Sadhbh O'Neill

Yeah, thanks so much for inviting me in.

I love talking about energy and these ratings.

They're really important in telling us in advance, before we make a purchase...

what the likely cost of running an appliance is going to be.

So the first thing to say is that the ratings A to G on most appliances that you will see in hardware and kind of appliance stores are completely different from the BRRRR rating.

So the BRRRR rating on your house refers to the energy performance of the fabric of the house, essentially.

So it doesn't tell you anything about what your electricity bills are likely to be, because you could plug everything in and charge everything up all the time and end up with high bills, even if you're in an A-rated dwelling.

So they're very different.

So the A on the house doesn't mean the same thing as A on the washing machine.

So the energy labels that apply to appliances vary.

You might remember a few years ago, you saw a lot of A plus and then A plus plus and A plus plus plus.

They were very confusing for people.

So what the EU did was these labels are all set by the EU.

So they're standardised across the EU and they apply to each individual product, not a brand.

So individual brands of washing machine manufacturers, they might have many different types of washing machine and they perform to different standards.

So they rescaled the energy labels then now.

So everything is A, B, C, D, E, F or G. You don't have any more of the A plus thing.

So A is obviously the best and the most efficient and it will cost less to run.

It should absolutely mean that.

That's what the whole point of the energy labelling is.