TOO often in Jersey, homes are built to meet the minimum required standard under the building bye-laws, with particular reference to the areas of insulation, airtightness and heating systems.
There is nothing wrong with this as the bye-laws have been improved significantly as the years have gone by, but does that mean that we should be satisfied with basic compliance? In most situations, the homeowner does not have a choice as their home is either an existing building, or they are buying a completed house from a developer. For those of us looking to add an extension, or fortunate enough to be building our own homes, should we not be building to a higher standard?
Eco Homes. Decent Homes Standard. Code for Sustainable Homes. PassivHaus…There are so many terms and standards that are now spoken about, all of which come with a seemingly endless amount of literature, which can make the whole subject very confusing.
The building bye-laws have reached a stage where even the industry professionals find them cumbersome and restrictive. In the UK, (and Jersey tends to follow the UK for bye-laws) there is a growing recognition that they need to be completely scrapped and a new format introduced that is far simpler and allows greater flexibility, with the primary focus being on the internal environment and energy consumption.
For the average person who is wanting to undertake an extension, or dreams of a new-build home, it can often appear that despite all the information available, there does not seem to be a simple explanation of what is right for your project. So how do you make the correct decision?
Homeowners generally want to know that they can enjoy reduced energy costs (heating, hot water, lighting and appliances) and are best protected from the rising future costs of energy (electric, oil etc). A lesser-recognised goal is that you need to create a healthy internal environment, but it is a very important consideration. There are a number of ways to achieve this, but the first thing that needs to be recognised is that the best solutions will be made up of a number of parts working together.
Treating eco products as individual bolt-on solutions can often be a costly wasted exercise. A typical example of this is to replace a conventional boiler with a heat-pump system in an existing property without undertaking any upgrades to the building’s insulation and airtightness levels. A single-block bungalow with old windows and doors and very little insulation is not going to allow the heat pump to work efficiently. There is enough first-hand, anecdotal and documented (UK) evidence that shows the running cost of the heat pump can be no better owing to the requirement for electrical topping-up of the heat pump.
So what should you focus on and how can we keep this fairly simple?
Treat your project as a complete solution:
• You want the external envelope of the building (floors, walls and roof) to be as well insulated and airtight as you can achieve. This is the most economical area to achieve the greatest impact for your money and will allow your heating system to run at maximum efficiency.
• Use renewable technologies such as heat pumps, solar and MVHR (mechanical ventilation and heat recovery) and ensure that they are s=pecified and rated to suit your project.
• Understand that your house is a dynamic environment and you need to have a basic understanding of how it works. The better you understand it, the better it will perform for you, in both energy usage and the internal climate it provides.
Do not be afraid of renewable technologies. These are simply advances in the way we are able to build, heat and run our homes. The technology may seem new to you, but it has been around for decades and is widely available and used throughout the rest of the world. Remember, the UK (and therefore Jersey) has a very slow adoption rate of modern methods and systems within the construction industry.
We have a very traditional view on house-building that is not shared in most other parts of the developed world. A basic comparison of how we think about house-building would be to buy a new car, but not want the climate control, satnav, bluetooth or any of the other advances that set new cars apart from those of 20 years ago…including improved fuel economy. We don’t think this way when considering a car purchase, so why do we do it when building a house?
A home that is designed well, built with a high-performance structural envelope and utilises renewable technologies does not need to look any different from a traditional house. It can be built in granite or with rendered walls, and the architectural style can be anything you choose. The build-technology used is concealed within the structure, and the heating and ventilation systems can be virtually unseen – think of underfloor heating and ducted ventilation. You will not even be aware that the technology is working for you.
The overall cost savings can be tremendous with a 2,500-sq-ft four-bedroom home costing well below £1,000 per annum to heat to a very comfortable level. The cost of heating a home using fossil fuels has risen remarkably in the last few years and the only thing we can be relatively sure about is that it will not get any cheaper in the future. What it will cost in five, ten or 20 years time is unknown. It makes perfect sense to future-proof your home and protect your wallet as much as possible.
That is why we need to build better.
