Professor Colin Garner as a concerned citizen has set up a Community Climate Action Group for the villages that broadly make up the Harton Benefice designed to help people take individual actions to work towards zero carbon. If you are interested in learning more or getting involved, please see [Sand Hutton website?] or email cgarner010@gmail.com.

One of the initiatives is to look at Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) for our villages. If you let a house or if you have transferred a house in recent times there will be an EPC for your property. But if you have not and are interested in doing some works to your property to improve the thermal efficiency or to generate more electricity or other zero carbon measures then it would be worthwhile commissioning one as a first step. They cost less than £100 (typically £80) and will give you some good insights as to what is most likely to reduce your energy consumption and save you money. It has a list of possible actions in priority order. It is a very valuable way of identifying where any money you choose to spend should be targeted first.

EPC’s are valid for 10 years so if you are planning to transfer the property in the near future, you will need one at that stage anyway.

So far we have researched the EPC data for the villages of Buttercrambe, Scrayingham, Bossall, Sand Hutton, Skirpenbeck and Claxton. Zero carbon will be achieved when all houses are at band A and currently none are! There is an interim target to get properties to band C as a minimum and currently Scrayingham is the winning village with 36% of properties at band C or above, chased by Sand Hutton on 28%, Buttercrambe on 24%, Skirpenbeck at 22%, Bossall with 7% and Claxton at 3%. So we all have a long way to go!

If you Google EPC assessors there is a good choice locally. However, Helen Pirozek from Wiggington attended the Saturday social in February to speak about EPCs and has been used by a number of people on the CCAG group who recommend her. Helen can be contacted on helen@yorkepc.com or 07941 956332.

The CCAG also has a thermal imaging camera which can be borrowed to assess your own property. In the next Circular we will explain how that operates and what has been learnt so far.