A technician who is an engineer or architect, who has had specific training that qualifies them as a Qualified REH Expert.

Unfortunately, there are many cases in which the person who goes to the site to carry out the inspection is just a draughtsman or someone without the proper qualifications, who doesn’t know how to recognise what is important and who jeopardises the quality of the work that should be carried out.

This situation is also illegal.
In fact, it is illegal for the building survey to be carried out by a person who is not a Qualified Expert, and a certificate under these conditions could be invalid and the Qualified Expert who allowed this situation to happen could lose their professional licence.

For this reason, when visiting the property, the client is asked to sign a declaration that the Qualified Expert has been on site and shown his Qualified Expert card.

To find out if you really are hiring a Qualified Expert to draw up your energy certificate, consult the list of Experts available on the ADENE website.

It’s a document that aims to reflect the constructive reality of the dwelling or service/commercial unit, which together with the technical systems available reflects the energy reality of the property, more specifically its efficiency, giving it a classification ranging from A+ to F, with A+ being the best classification.

In existing buildings there are many constructive characteristics that cannot be accurately gauged: how the walls, roof, etc. were built, whether insulation was fitted or not.

Therefore, in many cases when there is no evidence available, the Qualified Expert is forced to consider tabulated values, taking into account the visible characteristics of the elements.

In some cases this jeopardises the final classification of the property, but without evidence there is very little that can be done.

The geographical location of the property, the area, its average ceiling height, the composition of the walls, roofs, floors and glazing, the equipment associated with air conditioning and the production of domestic hot water, the ventilation of the space, the location of the property in relation to other units, among others.

Once these elements have been taken into account, the situation of this property is compared with the situation of a property that is in every way identical to the first, but which has been built and equipped with reference systems.

It is the relationship between the performance of the property to be certified and the reference performance that will dictate the final energy class.

One of the most important parts of the energy certificate is the improvement study. This study takes into account the reality of the property in order to propose measures that will increase the comfort of the room, reduce losses, improve the energy rating and ultimately save some money.

The measures proposed differ from house to house, and so does the result of applying the measures: it could be insulating the walls or roofs, changing the glazing and window frames, installing solar panels or changing the water heater. The measures are studied specifically on a case-by-case basis and make it possible to know for a given house what and how much to improve.

It is not compulsory to implement the improvement measures, but it is interesting to understand how a property can be improved, especially when you are trying to sell, as presenting the available improvement measures and the rating the property can achieve by implementing them can be a good selling point.

In order to obtain an energy certificate, the client must provide the expert with:

– Certificate of registration;

– Land registry;

– Floor plan (if there is no floor plan, the client will be charged extra, as it is necessary to make a dimensional survey of the property, which involves more work and more time);

– Technical data sheet for the house (if available – not compulsory)

-Manuals, technical data sheets or maintenance contracts for the technical systems available (not compulsory).