Regulations
Building an Energy Efficient Home is not just about saving you money and making your contribution to protecting the environment but since 1st January it’s the law. Current Building Regulations require you by law to demonstrate a 40% reduction in Energy Consumption over 2007 Building Regulations. Under the 2010 Revision to Building Regulations from July 1st 2011 it will be compulsory for all new homes to now demonstrate a 60% reduction in Energy Consumption over the 2007 Building Regulations, requiring all new homes being built to achieve an A rating upon completion. Finally in 2013 the Building Regulations will be changing again to allow for the introduction of Zero Carbon Housing by 2016.
The principal difficulty facing Home Builders today is that with the flood of available cheap labour building standards and Regulations are not being adhered to, the lack of accountability in the mainly unregulated One-off house building market has seen many houses being built below the required Building Regulations. Regrettably many tradesmen have struggled to understand and employ the critical performance criteria required to construct and achieve an energy efficient home, resulting in new homes not being built to meet Current Building Regulations.
This is further illustrated by looking at the BER Chart below, taken from the SEAI website as of September 2011. All new houses built require a BER to be submitted to the SEAI upon completion. At the time a BER rating of B1 or above was required for a new home to meet the Building Regulations, the requirement has since increased so an A rating is now necessary to conform with current Building Regulations for all new homes built. The chart below shows most new homes built reaching a rating of B3 i.e below the required regulations, indeed according to this information less than 20% of houses are being built to meet or exceed the required building regulations.
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