It'll be easy to achieve a 30% reduction in carbon emissions as no-one's going to be able to afford to put the heating on with the way fuel prices are going 😡🤦♂️
Set plastics on fire to keep warm..release hydrocarbons back into the environment to make up for the lack of warmth from grossly inefficient modern over subscribed boilers that don’t work…!
@@stigkrakpants3052 that's the crazy part , they will need more energy for heat and cooking and more land to accommodate all these extra people , less land to grow crops to be self sufficient , more building materials like wood , doesn't make sense , plus villages are not anymore they have grown so much , when you are used to and want to live in a quiet village you now find you are expanding to a town , if I wanted to live in a town I'd have moved to one ,
We won’t need to keep adding more insulation as the world will be heating up. In 20 years we’ll be removing insulation and putting it in landfill. I am being sarcastic here before anyone is triggered.
I do EPC surveys on commercial buildings. Often tasked to do these out of hours, i.e. when the occupants have gone home. For example, I did one the other day on an adult education centre. I was told to go at 4pm when classes had ended. Nearly every room used for classes had the A/C running with nobody in the room. Each of these rooms had local controls for the A/C able to be adjusted by any old Tom, Dick or Harry. I turned them all off on my route. I get to go to loads of these types of buildings and shake my head at how they are managed. Sorting out controls, who can adjust them, setting up responsibility for building managers, central BMS systems ONLY and accountability is more important. The issue is occupants do not give a shit because it isn't their electricity, isn't their building and isn't their responsibility. Clown world.
Hi Robert You are so right and I also find a lot of it in public buildings. Heating on full blast with all the windows wide open. I ask why and they say "We don't know how to turn it off".
Another problem is the companies who install x y z system get paid to install. They have no idea how to actually use it in day to day life. The company that install take no responsibilty to maintain the equirement. Sometimes building managers say to me we cannot fix the system because the people that can are from another country or company gone bankrupt.
Parts and unit knowledge are massively lacking in this country, not one single company/merchant has gained parts or the actual knowledge to sort issues out! The future for AC and Heat pumps needs looking at. Standardised parts better user interface etc is needed and more training given! even if it’s on line and is over the course of a year… (plus at an affordable rate or payment plan)
I think I definitely got the boy doing my roof insulation. I think he must have only had about 3/4 of the king span he should have had based on the gaps. In my limited experience good builders are a rare breed. I love the channel and just wish I could employ your guys for my building projects. There are few things worse than getting home from work and looking at the efforts of some so called professionals and thinking I could have done that better myself.
Good builders get a good reputation and typically don’t need to advertise, they get more than enough work by word of mouth. When choosing a builder, if you can’t get a recommendation from someone you trust then you need to see examples of work they have recently completed and speak to their customers. If they can start work immediately then be suspicious, if they are the cheapest then be suspicious. It’s not rocket science.
I agree with you're last comment Rodger. If you want to learn to fly a plane, ask a pilot. If you want to learn how to build a bridge, ask an engineer. If you want to learn how to build a house, ask a politician .... wait what?????
It's little to do with energy conservation and more to do with commercial profits. There comes a point where the cost of the energy conservation procedures are not justified by the savings. But it's a nice little earner for the commercial companies involved, and the state gets payout in taxes and lower unemployment....
I work I a school a couple of days a week and they’ve decided to replace the old oil powered boiler with a heat pump system. It’s partially installed with enormous radiators in a 1960’s leaky building so I think is going to struggle to work! Also they’ve realised that the building now needs a larger electrical supply to support the heat pump system which is going to cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, the installer who disconnected the old oil fired system is now going to reconnect it as it’s not going to happen this year!!!
Lots and lots of building regs, but no regulating of builders! Its simply unbelievable that any Tom Dick or Harry can carry out pretty much any building work, without any sort of qualifications, experience .. nada!
