44 INDUSTRY VIEWFINDER
those barriers in each survey, there was an opportunity to see if things had improved since 2022 and the emergence of the revised standards.
Increased costs were the top barrier by housebuilders responding to our survey in 2022, and they were again in the top sot this year, however with an even hiher fi ure versus 65%), suggesting that as the Part L and F changes had bedded in, the true cost has become more apparent in practice. Lack of homeowner education and awareness, in terms of being a barrier to successfully complying with the new changes, was a more frequently picked category this year than in 2022, moving up the rankings from number four to number two (a big jump, from 30% to 53%). This means that more of our respondents believed that homeowners being informed and thereby buying into the changes needed is critical to enabling the changes to be progressed on new homes. Their education being lacking in this area, highlighted by our study, suggests a challenge for both the Government as well as housebuilders to tackle.
The other barriers cited were lack of experience with low carbon technologies, and workers with required skills, lack of fi nancial incentives for builders, havin to easure carbon across the whole site, having to change suppliers, and the slowed pace of building/inability to meet housing demand. Most of the results reained siilar to the fi ures The nuber of respondents citing lack of skills was particularly disappointing, having dropped slightly since 2022 with 45% of respondents saying it remains a barrier (from 41% in 2022), despite repeated proclamations of prioritising skills coming from Government. ne notably different fi ndin was another cost issue naely the ‘inability to price the construction costs of complying with the new es into the fi nished roduct orded another way, this eans bein able to u the rice of a fi nished hoe to include the additional costs. Presumably, the jump in picks of this as a barrier to number four in the list (up four places from number eight in 2022; chosen by 38% of respondents this year versus 24% in 2022), is not only the result of greater awareness of the impact of the standards ‘in action’ since they became mandatory in June 2022. It’s also likely to result from the fact that house prices have been on a steady decline this year, meaning that housebuilders would struggle to add to premiums and must instead absorb the costs of enery effi ciency iroveents The problem of having to change suppliers due to the increased performance requirements of the new standards, or inability of previous suppliers to provide compliant systems, was causing an issue once more for our surveyed cohort in 2023. Only 28% were picking this as a remaining barrier to coliance, however, albeit slihtly hiher than the fi ure of 25%.
GENERAL EXPERIENCE & UNDERSTANDING OF THE CHANGES Two of the survey questions which we repeated this year to enable a comparison covered the respondents’ general experience of compliance with the new Parts L, F and O, and replicated the 2022 survey questions, which enabled us to track progress over the year since the new Regs came into force (in June 2022). We again asked housebuilders ‘how hard have you found compliance with the new regulations,’ and ‘how well do you understand the changes to Parts L, F and O? or the fi rst uestion, the results in were relatively
moderate, with 21% saying they had found compliance (with 31% carbon reductions on builds, but also Part F ventilation and Part O overheating provisions), ‘extremely hard,’ whereas 28% said ‘it’s been no different.’ This year, we split the question to establish views on Parts L, F and O compliance, and the responses were somewhat reassuring, with a similar number (24%) saying ‘it’s been no different,’ (on Part L, 24% and 23% on Parts F and O respectively). This did however mean that 77% reported they had found compliance ‘challenging’ to some degree. On Parts F and O, this year 77% said compliance had been slightly to extremely challenging (11% extremely challenging). However, a relatively large contingent said that they had found it no more challenging than before to adapt to the newly revised, or brand new, standards (24% for Part L and F, and 23% said that Part O had been ‘no different’ in terms of presenting a challenge for compliance). The fi ndins on art were soewhat counterintuitive, iven that youd eect ore eole to fi nd this standard challenin to some degree, being a new Approved Document. Part O reuires ore housesecifi c calculation, iven the different shading and orientation across a development affecting each property’s potential overheating levels, whereas Parts L and F models and estimated performance can more readily be applied across a range of homes and sites from a single model.
BREL REPORTS Perhaps the biggest change for housebuilders from the upgraded Part L is the requirement to provide a full set of photo evidence at each stage of a build that demonstrates that they have achieved the necessary quality of construction onsite. This is an onerous and admin-heavy process for contractors which will hold things up, but is regarded as necessary to drive the construction rigour that will close the Performance Gap that exists currently between as-designed and as-built construction. The resulting ‘BREL’ (Building Regulations Part L) reports which are now to be provided by housebuilders to Building Control as part of SAP are in-depth, requiring prescribed sets of photos, for example of constructed junctions. They comprise a ‘design stage’ report and a subsequent ‘as-built’ report signed by both the SAP assessor and developer.
COST INCREASES PROVE A GREATER CONCERN n s ndustry iewfi nder we reorted that soe in the industry were hopeful that the changes to Part L and F will hel to level the layin fi eld for housebuilders who were already constructin hoes in a ore eneryeffi ciency focused way. ith in ation havin steadily risen since the andeic, housebuilders (and particularly SME housebuilders), have confronted seemingly endless cost rises however, and in 2022 by far the most common concern among our respondents, 65% believe increased construction costs are the biggest challenge to the adoption of the standard, on average expecting building costs to rise by an averae of k er unit with the aority (77%) set to pass these costs onto their customers. Increasing insulation levels to reach the U-values required by the new art the key ethod for achievin the carbon reductions reuired over technoloies like under oor heatin, solar , heat us and theral breaks is naturally increasin
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