EPC should drive your refurbishment strategy, not follow it
Many property owners treat EPC as the final step of a refurbishment project.
The building works are completed. The systems are installed. The finishes are delivered.
Then the EPC assessment happens.
But by that stage, the opportunity to make the most strategic decisions has often already passed. Energy performance should be considered before construction begins.
Once specifications have been approved and construction is underway, changing an important component can have consequences far beyond that individual item. A different heating or cooling strategy may affect electrical demand, controls, ceilings and plant requirements. Changes to glazing or insulation influence heating and cooling loads. Ventilation decisions affect both energy use and internal comfort.
Looking at performance early therefore allows these elements to be considered together, while there is still flexibility to adjust the design and scope of works.
Why?
Because the most effective refurbishment strategies start with understanding how a building performs today — and identifying which interventions create the greatest long-term value.
That means establishing a baseline before deciding what to replace. The objective is not necessarily to specify the largest number of upgrades, but to understand where performance is being lost and which combination of measures can produce a meaningful improvement.
For an existing building, this can mean looking beyond individual products to the relationship between the building fabric, heating and cooling, ventilation, lighting, controls and patterns of use. A technically efficient component cannot deliver its full potential if the wider system around it is working against it.
This is becoming more relevant as assessment methodology evolves.
The Government is developing the Home Energy Model (HEM) to replace the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) for domestic properties — moving toward much more detailed modelling of:
- Building fabric and insulation performance
- Heating and hot water systems
- Ventilation and air quality
- Renewable technologies and low-carbon solutions
- How different improvements work together as a complete building system
The direction of travel is significant because it places greater emphasis on understanding the building as an interconnected system rather than viewing individual measures in isolation. For property owners planning major works, that reinforces the value of carrying out energy and technical analysis before specifications are fixed.
Commercial EPCs currently keep their existing assessment approach, but the Government has said it is considering whether future reform should bring non-domestic assessments more in line with this more detailed model.
For commercial buildings, the current methodology remains separate from the domestic SAP/HEM framework. That distinction matters: HEM is being developed for dwellings, while non-domestic buildings continue to operate under their own assessment methodology.
Even so, the broader move toward more detailed building-performance information is relevant to commercial owners because refurbishment decisions often remain in place for many years. Major M&E systems, building fabric interventions and other capital works undertaken today may still be operating through future regulatory cycles.
For landlords and commercial property owners, this means refurbishment decisions made today are increasingly likely to be judged against more rigorous standards tomorrow. A successful energy upgrade is not simply about adding individual improvements — it's about how they perform as a system.
This changes the role of EPC within a refurbishment programme. Instead of being treated purely as certification at the end of construction, energy performance can become one of the inputs used to determine the scope of the project at the beginning.
At SHATRO | London, we integrate EPC assessment with turnkey construction and refurbishment solutions, helping property owners make informed investment decisions before work begins. Our approach combines energy analysis, engineering expertise and construction delivery to create buildings that are not only compliant, but better positioned for the future.