Ah the 3 phase electricity conundrum. They rarely say just what power supply is required. We are single phase electric and could not convert from gas if we wanted. £23k + quote to get 3 phase for a pensioner. As with wifi until the entire countries infrastructure is fit for purpose we cannot embrace 'progress'.
Very good information Roger , but considering the standard of work being done under the existing regulations ie often not compliant . I can’t see a lot of this happening , a total tightening of the existing regs wouldn’t go a miss . And who is going to monitor all this , considering they can’t stop dodge builders as it is . Just more work for the good guys , and more for the bad to ignore. Best wishes and kind regards to your good self 😀👍👍👍
It will probably lead to employment of additional Building Inspectors and a rise in on site inspection fees to pass on the the client along with all the additional costs for complying leading to clients deciding not to build and less work for builders of all kinds.
Michael, you only need to look over the water to Republic of Ireland to see how it’s going to work. This year instead of just needing to certify compliance, all work now need to be independently checked for compliance by a certified third party.
In thirty years time it'll turn out that manufacturing all that insulation was terrible for the environment and/or made by firms that had links to senior government officials. 😏
100 percent. PIR insulation has maaaasive amounts of embodied carbon because of the high temperatures needed during its manufacture. Continually adding more and more insulation in buildings doesn't necessarily mean lower carbon emissions overall it can actually lead to more if you look at lifetime emissions. But since there's no inclusion of calculating embodied carbon in the new regs this has been swept under the rug. Madness.
Roger, I have my own plumbing business in Belgium and doing my last year before retiring. Discovered your videos today and they correspond 100% to my experiences, though the materials you use are slightly different. Just like you, I can see how the whole world has gone crazy. Practical things are no longer taken into account. This has devastating implications for us as plumbers/ technicians. I have always enjoyed this profession a lot but I'm happy to quit now. Keep up posting these great videos Roger!
Hello Roger, happy to see you respond your messages so fast ! I'll be 63 end of this year... been working since I was 20 so I'll have 43 years on the counter ;-) Can't you make a living out of posting these videos? Actually, after retiring I want to continue finishing my house in France. After all, as a plumber you end up beeing verry well skilled in all kind of techniques concerning construction. Don't have to tell you, do I? haha
@@SkillBuilder if your enjoying what you do why retire as keeping busy is the best way, just tone it down a tad and don't push your self as that leads too problems, a sudden retirement is the worst as the body cant take the sudden stop , trust me known many contacts and people who did this and there not here now , sad as they were top people
Continually adding more and more insulation in buildings doesn't necessarily mean lower carbon emissions overall it can actually lead to more if you look at lifetime emissions. PIR insulation for example has maaaasive amounts of embodied carbon because of the high temperatures needed during its manufacture. And guess what produces those high temps? Fossil fuels. But since there's no inclusion of calculating embodied carbon in the new regs this isn't evident. And instead we get homes with smaller internal volumes and for higher costs!
Luckily we are de-carbonising industry as well. PUR panels are produced at around 40-45ºC with no primer; PIR panels need temperatures of around 60 to 65ºC and a primer. These temps are easily achievable using renewable energy. For example Celotex manufacturing plants are certified to ISO 14001, ISO 50001 and ISO 9001: 2008 and use 0% CO2 electricity.
Great information, thanks Roger! Having spent quite a bit of time in Sweden where high insulation, triple glazing, heat pump heating and good air tightness and mechanical ventilation are standard, I can confirm those houses are much nicer to live in. We might not need the same levels of insulation for our climate, but we have plenty of room for improvement so I think raising the standards is a good thing. The way the Swedes deal with waterproofing in their bathrooms is also very interesting - baths are never sealed to the wall, instead all bathrooms are fully wet-roomed, the bath is dry butted against the tiled wall and there is a gulley under the bath with appropriate floor falls. Any water that hits the wall and flows down past the bath just flows along the floor into the gulley. The waste from the the bath is just a stub of pipe directed into the gulley. They've effectively designed out the common failure point that is the bath-wall mastic seal.
