Due to be published in mid-2020, the latest set of Building Regulations (Parts L and F), which will come into force towards the end of this year, will include a major focus on energy consumption within new housing going forward. The simple extractor fans (System 1) will no longer be allowed in the upcoming Future Homes Standard.
The 2019 Spring Statement included a commitment that, by 2025, we will introduce a Future Homes Standard for new-build homes to be future-proofed with low-carbon heating and world-leading levels of energy efficiency. This is part of our commitment to clean growth and our determination to be the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than we found it. This chapter sets out how we intend to improve energy efficiency standards in new homes as the roadmap to the Future Homes Standard.
The Future Homes Standard builds on the Grand Challenge Buildings Mission to at least halve the energy use of new buildings by 2030. Both new and existing homes account for 20% of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK. By making our homes and other buildings more energy-efficient and embracing smart and low-carbon technologies, we can improve the comfort and energy efficiency of people’s homes and boost economic growth while meeting our targets for carbon reduction.
To meet the Future Homes Standard by 2025, industry will need to develop the necessary supply chains, skills and construction practices to deliver low-carbon heat, and highly energy-efficient new homes. The first steps in facilitating these changes are to provide a clear vision for implementing the Future Homes Standard and to set an ambitious uplift to the current energy performance requirements in the Building Regulations for new homes. The existing requirements already require good levels of energy efficiency, but we need to push further. We must ensure that new homes are future-proofed to facilitate the installation of low-carbon heat, avoiding the need to be retrofitted later, and that home-builders and supply chains are in a position to build to the Future Homes Standard by 2025. Introducing the Future Homes Standard by 2025 will ensure that the homes this country needs will be fit for the future, better for the environment and affordable for consumers to heat.
The outcome of this change will mean that Mechanical Extract Ventilation (MEV), De-centralised Mechanical Extract Ventilation (dMEV) and Mechanical Ventilation Heat Recovery (MVHR) will be the only allowable ventilation systems within the latest Building Regulations once they are introduced. All new properties will be highly insulated, and any air leakages kept to an absolute minimum.
With a whole house system like MEV and dMEV, the pollutants in the indoor air are removed. With MVHR, you have both the incoming and extracted air passing through filters so that all of the pollutants are removed from the dwelling.
The big benefit of MVHR is that it brings fresh filtered air into the home to replace the extracted air. Should the home in question be in a city centre location where there could be high traffic flow, then ordinarily exhaust emissions from vehicles could easily enter the home. However, with the correct filtration of the incoming air, almost all of the particulates from the exhaust emissions are removed before the air enters the property. Add to that the energy efficiency gained by passing the stale air which is ready to be extracted, over a heat exchanger in order to retrieve the heat and use it to warm the incoming air, and it’s a win-win situation.
The UK Government has already adopted international agreements to reduce emissions of five harmful air pollutants (fine particulate matter, ammonia, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, non-methane volatile organic compounds), but ventilation manufacturers like Vortice have been working on ways to improve indoor air quality and develop even more ambitious goals.
Companies like Vortice have been working on ways to improve indoor air quality and embrace new technologies to help filter and purify the air that we breathe within our homes. Research commissioned by Public Health England has found that the health and social care costs of air pollution (PM2.5 and NO2) in England could reach £5.3bn by 2035. This is a cumulative cost for diseases where there is a strong association with air pollution: coronary heart disease; stroke; lung cancer and asthma in children and as humans spend more than 90% of their time indoors, then taking indoor air quality seriously can have significant health benefits.
Levels of in-home air pollutants can be much higher than those outdoors. Simply using cleaning products, installing new furniture or carpets and lighting a wood-burning stove can mean that volatile organic compounds accumulate inside the more confined space of your home, so mechanical extract systems have an important part to play.
Indoor air quality is not a new concept; however, despite our knowledge regarding health concerns, this concept has not been transferred into the workplace from a practical application. Nor has the understanding and awareness to implement IAQ been explored within the UK. The perception of risk from indoor air contaminants and the willingness to improve indoor air quality is contrasted by the lack of policy, direction and information within the public sphere. IAQUK, therefore, explores the reason for the gap between knowledge and practical application, appraising understanding, resources and Government policy. The number of chemicals that are manufactured and introduced into our indoor environment is growing. Whilst developing airtight buildings, sealing a building for energy efficiency, we have failed to address the balance of the occupant’s health.
Most individuals spend about 90% of their time indoors and are, therefore, exposed to the indoor environment to a much greater extent than to the outdoors. Information obtained from laboratory and epidemiological studies suggests that indoor air pollutants are an important cause of avoidable morbidity and mortality in the UK (Department of Health, 2001), (Brunekreef and Holgate, 2002). Contaminants in the indoor environment are more than 1000 times more likely to be inhaled than outdoor air (Levin, 2007) and can be up to 10 times more polluted than outside air (US EPA, 2001). The potential effects of indoor air pollution include unpleasant smells, sensitisation and asthmatic reactions, related to biological aerosols in the indoor air and the fatal consequences of exposure to pathogenic organisms or chemicals.
