Energy performance certificate Berlin: demand or consumption certificate from an energy consultant

The obligation does not start at the notary but with the listing. As soon as you offer a house or flat on a portal, in a newspaper or through an agent, the listing must state the type of certificate, the final energy demand or consumption in kilowatt hours per square metre and year and the main energy source for heating, and for residential buildings also the year of construction and the efficiency class. Without a certificate the listing cannot be filled in correctly, so it pays to order the certificate before the exposé is written.

At the viewing you present the certificate; a clearly visible notice or a copy laid out is sufficient. Once the purchase or rental contract has been signed, you hand it over without delay, as the original or a copy. For flats in apartment buildings the certificate of the whole building applies, and in an owners' association the property management commissions it. What else we offer owners' associations is described on our page on energy consulting for apartment buildings.

The demand certificate calculates how much energy the building needs under standardised use. To do this we record exterior walls, roof or top-floor ceiling, basement ceiling and windows with their areas and build-up, plus heating, hot water and ventilation. The heat losses of the envelope and the efficiency of the systems give the final and primary energy demand and from that the efficiency class from A+ to H. Because the result does not depend on how the occupants heat, it is more meaningful for buyers and banks than a consumption figure.

In Berlin's older buildings the documents are often incomplete: floor plans are missing from the building file, attics were converted later, some flats have new windows and others do not. In that case we take measurements and record the components on site instead of using default values. Default values usually turn out less favourable than an accurately recorded building, and a worse class in the listing costs more when selling than the survey does.

The consumption certificate evaluates the heating energy consumption over three consecutive billing years, adjusted for weather and vacancy. It is permitted for apartment buildings with five or more flats and for newer buildings, and because no calculation of the building envelope is needed, it costs considerably less than a demand certificate. The property management supplies the bills; the heating cost statements are usually enough.

The downside: consumption depends on the occupants. A building with many frugal households looks better than it is built, a fully occupied one looks worse. If you are planning a renovation or want to document the condition reliably, choose the demand certificate. And if you want to turn it into concrete steps, have an individual renovation roadmap prepared: measures from the roadmap receive a five percentage point federal bonus.

Every energy certificate contains recommendations for improving efficiency cost-effectively. In Berlin buildings the same candidates almost always appear: insulating the top-floor or basement ceiling because it costs little and achieves a lot, replacing old gas and oil boilers with a heat pump and, in unrenovated older buildings, new windows. Which order pays off and which subsidies apply is clarified in the energy consultation.

One point is often overlooked: replacing more than a third of the windows or insulating the facade makes the building more airtight. DIN 1946-6 then requires a ventilation concept that checks whether the air exchange is still sufficient to protect against moisture. If it is not, decentralised ventilation with heat recovery is usually the simplest solution in an occupied older building because it needs no duct network. We plan windows, insulation and ventilation together so the renovation does not end in mould.