1. What is the difference between this and an EPC, Energy Performance Certificate?

An EPC is done by a certified accredited surveyor. The surveyors have a small amount of their EPC assessments checked by an Auditor. The surveyor must prepare and retain a freehand drawing of your property for any possible audit. They take their measurements and assumptions and input them into a piece of software which then gives an EPC rating as well as some high-level recommendations, such as install solar or install a heat pump or install cavity wall insulation, etc. It also gives a possible cost of this and a payback timeframe. An EPC is done based upon an average yearly temperature at some point in the UK and a few other average one specific location values and it then uses this in the calculations. The EPC is valid for 10 years and would have to be redone to measure any improvements made.

We are not trying to replace an EPC. Not yet anyway although we are going to try to get our software accredited. What we do is to take your views, sights, measurements and answers to our survey questions and we give back the heat loss for the whole house and by room. We not only give this for one average in the year but we give it for every month of the year related to the region where your property is. So, we take the average temperature and other averages for a specific month for the region that your property is in and we use that in our calculations. We therefore give 12 different values. We do this because we believe that a room may be fine in the summer but suffer a bad heat loss in the winter and an average figure for the year doesn't cut it.

We also look at house and individual room air exchange and compare these against what is recommended. This allows us to give you an indication of possible air quality problems and recommend solutions.

We also look for damp and mould issues and try to identify possible reasons why it is there and how dangerous it could be for your family. Other issues and concerns are also identified and we try to identify and give a course of actions for these.

Finally, we give you a set of recommendations that are created from your survey results and the calculations made. We try to give as low-level recommendations as we can so that they are affordable and achievable and make a difference in the short term.

2. How can the health of your home impact your family's well-being and what specific issues might go unnoticed without a proper home assessment?

The main one is that the house you call your Home may be giving you and your family Health problems that you aren't even aware of. Damp that can cause mould. Air that is not being circulated correctly causing breathing issues. A lack of fresh air being allowed into your home. Heating turned off in certain rooms that is causing potential issues you aren't even seeing. All of these things can impact on the health of the people living in the home.

3. How can I optimise my home heating to manage costs effectively and what knowledge is crucial in identifying and improving energy efficiency throughout my home?

The high and increasing costs of heating your Home is an issue for many. But rather than just turning the heating off to save money, can you use the heating you can afford, smarter? Do you know which parts of your house are energy efficient and which are not? Do you know where your house is leaking energy and why? Do you know where you should be focussing on improving your Home so that you protect the family as well as protect the building? All of these questions can be answered.

4. What health risks are associated with damp and mould in living spaces?

Having your children and loved ones sleep in rooms with damp and mould can cause health problems. Spores can affect breathing and cause severe health issues. Knowing that it is there is important but knowing how to prevent it saves your family getting sick.

5. How can understanding and addressing the energy usage in my home save me money?

Knowing how much energy your house is leaking and where and why lets you take steps to reduce those large and stressful energy bills. Getting recommendations from skilled experts in how to stop the leaks not only decreases your energy bill but improves your comfort. But you need to know this to a level of detail. For example, knowing that one particular window that faces a certain way is responsible for losing a lot of heat during certain winter months may allow you to save money by installing a heavy set of thermal curtains. We give you the calculations to let you see this so that you can take actions to save yourself money.

The environment you live in contributes directly to you and your family's Health, Happiness and Well Being. You need to know the details of that environment so that you can manage it and improve it. For example, closing off all the air vents in a room may prevent a little heat loss but what is it doing to your air quality? We try to give a balanced view.

6. What about data privacy and security?

Your data is held in a secure data centre and we conform to all GDPR laws. We don't hold any of your financial data at all. Any payment you made is made through our payments utility partner, STRIPE, who are a world class recognised and secure payments service provider. Data about your name and your address and your property we do hold but we don't do anything with any data that is not already in the public domain. If, at any time, you wish us to delete your data from our database then we will, of course, action this as fast as is possible.

7. Do you give an EPC type certificate or EPC type value?

No, we are not allowed to until our software and service have been authorised and approved. We are working towards that. We are doing this in stages. The first stage is to give you our interpretation of what your Energy rating could be for your property. We shall be able to do this within the first 3 months after launch. Once you have signed up to the survey, completed it and downloaded your report we shall then have all the information required to calculated this Energy rating. You will not have to do anything else. Within 3 months (and we are hoping for a much shorter timescale) we shall give you an additional report showing an indicative EPC rating value. Once, and if, we do manage to get our software and service approved, we shall then give you an updated report with an EPC with an energy rating. At this time, we cannot give a timetable for this.