PART L 2013 – what will it mean for the construction industry?

The Government has recently restated its commitment to ensuring all new homes in England are zero carbon from 2016. The 2013 re-write of Part L – the section of the Building Regulations relating to the energy efficiency – should, in theory, be enforcing stricter criteria designed to bring the market a step closer to the zero carbon standard. However, given the current climate there is a heated debate in the industry as to what should be decided.

The 2013 consultation will be the third of four planned revisions between 2007 and 2016 which, in the domestic arena, will implement the zero carbon homes standard (all new non-domestic buildings in England will be required to be built to zero carbon standards from 2019).

The changes introduced in the 2013 consultation were originally intended to provide a stepping stone for the transition to zero carbon in 2016/19. Despite this, there are a number of results which may come from the consultation.

Firstly, in these difficult economic times it may be decided that we do nothing. This would mean maintaining the criteria introduced to Part L in 2010 which may alleviate pressure on the industry in the short term, however could present greater challenges in the longer term as the shift from 2010 standards to zero carbon in 2016 represents a much bigger leap.

Alternatively we could proceed with the original Part L 2013 goals, which would require a further 25 percent reduction in carbon compared with existing 2010 standards. These changes would also lead to the introduction of the Fabric Energy Efficiency Standard (Full FEES), to ensure the building envelope performance is not sacrificed in favour of renewable devices.

The FEES Standard encourages greater fabric performance through improvements to U-values; thermal bridging; air permeability and glazing, to help reduce energy and carbon demand from space heating.

The third option is to meet somewhere in the middle and go for an eight percent improvement on 2010 Part L regulations with Interim Fabric Energy Efficiency (Interim FEES).

Similar to Full FEES, Interim FEES also allows for combinations of fabric specification to be applied in order to ensure a decent fabric performance is preserved. However, as the Interim FEES criteria is less than that required for Full FEES, other adjustments to the design may be required, such as installation of low and zero carbon technologies.

The FEES approach to building encourages housebuilders to look at the building envelope design as the first priority in energy efficiency.

Times are tough, but it is important we don’t let the zero carbon target slip. Regardless of the outcome of the 2013 Part L consultation, energy and carbon efficiency is an inevitable part of the future of housebuilding and, undoubtedly low carbon alternatives have a major role to play.

As an industry the onus is on us to find ways to develop homes cost effectively and to the highest standards, with built-in assured performance all the while being sustainable, desirable and affordable. Putting fabric first and creating a high performance, energy efficient structure is one way of doing that.

Alex Goodfellow is Group managing director of Stewart Milne Timber Systems