As of 1 November ammendements to the BCA for enegry efficiency of non-residential work took effect. The new part J of the BCA requires all new building work for class 5-9 buildings to comply with new regulations relating to building fabric (insulation), external glazing, building sealing, air movement and conditioning, artificial lighting and power and hot water supply. The new provisions are designed to reduce energy consumption and resultant greenhouse gas emissions.
The insulation group Kingspan says the new regulations will change the way we build and represents a fundamental step-change. They argue that industry and trade associations need to launch education initiatives to bring their members up to speed on compliance. There are also a number of computer modelling programs emerging as useful tools to assist the design of 'compliant' buildings.
A key component of the new BCA requirements is centered around theselection of materials that will provide stated thermal performance for the life of the building. Future initiatives are likely to require themeasurement or monitoring of energy consumption,and the use of thermal imaging to odentify hot (or cold spots) in building thermal envelopes, caused by air leakage problems or sub-standard insulation detailing. Kingspam believes it is important to take a holistic viewpoint, focused on speed of construction, fire-proof performance and guanarteed thermal efficiency in simplified building design. The challange in the future wil be for building specifiers to lookbeyond the performance of individual building components, and consider not only their long term thermal performance, but also their impact on the environment.
Article in Environ Magazine - 2007
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