Sites & Cités Remarquables and the CDI FNAIM ask the government for an ECD specific to old buildings

“Abolishing the invoice method for pre-1948 buildings was necessary. This method based solely on household consumption was not satisfactory and generated too much misunderstanding. There is no going back!” say Yannick Ainouche, president of the Chamber of Real Estate Diagnosers of the FNAIM and Martin Malvy, president of the Association Sites & Cités Remarquables de France.

And to continue: “The adoption of a conventional method for the buildings of this period responds to a desire for objectivity, but today we cannot be satisfied with its results. We see this on a daily basis, because it does not take into consideration the intrinsic qualities of old construction. »

Wanting the energy transition goes through a DPE specific to the old...

In the facts…

To believe that the older a building is, the more energy it consumes is a mistake. A house built before 1948 is not necessarily an energy sieve. Even when it has not been restored.

“The BATAN project carried out at the dawn of the 2010s under the leadership of ADEME and the Ministry of Housing showed that this old stock proved to be much less energy-intensive than buildings from the 1949-1974 period. To be fair, the average classification of this old stock should correspond to a D label and an energy consumption of 200 kWhEp.m².year, as shown by BATAN. »

Since the launch of the new diagnostic in July 2021, more than 5 million DPEs, all habitats combined, have been carried out. The results for the first quarter of 2023 published by Ademe, concerning some 850.000 housing units, classify 60% of buildings that emerged before 1948 as E, F or G. In other words, subject to a renovation obligation by 2034 for those proposed for location.

The explanation lies in the method of calculation. Despite several successive fixes since 2021, the 3CL-DPE method does not restore the intrinsic qualities of the old one.

“Traditional construction calls for a more environmental approach that takes into account the particular construction system and the hygrometric and inertia properties of the materials used. “continue the signatories of this letter.

How?

Avenues for reflection exist: adjustments to the DPE are possible, for example for better consideration of buffer spaces, the reality of thermal bridges, summer comfort and for better consideration of biosourced and geosourced insulation such as cob of walls or thatched roofs, insulating coatings…

“As with small-scale housing, which is systematically penalized under the current method, the DPE needs corrective measures to establish its credibility under the old method. This rebalancing is all the more essential as buildings built before 1948 represent a third of the housing stock. »

This work of rebalancing the calculation of the DPE in the old one is necessary, it is also urgent. Because with more than 7 million energy strainers for all habitats identified by the current DPE according to an estimate by the Government, the renovation objectives desired today by the Climate and Resilience law and tomorrow Europe, seem unattainable.

Adapting the DPE to old construction will make it possible to know where to concentrate efforts to make the energy transition of buildings a success and at the same time to avoid a rise in power of dispute from the owners concerned.

“We cannot impose constraints on documents whose arguments are contested by the professionals themselves. Improving the knowledge of diagnosticians is certainly a step in the right direction, but again, how to base a policy on the expectation that some will be better than others and will have a finer appreciation, which implies that the others would lead to error ? “, conclude the two signatories.