The Government’s National Productivity Plan has an ambitious target to build in excess of one million homes in England by 2020, ensuring the gap between supply and demand is reduced (HM Treasury, 2015). With a focus on affordable homes, it is important that the effort to adopt measures, to ensure an effective delivery, do not compromise build standards. With a programme of such scale, it is particularly important that new homes sustain their economic value, remain affordable to operate and are robust. Most buildings are with us for some time and their sustained value is important. Economic sustainability is a product of build quality, functional value and operational efficiency. To increase productivity without compromising quality, the findings of recent research on the performance of building fabrics will prove important in future decision making. The recognition of a performance gap between the designed intent of a building and that actually achieved in practice is of notable concern. Evidence suggests that some current build processes are flawed and susceptible to variation in quality and performance. Attention needs to be directed at design, construction and commission practice to ensure all new building forms are robust. Some of the gaps are small, within an acceptable level of tolerance, and can be put down to expected variation in field based performance and the sensitivity of assessment. However, some test results are well outside any normal tolerance or acceptable practice and are indications of inadequate, specification, design or construction. Agreement on acceptable tolerance and meaningful certification is essential. A few concerns identified in early research have been recognised by regulatory bodies and are now incorporated into building standards, for example the party wall bypass. However, a considerable number of issues are unresolved. Insight gained through the investigations into thermal performance have revealed whole building assemblies that are a potential concern with regard to fire safety, resilience to moisture related degradation, problems of air tightness, thermal/acoustic bypass and bridges. The integrity of the external envelope and effective interfaces between components affect many aspects of performance. Most of the problems identified can be addressed by good practice, changes to design, workmanship and an evidence based quality processes. Much of the research provides evidence of missing or ill-fitting components and assemblies that are different to that designed and cannot be put down to acceptable error. The unregulated assemblies that differ from design or are not adequately specified and are compromising fire, acoustic and thermal performance. A growing body of evidence identifies non-compliance and failure to adhere to test and commissioning process. A simple, standardised evidenced based method for building compliance is required. With current technology, evidence of build quality can be assured and cross checked to buildings by geo and date tagging. Such building information will ensure future maintenance is appropriate. A number of low energy new build properties have achieved their performance targets. As the number of schemes that achieve such status are few, attention should focus on how they achieve the performance standard and which techniques can be adopted at scale. A few organisations are investing in prototypes schemes where they learn, develop and improve their design and construction process. Such systematic improvement is good development that can inform large scale programmes and incremental development of build and manufacturing processes. Prototype and version development adopted by many other industries should be encouraged within house building sector. The domestic home, in whatever form, represents a significant investment. Evidence of practice that assures build quality could have a significant impact on the energy efficiency and future value of the building. Affordable energy efficient homes are most likely to be delivered through quality driven standardised or manufactured processes. Bespoke, or what might be described as the limited edition run of homes, will become less common, inevitably being more expensive and only available to the affluent or those interested in self-build. Focus should be on the mass build market and how to drive up standards of quality and build in this sector.
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)