Sustainable buildings conference and Part L Regs

Sustainable buildings conference to usher in new Part L Building Regulations.

As recently reported by CIOB International, the home information packs to be tried out in England next year will include provision for assessments of energy efficiency as required by the European Directive on energy performance of buildings, implementation of which is to commence in January 2006.

As the Building Research Establishment points out in a commentary on the implications of the directive, it is incorporated into the new Part L of the Building Regulations.

Between them these two pieces of legislation are set to change the landscape for domestic and commercial buildings in the United Kingdom for many years to come.

Part L requires much higher standards of energy efficiency: buildings whether purchased or rented will be classified according to their energy use.

Occupiers will have to produce regular reports on the condition of metered equipment such as boilers and air conditioning plant.

One of the most challenging aspects of the new Part L regulations is the need to pressure test every new commercial building to ensure air tightness and guard against overheating.

Each building in this class has to acquire an energy efficiency certificate both at completion and at intervals during its lifetime.

BRE draws specific attention to the recommendation but not obligation that energy should be drawn 10 per cent from renewable sources.

In mid-September BRE in association with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Department of Trade and Industry is to run the resource05 conference and exhibition at Garston.

This will spend three days examining issues related to low carbon buildings, energy efficiency and renewable sources: day one for domestic buildings, day two for non-domestic and day three for sustainable communities including a session on biomass.

There will also be opportunities to respond to the DTI's microgeneration and low carbon buildings consultation exercise, to visit showhouses and raise questions with conference speakers and exhibitors.

One of the energy saving projects to be expounded at resource05 is the German PassivHaus concept which consumes 25 per cent of the energy used by a standard new-built house in the United Kingdom.

The passive house heats and cools itself without the aid of any active system: the Dutch sustainability expert Chiel Boonstra is making a presentation on the PassivHaus and intends to show how ultra-low energy housing could be introduced on a wide scale.

Energy performance calculation tool.

With regard to applying the European directive to non-domestic buildings, BRE has developed a new software calculation tool which will ease the complex task of assessing energy performance.

Such assessments will be needed for all new and most large refurbished buildings to comply with Part L2 of the new Building Regulations.

The calculation tool will also be able to produce the energy rating, a legal obligation under the directive.

The SBEM - Simplified Building Energy Method - will be freely available and will demonstrate compliance with performance standards as well as work out building energy ratings.

The iSBEM software interface enables the user to enter information on a building's geometry, construction and service systems.

BRE says in its latest Constructing the Future news-sheet that it is crucial for construction professionals to get to grips with this software as SBEM will be adopted by the whole industry.

Alongside the sustainable communities sessions on the third day, the resource05 programme includes a seminar on biomass and biofuels whose proponents argue could make a vital contribution to combating climate change.

Sir Ben Gill, head of the Biomass Task Force, will in a keynote address examine barriers to greater use of biomass and how they might be overcome.

Energy from biomass is generated by burning organic matter of recent origin such as wood or bio-degradable waste from high energy crops including rape and sugar cane.

The idea is that the carbon released by this process is balanced by that absorbed during the fuel's production.

The Government has endorsed resource05 as the key low carbon buildings conference and exhibition during Britain's presidency of the European Union (July - December).

It is regarded as the major forum for debating and responding to new initiatives, including the EU green paper on energy efficiency, plans for amending Part L and implementing the energy performance of buildings directive.

Dates for the conference are 2005-09-13/14/15.

On the home information front, BRE is establishing a training and assessment centre for people wishing to become licensed home inspectors.

As reportedly recently, most of them will need to come from the ranks of experienced building surveyors who currently undertake residential survey work.

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