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INDUSTRY VIEWFINDER
Year on year comparison of perceptions of barriers to compliance with the new Part L g Significant g Moderate g Minor g No Barrier
(of products) ranked as a significant barrier for them. It remained the second most popular pick of the ‘barriers’ alongside ‘technical knowledge’ and ‘availability of suitable technologies,’ but it saw the biggest rise in importance of our four factors, up 14% on last year. This figure shows that manufacturers of solutions such as renewables and low carbon heating – and those tasked with installation including contractors – still have a job to do to persuade architects that their installer networks are robust enough for this to decline as a concern among architects. Knowledge and availability were still in third and fourth place respectively, with similar scores to 2023, although the latter had improved slightly in a year, down to 24% from 28% in 2023 (a 28% drop as a prohibitive factor for our survey respondents). We drilled down further to gain the views of respondents on some of the key issues which had been raised recently among the industry in terms of causing professional challenges for design teams in addressing the new Part L. The responses saw a shift from 2023, with primary energy (being used the ‘principal performance metric’ used to calculate a property’s energy use; the Primary Energy Rating), now seen as the main challenge (rated ‘very challenging’ by 27% of respondents, up from 21% in 2023). The other challenges of minimum U-values, the adopted method of air tightness testing had not increased significantly. And the mandatory use of the ‘notional building’ was now seen as less onerous, with only 8% saying it was ‘very challenging.’ Nearly double that figure had picked it in this category last year.
Part O: The heat is on With Part O being a brand new standard in 2021, we devoted several questions in our 2022 study to its constituent parts and ramifications, from the overheating calculation methods, to the specific challenges raised for designers attempting to create much tighter buildings while mitigating overheating, and the preferred solutions. Replacing the SAP overheating risk assessment, Part
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O raises a serious conundrum for many designers and clients, particularly in high-rise domestic projects, where expectations of window sizes may have to be drastically reassessed given the consequent overheating that may result from Part L U-values, and the now-common full height windows. In both 2023 and 2024, we asked how challenging respondents believed a series of Part O-related goals would be in residential designs. Several areas had revealed themselves to be more challenging in terms of complying with Part O having bedded in over the 12 months, according to our survey.
Achieving cross-ventilation in apartment blocks was the greatest
issue, ‘very or slightly’ difficult for 69% in 2023, but this cohort was up significantly to 84% in 2024. This was one way to comply with Part O however had seemingly revealed itself to be a greater challenge in designs than a year ago.
Minimising glazing in houses had become more difficult for 77% – who said it was difficult to comply with Part O in 2024, which was up from 73% in 2023. For apartment blocks this rose from 71% to 75% in 2023 saying it was ‘very or slightly difficult.’ However one area – avoiding mechanical cooling in apartment blocks – was proving less of a challenge (down from 81% in 2023 to 72% this year).
EXPERT VIEW
Chris Perry gave his insight on the conflict between designing highly efficient envelopes for Part L and the need to mitigate overheating driven by Part O, from his experience on London schemes: “Overheating is the biggest design challenge, as it is very restrictive. We really want to avoid any form of active cooling, but it is impossible in apartment blocks in some parts of London (where Heathrow weather data is used).”
ADF MARCH 2024
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