The new standards arising from the Housing Standards Review will come into force in October 2015, the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has confirmed.
Speaking at HBF’s technical conference in Birmingham, DCLG’s head of Building Regulations and standards division Bob Ledsome, said that the new standards covering energy, water, access, security and space would be implemented in 12 months. “Where a local authority has a policy in place that is equivalent to the new Building Regulation, this can be passported through,” he said.
He also stated that from next spring, the Code for Sustainable Homes would “wind down”.
Also speaking at the conference, John Tebbit, md of Robust Details Ltd, announced that the company was looking to produce a pattern book for ventilation systems after its success with Part E.
Tebbit said that ventilation was causing some concern for housebuilders, customers and suppliers.“If you get ventilation wrong, it can be awful,” Tebbit said. “There is one housebuilder that has indoor air quality as a board level agenda item.
“As we move to 2016, MVHR (mechanical ventilation with heat recovery) is becoming an option. We’re looking at a pattern book approach to try to standardise some of the systems.”
Robust Details said that it was looking to pilot the details next year.
Looking at NHBC’s latest work on raising building standards, Mark Jones, NHBC’s head of housebuilding standards, said that the construction quality of new homes was “under pressure” as housebuilders continued to ramp up production.
NHBC found that for some companies “construction quality is not a priority”, he said.
