Heating Pump Age

At the time of writing the methodology for EPC assessments of existing dwellings is RDSAP 9.94. The much anticipated RDSAP 10 update has not happened yet and a significant methodology overhaul from RDSAP to the Hone Energy Model (HEM) is proposed for 2025.

During an EPC assessment, the domestic energy assessor is asked to select from the following options to describe the age of a central heating pump, if you have one:

• Unknown
• Prior to 2013
• 2013 or later

This option is available due to the introduction of the EU’s Energy-Related Products (ErP) Directive a few years ago which obliged manufacturers and importers to provide consumers with products that were more energy and resource efficient.

The application of this directive included heating pumps for central heating systems. These are the pumps that move the water through a boiler and around the radiators or underfloor heating pipes in your house, and they can be operating for considerable periods of time.

Although there were stages in the applied legislation, the effect is that if an energy assessor can identify a heating pump in a central heating system to have been manufactured to the required modern efficiency requirement, and they indicate this within the EPC assessment, the rating might be increased.

We'll take a look at a couple of example properties shortly, and there's no guarantee in all cases, but every measure counts, and it might make an improvement for a standard property of one SAP point.

This is only a small increase, but as we mentioned previously with small increases for other features such as low energy lighting, these points can accululate across multiple features and this single point could be the one that takes you over the threshold and into the next rating band.

In order to ensure your EPC rating is as representative as it can be of your property, if your heating pump fulfils the modern efficiency requirements, then you will want your energy assessor to indicate the option for ‘2013 of later’ in the assessment.

However, if your energy assessor is in a hurry, and particularly if they cannot easily tell, or do not have access to the pump, they will automatically choose ‘Unknown’ instead.

If you can conduct some research in advance, you might be able to help your energy assessor in this area.

Some boilers such as system boilers have their pumps outside the boiler housing. You may well see the pump if you look around the associated piping near your hot water cylinder for example. In this case, examining the pump yourself will be straightforward.

With other boilers, such as combi boilers, the pump is located within the casing of the boiler itself, so ordinarily it will not be visible, particularly to a passing energy assessor. Only qualified people should remove the casing from a combi boiler, so you could call in a heating engineer to do this for you so you can check the pump, or more conveniently, you could time it with your next boiler service when the heating engineer will have the case off the boiler anyway.

Once you'e located your Heating Pump, a useful strategy could be to take detailed photographs of your pump, carry out some research about it, and if you are happy that it fulfils the requirements of being declared '2013 or later', provide your evidence to an energy assessor in advance of their visit. This will give you the opportunity to check they have the same opinion, but also to see that they are happy to declare the pump as ‘2013 or later’ on the assessment.

With the photographs of the pump, take some particularly of the front face with the markings, and also slightly wider shots clearly showing the location context of the boiler so an energy assessor can use that as evidence.

For taking the photographs, use a device that automatically adds GPS geo-location meta-data to the photographs – any modern smartphone should be sufficient. Accreditation scheme auditors will potentially check the geo-location meta-data as part of any audit.

Email the photos to the energy assessor, don’t necessarily print out the photos to give to them as the geo-location data is located in the image data file.

Let's now take a look at RDSAP Convention 4.18. This is one of the 'Rules' we have to follow when conducting an EPC assessment on existing dwellings.

In order to qualify as '2013 or later', our heating pump must fulfil the requirements of this rule:

The text in red was inserted as a modification in March 2022. Previously there was no distinction whether a pump was internal within a boiler or not.

Currently, if the pump is external to the boiler, the energy assessor must be able to visually see it, otherwise they have to declare it as 'Unknown'. It therefore needs to be accessible, and the assessor needs to be able to view the front face of the pump. Additionally, the label on the pump must indicate either: the EEI (Energy Efficiency Index) value of the pump or/and the date of manufacture. Interestingly this rule does not explicitly say the pump EEI value has to be below any particular limit - although you could assume this is the intention.

