ROUND TABLE REPORT 29
EXPLORING THE ISSUES There was consensus around the importance of combining energency efficiency with environmental quality, but also on the likelihood of a delay to the Future Homes Standard
conversation about internal heights, as we end up doing designs for 2.5 metres and these heat up quickly.” She added that it’s “a balance between comfort, carbon, energy and what the developer wants.”
The Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) used by Building Control, and its associated challenges, came up several times during the discussion. This included when Chris Perry said that an unfortunate side-effect of the need to balance policy across various building typologies was making SAP “so opaque,” as a result of “trying to be very flexible.”
Bhardwaj added that her firm worked closely with energy consultants on projects to “find out whether the energy figure they were aiming at is sensible.” She explained further that “In SAP, you can only benefit from a certain U-value up to a certain point; after that it doesn’t make any difference.”
IDSystems mainly works in extensions to domestic properties, and David Clarke submitted a question for discussion, namely ‘where does the balance lie between glazing performance and appearance that is going to be necessary for Part L compliance?’ He told the group that while his customers “have got used to seeing inside-out living and floor to ceiling windows, we know that is not necessarily going to be achievable.” Bin from Shepheard Epstein Hunter pithily responded: “Our energy consultants keep telling us that anything below the waist in terms of glazing is a waste.” Chris Perry asserted that “the only way of achieving the balance between Part L and Part O, especially with the Future Homes Standard, is modelling and testing.” He said that an MEP engineer has to be involved “right from the start; the very big housebuilders are already doing this, but at the smaller scale it hasn’t got through.” Shikha added that such modelling data would also be useful for design practices to run in future developments.
ADF JULY/AUGUST 2023
Control your emotions: planners & Building Control Chris Carr suggested that Building Control should be brought into pre-application meetings to help get the balance right between the different standards’ demands: “Planners aren’t interested in how it physically works – you have to educate them on why we are doing certain things that affect the look, such as why we can’t put PVs on the rear of all the properties.”
Shikha Bhardwaj said she believed that planners “needed to change their mindset on how ‘ugly’ a zero carbon home will be.” She added that another frustration with planning teams was that “there’s nobody in the meeting to talk about sustainability.” Chris Perry concurred: “They always say it’s key, central, etc, but they never actually discuss it.”
Bill Hayward added that there was something of a ‘not invented here’ syndrome present: “They need to be prepared to let go of what they know, if it’s a new technology you have to do so much work to get any agreement.” Bhardwaj added that a “quick fix” would be to “hire an external consultant to be in the meetings; there are so many experts out there.”
Looking to the Future (Homes Standard) The second session of the round table moved onto an attempt to see into the not-too-distant future, namely 2025, when the industry will be required to take a massive jump to produce ‘net zero ready’ homes, in accordance with the Future Homes Standard (FHS). When it comes to windows, David Clarke of IDSystems candidly admitted that if triple glazing would be required to meet the FHS, some of their current window systems would be “obsolete.” Chris Perry pointed out a further issue around triple glazing in that it significantly adds to a project’s embodied carbon. Clarke added that with budgets normally under pressure in one-off house projects, it was difficult to persuade homeowners
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