EnergyPerformance.homes
The Hearth Record
A home in warm evening light with insulated walls, a heat pump unit and solar panels on the roof
A home read as a system: fabric, heating, air and evidence, in that order.

Improve and regulate building energy performance

The Hearth Record is an independent guide to home and building energy performance: EPCs, audits, insulation, heating, solar, retrofit, renovation passports, EPBD and minimum standards. It follows one backbone: current performance, assessment, certificate, deficiency, improvement measure, retrofit, professional, regulation, evidence, and then improved performance.

Start with home energy performance, explained, or open a house file below. Every guide opens with an energy record: the file and stage, the question it answers, the evidence level and the first check. EU and UK rules are kept separate throughout, and no guide is advice for a specific home.

Walk the house files

File 01 Home energy performance foundations How a home uses energy, where it is lost, and how to judge an improvement honestly before spending anything. 20 guides File 02 Energy Performance Certificates What an EPC is, what its rating does and does not prove, and how to read one without over-reading it. 16 guides File 03 Home energy audits What an audit adds beyond a certificate, what an auditor checks, and how to turn a report into a plan. 25 guides File 04 Reading your energy rating The rating in detail: demand, costs, carbon, potential, and the limits of a single letter. 14 guides File 05 Insulation and fabric first Fabric first: the walls, roof and floor that decide most of a home heat loss, and how to improve them safely. 19 guides File 06 Heating and heat pumps Heating as a system: heat source, distribution, controls and hot water, and where a heat pump fits. 22 guides File 07 Solar panels and storage Generating at home: panels, inverters, storage, self-consumption and what the roof and the wiring must support. 15 guides File 08 Windows, doors and ventilation Openings and air: glazing, draughts, and the ventilation an airtight home still needs. 18 guides File 09 Whole-house retrofit planning Retrofit as a sequence, not a shopping list: order, phasing, moisture, disruption and evidence. 21 guides File 10 Renovation passports A staged roadmap for a building: what a passport records, how stages link, and what it cannot promise. 13 guides File 11 Building energy modelling Models that estimate performance: inputs, assumptions, software, and the gap between model and meter. 24 guides File 12 The EPBD framework in the EU The EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, recast in 2024, and what it asks of member states and buildings. 17 guides File 13 Minimum energy performance standards Minimum standards: who they apply to, how timelines work, and what counts as evidence of compliance. 20 guides File 14 The UK EPC system The UK system on its own terms: registers, nations, letting rules, assessors and corrections. 15 guides File 15 Assessors, certificates and evidence The people and paperwork behind a rating: assessors, accreditation, visits, errors and records to keep. 23 guides File 16 Installers and professionals Choosing and briefing the right professional, comparing quotes, and keeping independence between assessor and installer. 16 guides File 17 Costs, payback and finance Money in plain terms: quotes, illustrative ranges, payback arithmetic, finance and grants in general, with no promises. 19 guides File 18 Energy performance by home type The same measure behaves differently in a terrace, a flat, a bungalow or a solid-wall older home. 22 guides File 19 Landlords, buyers, sellers and tenants Energy performance at the moments a home changes hands or changes tenant, and what each party should check. 14 guides File 20 Checks, mistakes and maintenance Keeping performance after the work: annual checks, post-retrofit checks, drift, and the mistakes that undo gains. 18 guides
View all 371 guides

How this desk works

An assessor measuring a room in a home with a notebook and a thermal camera

Three rules. First, no invented numbers and no promised outcomes: figures come from primary regulation or official guidance, are attributed, and carry the date they were checked; worked examples use round numbers and are labelled illustrations. Second, jurisdiction is labelled on every rule: EU EPBD framework, UK EPC system, or another market, never blended. Third, corrections are published, not buried: the corrections page records what changed and why.

This site does not recommend an installer, assessor or product, does not run a directory, and does not generate leads. It explains the system so a reader can judge professional advice well, and routes home-specific decisions to a qualified assessor or installer in the relevant jurisdiction.

How the record is kept

The backbone runs in order, and the files follow it: a home's current performance is assessed, a certificate or audit records it, deficiencies are listed, measures are chosen to fit the construction, retrofit is sequenced, a professional carries out or checks the work, the applicable regulation is noted, evidence is kept, and only then is improved performance claimed, and only with the evidence to show it.