Does Energy Efficiency Only Matter for New Build Properties?

Clearly regulations for energy efficiency relate to both new build and refurbishment but should it? Regulations for acoustics take into account new build properties and the difficulties of existing buildings so why don’t we for energy efficiency?

When we get to the “other side” of Coronavirus the way we come out will be different, we will need to develop a “new norm” as we will unlikely go back to the “old norm”

The almost biblical effect of Coronavirus will have rebooted the way we think about various things such as- what’s important in life, the benefits of family life, appreciation of what we have, how we can do business more efficiently, not be as wasteful and the effects of climate change. We are already seeing the effects of the latter in the waters in Venice as we spend less on travelling.

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So is it time for the government to look at the existing housing stock and how their efficiency can be improved? The same way as Part E and Section 5 recognise, instead of hammering the easy target of new build properties where the targets set provide the new minimum requirement to design down to as cheaply as possible rather than a worse case minimum.

As stated, Part E and section 5, acoustic regulation are considerate of the difficulties of trying to design existing buildings with its existing issues to the same as performance levels of new build built from scratch. With acoustics, even in refurbishment the acoustic measures will invariably be better than before but with thermal improvements there could be knock on effects such as structural damage due to hidden moisture issues from trying to improve the buildings energy performance. Therefore, a typical understanding of HAMM (Heat, Air and Moisture Movement) are critical to get the balance of improved energy efficiency with moisture issues.

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The government aim to reduce green house emissions by 80% by 2050 requires a change of emphasis which goes away from just new build to looking at existing housing stock. This would provide not just reduced emissions but potentially less burden on the NHS and lower living costs to heat homes. We must be considerate of what the placement of insulation would have in old homes, one issue being solid wall homes.

Solid walls have been a typical choice through the years for a country that lives in a climate where there is a lot of rain. These walls can be built thicker depending on their exposure to rain to reduce the amount of water penetrating the external wall. These walls were traditionally built of stone work in such a way that they also “breathed”, thereby drying the walls when the climate allowed which can be effective but not very efficient thermally.