Ben Brocklesby, director at Origin

Since the Part L changes were initially proposed back in 2019, the world has changed quite dramatically.

In the last three years, Brexit, the pandemic, and major supply issues have affected the industry. The latest update to building regulations took effect in June, and state that all new homes built from now on must produce 31% lower carbon emissions. To achieve this, there are new U-value standards which aim to improve thermal efficiency and reduce energy usage throughout homes.

The announcement sent many manufacturers in the fenestration industry into panic about how they would achieve the new standards. Discussions were taking place across the industry on how to best adapt product lines to achieve these new targets before the 15 June deadline.

Prior to the rules changing, U-Values had to meet a notional target of 1.4 W/m²K for windows and glazed doors in new homes, and 1.0 W/m²K for panelled doors. Under the Part L 2022 changes, these notional targets have been reduced to 1.2 W/m²K for windows and glazed doors, which is a considerable drop. Limiting values, the maximum U-Values allowable, have also been significantly reduced from 2.0 W/m²K down to 1.6 W/m²K.

On the whole, companies decided to improve their existing range to meet these specifications, rather than designing whole new product lines.

A shortcut would have been to only offer triple glazed units, but this is not a realistic solution as it would cost the homeowner a lot more and make the units considerably heavier, and therefore difficult to install. Not to mention more expensive.

At Origin, our in-house R&D department devoted themselves to finding a solution that benefitted both installers and homeowners, without losing the famous look and functionality of our Home Range. We focused on modifying our products from the inside in order to achieve this, which meant improving our thermal breaks and insulating our critical chambers on our bi-fold and residential doors.

We were able to manage this without passing on huge price increases to our partners, despite the rapidly increasing prices of raw materials that we had to consider during this project.

We were thrilled to see that many of our products already met the new standards, so did not need additional development. For example, our OW-80 Premium window achieves a low value of 0.8 W/(m²K) when combining triple glazing and the industry-leading Aerogel insulator in the thermal break. That doesn’t mean we are able to take our eye off the ball though.

The Part L changes are just the first step towards achieving the Future Homes Standard, which will be in full effect in 2025. For this, new homes will need to be entirely carbon neutral. As this date approaches, our R&D department will continue to consider new ways to innovate our product line-up, ensuring that we are using the best processes and materials on offer. This will ensure that we continue to meet, and even exceed, the standards required, to deliver industry leading products to our partners.