In the case where the pump is integral to a boiler (included with the case of the boiler), then so long as supporting information is available that proves the pump is there and it's EEI value is within the limits of the legislation then an energy assessor can declare its age as '2013 or later. Either the EEI value printed on the pump label, or research online based on the exact make and model of the pump should suffice. Note that a date of manufacture on the pump in this case, on its own, would not be sufficient. I think this may be because manufacturers can still market 'Replacement' pumps for combi boilers that do not fulfil the EEI value requirement.

We'll therefore look out for the following markings on a heating pump:

An indication of the EEI (Energy Efficiency Index) value of the pump

The EEI value is the key performance criteria that determines whether the pump meets the ErP legislation or not. Sometimes this value is printed on the face of the pump, so if it present and it’s a value of 0.27 or less then the energy assessor should be convinced to mark the pump as being aged 2013 or later in the assessment. The limit was in fact tightened a few years after the ErP legislation was first introduced to a lower level of 0.23.

A CE mark

Although I believe that to display a CE mark, a heating pump needs to comply with EU legislation, there were previous requirements before 2013 and pumps of that age can carry a CE mark based on those. The presence of a CE mark on its own cannot be used to indicate a pump age of 2013 or later.

Make and Model of the heating pump

If the EEI value is not indicated directly on the pump then it’s sometimes possible to locate the pump’s data sheet on the Internet, to find the EEI value. The Make and Model of the pump are needed to do this. If the EEI value is less than 0.27, then provide a copy of the data sheet to your energy assessor as well as the photographs.

A Manufacture date of the pump

Often, the manufacturing date is printed on the pump. This can be the year in full, or for some brands such as Grundfos it can be in the form of a 4 digit code which indicates the year and week of production.

By way of example, here is a photo of the heating pump from a Worcester Greenstar 30i ErP combination boiler. This was taken from an eBay listing for a second-hand pump. This model of boiler was manufactured from 2015 onwards and judging by its model name, appears to have been designed to comply with the ErP legislation. This pump would be located within the boiler casing, normally out of sight.

In this photo, we can see all four of the items mentioned above:

1. The EEI value is marked as being 0.23 or less (the newer target value used a few years after 2013)
2. We also have a CE mark.
3. The make and model - Grundfos UMP2 15-70 CHG – although I was not able to locate a data sheet for this exact make and model on the Internet.
4. The manufacturing date  - This is encoded in the Production Code where it says PC:1550 –Grundfos literature indicates the first two digits represent the year and the second two digits represent the week of manufacture. 1550 therefore represents week 50 of 2015.

For this pump which is for a combi boiler, we should have no trouble convincing an energy assessor that the pump age should be declared as '2013 or later', so long as we provide sufficient evidence. As a pump that's integral to a boiler, Convention 4.18 states that its the EEI value that's important in order to qualify for selecting a Heating Pump Age of '2013 or later'.

If your pump does not fall within the requirements of being declared ‘2013 or later’ then one option might be to replace the pump with one that can be. It would be up to you to judge whether the cost involved was worthwhile to possibly gain just one SAP point on your EPC rating, and primary advice should always be sought from a heating engineer about choosing a replacement model.

You would need to calculate the cost of replacing the pump, and check with a Domestic Energy Assessor to see if a newer pump would make a difference to the EPC rating.

The majority of properties have just one central heating pump, but it’s possible for a system to have more than one. This can be where parts of the system have separate pumps – eg one for radiators and one for underfloor heating, or for separate zones. If this is the case, perhaps research all the pumps in your system that you can find to see if they can all be classified as 2013 or later.

Always seek advice from a local Domestic Energy Assessor before investing any money to improve your EPC rating. They will be able to advise what results are possible from different measures.

In terms of Heating Pump Age, if you are able to provide sufficient evidence for an Energy Assessor to choose the option for '2013 or later', this might improve your EPC rating, although if it does it will probably only be by one SAP point for an average property.

As always, if you make energy performance improvements to your property keep a record of the money you have spent and the date, in case this information may help you comply with any cost-cap exemptions in the future, if you are not able to reasonably bring the rating up to that required by the MEES regulations when renting the property.

Click here to return to our 'Improve Your EPC' main page, and see if there is another way you could improve your EPC rating.