Dodging the regs

The building regulations update is still not with us (it should have been introduced last month). Plans for regulating the domestic market have been severely watered down. Proposals for Non-domestic (Parts L2a and L2b) or commercial buildings still need to go further and have a huge loophole for work to existing buildings (refurbs) where buildings over 1,000m2 undergoing renovation should upgrade energy performance "if technically, functionally or economically feasible". As quoted in a presentation by Tony Johnson of BRE at the npower-sponsored Environment Business Seminar at City Hall on the 24th February.

When finally introduced, the changes are almost non-existent in terms of things like thermal performance of building envelope, that is U-values of walls, ceilings and windows. We still rank pretty poorly in Europe.

Worst of all, when these changes come into effect there is no one around to check them. Local Authority district surveyors are hopelessly under resourced and under-qualified and private companies carrying out Part L inspections are the same organisations churning out rubbish building services solutions. We are painfully behind schedule introducing or complying with the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, which would really give things a boost, especially with the proposed building labelling proposals.

Two examples of how our culture is still ‘what can we get away with to comply?' rather than ‘how far can we push this?' First I went into the housing development across the road from me and enquired what the SAP ratings for the new flats were and whether they where accredited under BRE Ecohomes and got very blank looks.

On a new build project we are looking at, a major architect, on reading my sustainability brief, rather than rising to the challenge to build an exemplar public building, suggested that some of the green legislation and guidance did not really apply and could be worked around. Unofficially of course.

There is also no or very little freely available data for those in construction to make informed judgements. This is because organisations such as the BRE and British Standards Institute operate as private companies now.

Meanwhile, there is a massive need for, say, life cycle or sustainability data on different products. The days of blokes in chunky knitwear, smoking pipes, sitting in a hut in Watford tapping lumps of concrete with a small hammer are long gone.

Infrastructure manager, public sector client, name withheld