which rooms become uncomfortably warm, at what part of the year and in which direction the room faces.

Overheating is often left out of an improvement conversation entirely, and some improvements make it more noticeable.

Note where condensation appears, on which surfaces and whether it sits at the edge of a window, on a wall or in a corner.

Persistent damp or mould needs a qualified professional to establish the cause and should not be treated as a simple performance question.

Record where you notice a difference between floors, or between one end of the property and the other, in your own terms rather than by measurement.

Differences between parts of a property often point to how the heating is distributed rather than to the fabric.

Note where external noise is most noticeable, since it often shares a cause with air movement and is worth raising in the same conversation.

Noise and air paths frequently coincide, and mentioning both together gives a professional a more complete picture.

Search your sale and mortgage paperwork for any existing energy assessment for the property, and note which version you hold rather than assuming it is current.

An assessment describing the property before earlier work is common, and treating it as current sends the whole conversation astray.

Gather records of previous improvement work, including anything a previous owner mentioned, and mark clearly which parts have not been confirmed.

Unconfirmed history is still useful provided everyone can see which parts are uncertain.

Record where each meter is, what type it is and whether you can reach and read it, photographing the position rather than any reading.

Meter positions matter for later work and are frequently boxed in or built over during a renovation.

Look into the loft and any accessible void, note what is present without disturbing anything, and photograph from the hatch only.

Look only from the hatch and lift nothing, since loft materials can need specialist identification before anyone handles them at all.

Note physical evidence of earlier improvement, such as filled holes in a regular pattern on a wall, a newer unit in an older frame or a boarded loft floor.

Physical evidence often contradicts the paperwork, and the contradiction is exactly what a professional wants to know about.

Search for paperwork left by earlier installers, including anything tucked into a meter cupboard or taped inside a heating appliance casing.

Installer paperwork left on site is common and answers questions that would otherwise need investigation.

Ask what has to be decided or carried out before something else can proceed, and record the answer as a sequence rather than as a list of options.

A recorded sequence is something you can hold a conversation against, whereas a list of options simply reopens every time.

Ask which areas become inaccessible once work is complete, so that anything needing to happen there is not left until afterwards.

Lost access is the most damaging kind of oversight in performance work, because reaching that area again means undoing finished surfaces.

Ask which improvements involve more than one trade working in the same place, and who is responsible for the junction between them.

Junctions between trades are where performance work most often falls short, and ownership of them is rarely explicit.

Decide and record how much disruption you are prepared to accept at one time, since that shapes what can sensibly be combined.

Combining work reduces repeated upheaval but concentrates it, and only the household can weigh that.

Ask what happens if only part of the intended work proceeds, and whether that would leave anything in a worse position than doing nothing at all.

Partial improvement is normal, but some combinations need care, which is a question for a professional rather than an assumption.

Write down the points at which you will be asked to decide something, and what information you should have in hand at each of them.

Decisions arrive faster than expected, and knowing what you need beforehand prevents them being taken on incomplete information.

Ask what happens to ventilation once the property is made less draughty, and record the answer before any work is planned around it.

Ventilation and combustion air are questions for a qualified professional, not something to settle from how the property feels afterwards.

Ask where moisture is expected to go once the construction is changed, and what the first visible sign would be if it is not behaving as intended.

Knowing what to look for afterwards is one of the most useful things an owner can take away from the conversation.

Ask what a change to the building fabric means for the existing heating arrangement, since a system suited to the property now may not suit it afterwards.

Fabric work and heating are usually discussed separately even though each changes what the other should be.

Ask what the proposed changes mean for existing flues and appliances, and record who is responsible for looking at them afterwards.

Anything involving a flue, a gas appliance or combustion air must be addressed by a suitably qualified professional.

If the property is older, ask what the proposed changes mean for the way the existing construction handles moisture, and record the answer in writing.

Older construction can behave differently from modern construction; this must be assessed by a qualified professional familiar with such buildings.

Ask what the proposed changes mean for the property in warm weather as well as cold, since improvements are often discussed in one direction only.

Work aimed entirely at cold weather can make warm weather less comfortable, and that is easier to consider now than afterwards.

Write down what you most want to change, in plain terms, since comfort, how the property runs and noise each lead to different advice.

Unstated priorities get replaced by assumed ones, which is how households end up with work that addresses something else.

Decide and record whether you intend to remain in the property while work happens, since that limits what can sensibly be attempted.

Remaining in occupation rules some approaches out entirely, and it is better said at the start than discovered later.

Record any appearance you are not willing to change, inside or outside, since that removes options which would otherwise be put to you.

Appearance constraints are legitimate and stating them early saves everyone considering options nobody will accept.

Decide which rooms are in scope and which are not, noting that the boundary between improved and unimproved areas becomes a junction to resolve.

That boundary is a genuine technical question rather than an administrative one, and it needs to be visible from the start.

Write down how long you expect to remain in the property and whether further work is anticipated, since it changes what makes sense to do now.

Work that would be sensible in stages differs from work carried out once, and only the household knows which applies.

Ask what information an assessor or designer needs from you before they visit, and prepare it rather than answering from memory on the spot.

Answers given from memory on the doorstep become the assumptions the whole assessment is built on.

Ask whether a figure you are shown is modelled or measured, and record the answer beside it so that it is never repeated without that context.

Modelled and measured figures answer different questions, and the distinction is usually lost within one or two conversations.

Ask what assumptions a figure depends on, particularly about how the property is occupied and heated, and compare them against your own record.

Comparing stated assumptions against your own occupancy notes is one of the few checks an owner is uniquely placed to make.

Ask what a figure does not include and write the exclusions down, since they are rarely repeated later in the conversation.

Exclusions mentioned once tend to disappear, and they are usually the reason expectations are not met.

Ask what any comparison is being made against, since a comparison with an unimproved property and one with an alternative approach are different things.

The basis of a comparison is what makes it meaningful, and it is often unstated.

Ask what would have to be true for the expected outcome not to happen, and record the answer as a list of dependencies you can watch.

This question produces more honest and more useful answers than asking how confident somebody is.

Note where each claim came from, whether from a professional who has seen the property, from a supplier or from general reading, and keep the three apart.

Claims from different sources deserve different weight, and once they are mixed together nobody can tell them apart again.