HK: Family houses are also to have an energy performance label

Prague - Representatives of the Chamber of Commerce (HK) today proposed that new family houses also be labeled with a tag that contains information about energy efficiency. Currently, all buildings with a floor area over 1000 square meters must have an energy performance certificate. However, the Minister of Industry and Trade Martin Říman disagrees with the HK proposal.
Thanks to the HK proposal, people could easily get an idea of how much operating the building will cost them after moving in. Not every buyer is familiar with the technical units of energy efficiency. "We should think of the small, the non-experts. An expert can calculate the energy efficiency of a building," said the vice president of the chamber, František Holec. The label should, according to his vision, be simple and indicate the classification of the energy efficiency of the house according to degrees, similar to how some appliances are currently labeled.
However, Říman disagrees with the proposal. "I will not initiate a change. I would leave it to developers, builders, and buyers to offer this system as a certain market advantage," said the Minister. According to him, the regulation allows builders to indicate energy efficiency on a scale even now for buildings with a smaller floor area.
The energy performance certificate for buildings with a floor area over 1000 square meters was introduced by the energy performance regulation, which has been in effect since last July. The certificate includes a label categorizing the building into a group from A to F and information on the total annual energy consumption per square meter of floor area. The graphical part of the certificate must be displayed in a publicly accessible place in the building by January 1, 2009.