The weather conditions are totally different in Sweden than the UK. In the 1950's The Ministry of Public Works copied many of the Swedish timber frame designs but found that they would be expensive and opted for single glazing, less insulation, and other cost cutting methods to suit the British climate, resulting in thousands of families living in properties that were basically not fit for human habitation.
Much as I DESPISE doing the caulking around a bath, I would really rather the hairs and grease and soap scum stayed on top of the bath whence they can be washed away. Also, a freestanding bath needs to be a lot sturdier than one that is stuck to the wall on two or three edges. I have no issues with a nice thick steel bath but that extra weight is extra thermal mass which is extra money down the drain (or...not) every time you have a soak.
My personal view is that many of the measures being mandated will lead to rot and decay in many British housing. The only way to get round this is to demolish areas of poor housing and build decent housing in it's place. The comment by Sichere that adoption of Swedish housing standards was abandoned in the 1950s is a prime example of cost cutting and poor management by government of the day. As only 2% of the land in the UK is used for housing there is scope for more homes to be built. There's also the argument that the Royal family needs to relinquish more of its lands, does one very rich family need to occupy 70% of the landmass in the UK? Do they think the great unwashed are just going to conduct raids and attack them willy nilly? That mindset says more about them than about us, but I digress. Patching up problems in existing houses is prohibitively expensive on top of the cost of housing at today's prices. There's an argument for doing away with a lot of Victorian, Georgian and older housing that falls way below the standards we are trying to obtain. This will be costly in itself as people will have to be rehoused or adequately compensated. People will also need to be educated on how to live in these new buildings, as at present some of my own neighbours don't bother opening their windows in the summer to allow proper ventilation and then complain of damp in winter. People need and deserve better housing than they currently have, just continuing as before because its always been like this just isn't an option
@@mypointofview1111 You're spot on but it'll never happen. Drive down any road in the UK and imagine how many houses need new kitchens Bathrooms Windows or a complete overhaul. Maintenance is often neglected as a low priority but in many cases it now cost more to fit a Bathroom to an old Georgian or Victorian house than it did to build it originally
It's about damn time nuclear energy is being accepted again! Trickle vents are the cheap alternative, but it really does feel counter intuitive to have huge amounts of insulation, then to open vents and let the cold in; but the cost of a heat recovery system is enormous in comparison. I completely agree about the documentation side - every installation will be like gathering evidence for a C&G qualification, while not a bad idea to prove the job is done right - a MASSIVE cost to burden the customer with.
Exactly. Mandatory hermetically sealed insulation and mandatory trickle vents on new windows. Thus proving the perfectly gapless insulation standard to be pointless
I hope this applies to the people who do EPCs as well. We spent lockdown renovating a property to rent out and tried our best to put as much insulation in as possible when framing out the walls. We took detailed photos of everything - hundreds of them. When we got the EPC done we were informed that photographic evidence was not acceptable and they could only include things they could see unless we let them open up all - and they meant all - the freshly decorated walls. We are now saddled with an EPC rating of a low D which should be a high C.
@@kissarmy1347 The whole EPC system is a joke. It also underpins the whole UK energy insulation grant system which produces vast theoretical CO2 savings (funded by your bills) which is also a joke.
Whoever told you that isn’t right. If photographic and documentary evidence can be provided you absolutely can put that into the epc. I ask for photos of the insulation fitted and a photo of the room (so you can see the photos apply to that property). You can either ask the assessor to re do it or get another assessor who knows what they’re doing to give you the proper rating
@David Handley Thank you for that. I think I will get a different assessor. I won't name him but he was most insistent that his accrediting body would not increase the EPC level based on us submitting photographic evidence. After all the work we put in to the insulation I was very disappointed to only get a D rating.
