The green light

Glass Times editor Nathan Bushell discusses the proposed changes to Part L of the Building Regulations.

This week I came across a news story about how one housebuilder was revealed to have opposed the government’s plans to dramatically cut carbon emissions from new homes.

However, it was in a small minority of only 2% of such responses to the government consultation into its future homes standard; the majority of respondents said the target was not ambitious enough.

Ever since Part L of the Building Regulations was introduced in April 2002, the direction of travel was only ever going to go one way: more airtight, and lower U-values.

Therefore, it is no surprise that only 2% of responses to the future homes standard said that the government was being too ambitious. In fact, every company in the supply chain, I would have thought, should be champing at the bit to have the opportunity to proclaim how they can support the new targets due to come into force next spring. Afterall, this latest round of revisions has certainly been a long time coming.

So, it does come as a surprise when Deceuninck Aluminium announced this week that fabricators will need to check that the systems they use will meet the new Part L energy requirements.

“If Part L now goes to U-values of 1.4W/m2K, some older systems aren’t going to make the grade and fabricators could find that something that they have supplied for a decade falls short, excluding it from the market almost overnight,” Nigel Headford, director at Deceuninck Aluminium, said.

We will be covering energy efficiency much more over the next 12 months, as I’m sure many suppliers will want the opportunity to promote their green credentials. So, watch this space, and get involved – I’m always interested to hear your opinion.