Opinion
The post-build era
Being able to access data on the performance of
buildings is a crucial step in monitoring energy
efficiency, says Geoff Russell-Smith
years ago I attended an industry-wide performance of products and materials in working
A
few
event, and the debate turned to post-build buildings.
monitoring. The host asked for a show of It might also help us to move firmly away from
hands as to who was undertaking post- focusing on capital costs to a situation where
build monitoring of buildings they had worked on. specification decisions are instead made by looking
I eagerly put my hand up to report on some of our closely at the whole-life costs of the building and its
recent monitoring work, but I quickly sensed that I specific systems and products.
was in the minority and had made an industry faux- According to the UKGBC, the proposed Code for
pas. Sustainable Buildings will be radically different from
I had broken an unwritten industry rule: you the Code for Sustainable Homes. It will provide a
don’t talk about post-build data and building framework, which makes use of existing legislation
performance. and will include an ‘escalator’ of mandatory tougher
A bit extreme? Maybe slightly, but the situation targets leading up to zero-carbon.
hasn’t changed that much. Data on the performance We can learn from the
of non-domestic building stock is still difficult to experiences in the residential It might also
come by. sector. Many housebuilders
help us to
I don’t think there has been a great industry have been quick to call on the
conspiracy about this. It’s simply that nobody wants government to ‘water down’ move firmly away from
to be professionally associated with a building which the zero carbon definition and
focusing on capital costs
might not be an exemplar of efficiency. push back a 2016 deadline for
The UK Green Building Council’s (UKGBC) Code residential. Yet, despite these calls to a situation where
for Sustainable Buildings proposal, if implemented, and the current downturn, the
specification decisions
would insist on the mandatory provision of data Code for Sustainable Homes has
in the public domain. This is clearly a step in the helped to galvanise the sector into are instead made by
right direction, and if implemented, could deliver action.
looking closely at the
some revealing results, particularly for a number Look around and there are
of existing ‘green’ buildings that had been billed as pockets of activity from both whole-life
environmental star performers. In some cases, we housebuilders and Registered
costs of the
could well be victims of greenwashing hyperbole. Social Landlords who, on test-bed
I hope that the Code could also help to tackle sites, are trying to understand building
some of the issues of Display Energy Certificates. how they can meet the highest
While these have undoubtedly provided visibility levels of the Code now. Crucially, this process has
on energy performance, they can deliver misleading armed them with better information about the most
results. Currently, it is possible for an inefficient efficient products and is leading to frank discussions
building that is half full to receive a high DEC rating. about performance data.
Similarly, a building that is designed to be energy- We need more data and greater transparency
efficient can also be operated efficiently, but it may on new and existing buildings in order to meet
get a low rating due to one essential/unavoidable the non-domestic 2019 zero carbon target. With
piece of equipment such as a supercomputer. the implementation of the Code for Sustainable
Critically, I hope greater data transparency for a Buildings, I sense that the days of ‘unspoken’ data
building across its energy, carbon, water and waste rules could be well and truly over. l
usage might also lead us to have more sensible
discussions about the ‘real’ efficiency and in-situ
Geoff Russell-Smith is general manager, Tarmac TermoDeck
18 CIBSE Journal April 2009
www.cibsejournal.com
CIBSEapr09 pp18 opinionGR.indd 18 2/4/09 14:57:01
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