Given yesterday’s announcements about lockdown situations for England, Scotland, as well as the ongoing rules in Wales and Northern Ireland, we thought we would try to outline how best Energy Assessors can proceed with their work during this current period.
In all Home Nations, guidance is clear that activities pertaining to the rent or sale of properties, either domestic or non-domestic, can still continue. This means that Energy Performance Certificates can still continue to be produced and lodged following a property assessment.
With DECs, given the closure of many public buildings, it may be more difficult to access or gather evidence. In this circumstance, DEC assessors should work closely with their clients to facilitate this.
The key to the continued assessments of properties is that they are done in a safe manner as per latest guidance:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-energy-performance-certificates
The main things to consider in order to remain responsible are:
- Ensuring you are up-to-date with the above guidance;
- Following the mantra of Hands, Face, Space, Replace
- Ensure you following hand cleansing/santising when entering a property;
- Wearing personal protective equipment whilst on site, especially a three-layer mask which covers the nose and mouth.
- Maintaining social distancing from any occupants present;
- Try to keep windows or doors open to provide fresh air and ventilation during assessments.
It is our hope that these guidelines provide some reassurance to you and your clients and would encourage you to inform them of this guidance. We’ll also be keeping our Support Log updated with information about how to safely conduct assessments, as well as updated guidance, when available.
Please be advised that once again the entire team are securely working remotely and are able to continue supporting you during our normal office hours. It is crucial to us that we are able to do this during this time and therefore we remain committed to ensure:
- All of our software and systems are maintained so that energy certificates can continue to be lodged.
- Our telephone lines operate as usual, both for accreditation and technical support.
If you have any further questions, please do not be afraid to pick up the phone, send us an email, or join in on some of our upcoming assessor online webinars (use the time you have available wisely and carry out your annual CPD). It is important to stay connected.
We appreciate that this will be a difficult time for everyone, when the start of the year is a historically quiet period for assessments; as such, we will be allowing Energy Assessors to downgrade their current membership package, however, this will be time sensitive.
To downgrade your membership from January, you must email the accreditation team before Monday 11th January 2021. Any requests received after this date will be actioned from February 2021. The email address needed is qas@quidos.co.uk.
We will notify all of our assessors if the situation changes or if we receive any industry updates.
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