DIAGNOSTICS
Introduction
It is a legal requirement to have a diagnostic report done before selling property. We had a full report done by a very competent team at Let's Diagnostics in early February. They did a very professional job, and provided us with a very detailed 96 page report that we can provide if you want the details.
The made detailed measurements of all the rooms, and we have provided the information elsewhere on the site.
They also reported
- No asbestos present
- No termites present
- Presence of lead (class 1) in the door outside the apartment (the apartment is accessed via two doors, which can easily be replaced).
- No anomalies in the electrical installation
Energy performance diagnostics
A rating of D is relatively good for an old apartment like Le Perrotin. The Let's Diagnostics team said that there are two ways to improve the picture and make the apartment more energy efficient.
The first is to replace the current electric water tank by one equipped with a heat pump that could extract energy from the air in the stairwell next to the apartment. The water tank is located above the ceiling of the WC next to the entrance, so this would require some building work. But they estimate that the cost would be less that €3500, including labour. We agree that this would be well worth doing and was on our "to-do" list until we decided to sell the apartment.
The second recommendation included replacing the current double glazed windows with more modern window with Argon insulation - something that might well be a smart move. We noted that most of our windows have wooden shutters on the inside which effectively improves the insulation, but this is not taken into account by the official measurements. As a result the effectiveness of replacing the double glazing may be less that expected.
However, they were also recommending insulating all the inside walls. Given that this would cover up all the beautiful exposed brickwork, this is not something that we would recommend, even if it did save a few hundred euros a year!
The effects of the various options is illustrated in the following figure. Replacing the hot water tank would lead to a 20% reduction in energy costs and shift the apartment to a C rating. Doing all the other work (and covering up the beautiful brickwork!) would allow a 79% reduction in energy costs, shifting the apartment to an A rating. It will be up to the future owners!
Electricity consumption
Our electricity consumption is monitored by the people at HelloWatt who have provided the following graph of the electricity consumption for the apartment during 2024. We spent slightly more than €2900, and consumed 11.9 MWh of electricity.
However, our electricity supplier just reduced the price per kWh by 19% on the 1st February 2025, so hopefully costs will be lower in 2025