I like the idea of adopting the Swedish housing standards in the UK, I think it's long overdue. However my main gripe is the open plan interiors, I hate them, they don't work. It's very rare that even in a 2 person household everyone will want to do the same thing at the same time. One will want to do some work, another will want to talk to friends on the phone or virtually, if there's more people someone will want to watch tv, another will want to read or listen to music. If you add kids into the mix they'll want to play somewhere. There's a reason why we have rooms with doors, so there's some separation, somewhere you can do what you need to do without having to be in your bedroom. In this respect the late Victorian houses got things right, particularly those that are double fronted. Each person can have their space and you can still have a lounge to relax or entertain. We need to understand that our need for our own space is still vital to function in our lives
Open living sounds good but doesn't provide enough soundproofing (sounds echo around the whole house), smells and oils will circulate through the whole house (fish, eggs, toilets), it means you have the heat the whole house and not just the rooms you need at the time (different parts of the house need to be heated to different temperatures, especially the bedrooms); privacy when you are hosting or have guests is less available, and these days when lots of people are home working there are a lot more disruptions. We seem to going backwards and not learning from what our Victorian forbears learnt a long time ago. Houses need active, passive, shared, personal and quiet areas to be fully functional for all our needs. Roger - you forget to mention Building Regs Part Z - The self-powered local nuclear reactor and underground power cell for when your power company switches off your own power supply when the grid is maxed out, so you can keep all your devices running.
@@karlphillips3259 Swedish houses don't hold on to smells like your wonderful Victorian houses - they have mechanical ventilation and heat recovery. Our whole house is heated with tiny luke warm radiators (or quite often just the people in it) so we don't all huddle around the fireplace. And Roger, the house doesn't have to rotate like the Thunderbirds because the eaves are designed to shade us in the summer and allow passive heating in the winter when the sun is low. BTW my triple glazed house was imported to the UK from Sweden 40 years ago and now we've got 40deg heat outside we shut the doors and stay cool inside.
@@johnhunter4181 Hi John, I didn't mean any disrespect to Swedish Houses. When our leaders do anything, they pick the lowest bidder, forget the critical issues (don't install the proper mechanical ventilation and heat recovery systems), and short cuts on everything possible (just look at any snag list on any new house we build today). The UK wouldn't build to the proper standards or use the proper ancillaries, so we would be stuck with a glorious-looking Swedish House on the outside but smelling like our wonderful Victorian houses on the inside. We don't tend to do things properly, except for those few people who take time, care to investigate properly and do things properly. We live with a short-term culture/mindset, get-rich-quick mentality at the expense of everyone else. The UK leaders don't have the same mindset as the Europeans or Swedish.
@@karlphillips3259 Hi Karl, Totally agree with you about our so called leaders but it's not just their mindset that has to change, its the mindset that an Englishman's home is his castle and preferably made of solid stone walls. We’ve all been brought up with the story of the three little pigs and wolf blowing down the house made of sticks. When I bought my triple glazed timber framed imported Swedish house 35 years ago friends joked about termites, they thought it would catch fire or rot away as quickly as a waney edged fence panel. As a result I got a complete bargain and went from huddling around an open fire to keep warm to a house where we can happily use every room at any time. On freezing cold winter mornings when the sky is usually clearest - sun streams through under the eaves and our heating stays off while the house is at >23C. I’m done with period features, fireplaces as a focal point, plasterboards, sash windows, trickle vents, steamed up windows, dripping condensation, draughty letterboxes, and stuffy rooms - it's unfortunate that the UK is still going to sleep with bedtime stories about straw houses.
Nice presentation. Share your concerns too. I look forward to seeing how Building Control Officers or AIs police all this within the constraints of paltry fees they charge at the moment. They are failing massively to do the job now. If the real objective is energy conservation why is improvement to existing stock not the priority? I survey houses in 🇬🇧 UK with little or no loft insulation. Surely compulsory minimum loft insulation certified at each time of sale is a tool that could be used. None compliance and no conveyance and no register of transfer.
