Action to tackle overheating in homes missing from Government plan

The UKGBC has responded to the Government’s National Adaptation Programme (NAP3) which sets the strategy for the next five years of responding to the rapidly changing climate.

The plan outlines how Defra and other departments will act to adapt the UK’s homes, buildings, and natural environment to deal with climate change, including new funding for research and projects to empower effective decisionmaking for climate resilience.

Earlier in the year, the UK’s Climate Change Committee called NAP3 a ‘make or break’ moment to improve the country’s preparedness.

Louise Hutchins, UKGBC Head of Policy and Public Affairs, said: “Extreme heat, flooding and drought hitting Europe right now leaves little to the imagination about what climate catastrophe will look like, and makes clear that the UK’s homes and buildings just aren’t designed for this new normal.

“While the third National Adaptation Programme is an important step forward and sets out some welcome new initiatives including mandatory water efficiency labelling, it needed be an urgent and ambitions plan to adapt to increasingly severe, frequent, and extreme weather like last year’s heatwaves which took nearly 3,000 lives in the UK.

"That nationwide approach to adapt our homes and workplaces is largely missing. We need a national effort to install measures like shutters, insulation, reflective paint, and water-efficient fixtures and fittings in our homes and buildings and shady trees and green spaces in our neighbourhoods. The Adaptation Programme points to the importance its forthcoming planning National Planning Policy Framework reforms for some of the answers.

"But the Government has an open goal in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, currently in its final stages in Parliament, to accept UKGBC-backed amendments that would align the planning system with our climate change and nature restoration goals, and put an end to a range of measures that make no sense given the climate emergency, such as new homes being built on flood-planes without proper protection.

“Over the next few months, UKGBC will be collaborating across the industry and with the government to build on this Programme and accelerate our pathway to greater climate resilience.”

Donaldson Timber Systems launches house range White Paper encourages heat pump technology

Leading UK offsite timber frame manufacturer, Donaldson Timber Systems (DTS), has launched the Donaldson Timber Systems House Range.

The range of 18 core house types includes cottage flats with a mix of 1 and 2 bedrooms; semi-detached and detached 2-bed bungalows; and a selection of detached, semi-detached, and terraced homes of 2, 3 and 4 bedrooms. DTS worked closely with experienced architects and planning consultants and designed the range in conjunction with a leading UK housebuilder to ensure the house types met regulatory housing needs across the UK.

The homes are designed to maximise the benefits of Design for Manufacture of DTS’

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The specified components are also consistent, using a limited range of window sizes and uniform bathroom and WC setting-out to ensure the efficient procurement of materials from a variety of manufacturers.

Each home also incorporates individual design flexibility to allow for changes like the addition of showers in ground floors; built-in wardrobes; additional kitchen storage; and space for air source heat pump hot water cylinders, so they are future-proofed for simple adaptions to suit lifestyle changes or improved energy efficiency.

With rapid and continued growth expected in the UK heat pump market up to 2028 and beyond, global certification body, Eurovent Certita Certification (ECC), has published a new white paper entitled, ‘Installing Efficient Heat Pumps: A Challenge of Environmental Transition.’

Detailing the difficulties and opportunities facing the UK heating market as it moves away from fossil fuel boilers, the white paper highlights the importance of installing highly energy efficient heat pumps, in the challenge to decarbonise over 30 million heating and hot water systems in homes and businesses by 2050.

‘Installing Efficient Heat Pumps: A Challenge of Environmental Transition,’ gives an overview of aerothermal and geothermal heat pumps, and the issues in achieving carbon neutrality. Covering the background of decarbonisation, the factors driving heat pump sales, and the obstacles faced by the sector at large, the white paper moves on to practical installation advice, highlighting the huge impact that installation conditions have on the energy performance of systems.