HEATING AND COOLING SYSTEMS
Safety and energy worries can drive low carbon future
The government took a joined-up approach when revising the Building Regulations, and if heating and cooling system designers do the same, we can tackle some of the country’s most urgent challenges, argues James Henley, Product Development manager at Daikin Applied UK.
The war in Ukraine, and the surging cost of living crisis, have turned the UK’s focus onto cutting energy bills and building running costs. The government’s British energy security strategy set a series of long-term goals for increasing renewable and nuclear energy, but in the shorter term we must focus on cutting demand. To be fair, the government had already set about addressing this through its Heat and Buildings Strategy, The Future Buildings Standard, and the Boiler Upgrade Scheme. These all recognise the importance of energy efficiency to reduce current running costs, while also preparing for a future that will rely far more on low temperature, low carbon heating from heat pumps, in particular. The British energy security strategy also looked at how it could improve the ventilation in buildings and address overheating, while still staying true to its climate change promises by linking changes to Parts L and F of the Building Regulations – the guiding principle being that you must improve energy savings, but not at the expense of good indoor air quality (IAQ). New targets came into effect in June 2022, with the new regulations regarded as a stepping stone towards The Future Homes Standard and The Future Buildings Standard, which aim to make all buildings ‘Net Zero ready’ from 2025. For now, homes will have to cut their carbon emissions by 30%, and non- domestic buildings by 27%, to meet the requirements of the revised Part L.
Overheating All new residential buildings, including care and children’s homes, and student accommodation, must also be designed to reduce overheating, under changes to Part F and the introduction of the new Part O. Changes to ventilation will also be introduced that can reduce the spread of airborne viruses in new non-residential buildings, including the mandating of CO2
monitors to demonstrate ventilation effectiveness, and additional standards
52 Health Estate Journal January 2023
Daikin Applied UK says the landscape for anyone designing, installing, and commissioning heating, cooling, and renewable systems is ‘changing dramatically’.
for recirculating ventilation systems in all new offices. The government is proposing three performance metrics against which new non-domestic buildings will
be measured: primary energy, a CO2 emission target, and minimum standards for fabric and fixed building services. The introduction of a primary energy metric is designed to make the energy efficiency of each building a priority, regardless of their heat source.
Even higher fabric performance standards The government also intends to set the Fabric Energy Efficiency standard, so there is a ‘meaningful uplift to the fabric of new homes’, leading to greater carbon savings. It has said that it will set even higher fabric performance targets as part of The Future Buildings Standard, and is also proposing to introduce a requirement for trickle vents in all replacement windows, and a new method for ensuring that ventilation is not impaired when energy efficiency improvements are carried out on existing buildings.
Transforming construction culture The biggest change to construction practices in half a century is also racing
towards us with the enactment of the Building Safety Act later this year. Implementation of the bulk of the new regime is anticipated within 12-18 months from the date of Royal Assent (i.e. by April – October 2023), with some obligations coming into force before then. For example, the provisions dealing with the remediation of certain defects (which were the most heavily publicised part of the Act) came into force two months from the date of Royal Assent (i.e. on 28 June 2022). The Act will introduce such a profound change to manufacturing, planning, procurement, installation, inspection, competence, and compliance, that many are arguing it will derail our carbon reduction plans. Delivering a 75% reduction in carbon
emissions by 2035 on the road to Net Zero by 2050 already seemed pretty ambitious before adding on the burden of totally revamping the safety culture of an entire industry at the same time. However, the transformation of building culture in this way should prove exactly what we need to revamp our energy and carbon performance. Poor energy performance is often the most obvious symptom of a building that is generally not fit for purpose. Making our buildings better by
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73