That’d do a great job of kicking up house prices again. Government subsidised microgen grants with requirement to install insulation instead of heat pumps… that might work!
Spot on this is the only difference heat leaky housing can be improved. The second point is that the onus is not on the tax payer, the home owner should be paying for the upgrade of the R value in the loft space. Maybe both parties pay 50% each.
@@cloudyskies1323 Great for those who can afford it. Around 1 in 6 can’t. Heat pump grants are for those who can already afford it. There’s also a huge stock of social & privately rented accommodation that should be upgraded… on their own expense! Industry bleeds more energy than domestics so, providing low cost loans to businesses & home owners would be a great incentive before resorting to legislation.
How about you shove that up your arse. Unbelievable level of sticking your nose where it doesn't belong. Imagine thinking it's acceptable to block the sale of private property like that. Unbelievable.
I found it ridiculous that my new build home in 2022 didn't even have the *option* to specify a heat pump, solar panels, or any other "green" technology other than an EV charger. I didn't necessarily expect them to be the default, but it was surprising to find it wasn't even an option I could pay for
loft insulation is increasing to 450mm. When is enough? Next year 500mm? year after 600mm? Might as well fully fill it up to the rafters and be done with it.
As an owner of a double glazing company the changes to the trickle vent regs are ridiculous. Customers want windows that are quieter, draft proof and more efficient. Then we're told by building regs to drill a hole through them and put in a vent that is noisy, drafty and not efficient (try asking a trickle vent manufacturer if their vents have an energy rating!) 100% agree the best solution is an MVHR system, or as a minimum PIV.
The building regs are forcing the public to spend more money to have something they generally don't want by insisting on trickle vents. If I have windows I want them as draught free as possible. If I want some ventilation I open the window for a bit. Why complicate things???
I'm an architect for a UK house builder and although MVHR is defiantly the way to go, however they wont touch it because of the price. For instance, part O overheating they are actually reducing the size of windows! I've already noticed a few new sites from Barrett's were the smaller windows are really noticeable. This is much more of an issues it city's such as Manchester and Birmingham which are area inland which are more likely to suffer over heating to somewhere like Liverpool on the coast. PV from 2023 will also be standard on new builds
I pity those in their 50s who have to grapple with this. My father ended up mentally ill as a result of changes in gas installation regs and concomitant training requirements in the 90s; a highly competent gas installer but non academic, who was apprenticed in the 1950s, being made to do exams. He gave up on gas installation and lost a lot of business as a result. Worry about the resultant loss of earnings finished him off.
I remember those gas changes, it made lots of very capable gas fitters give up simply because they couldn’t handle the paperwork and bureaucracy. I’m sure it was driven by profit more than safety. I gave up my registration in 2005. I’m so glad I left the industry.
I live in a passive house and we have no need for heating. We need to have more insulation than the new rules are allowing. We have solar for our hot water which works brilliantly for 8 months a year and an immersion heater for the other four months. We have very low energy bills. The future for new builds needs to be passive house standards or similar. We heated our house last winter with a few tea lights. We have an effective MVHR system and triple glazing as well as walls that have 750mm of insulation. If you are looking to buy a house please look at this 20 year old technology as it’s light years ahead of what we are currently advocating for England. A private members bill in Scotland which appears to have bi-partisan support will ensure passive standard homes will soon be the law there.
I agree it is a great system . But unfortunately it does not make the mass house builders make excess profit as the house foot print is higher . and we already make the smallest houses in Europe because of this .
how thick are your walls with 750mm of insulation- it sounds you made a mistake in measuring as we build passive houses in EU with only 400mm total wall thickness. with 750mm wall,your windows will hardly bring any light into the house
I fully agree with the point about heat recovery ventilation. Fitted a few several years ago and the customers were delighted. A multi-room kit is easily fitted where there is a loft above and not very expensive. Those folk who have the heating on full and leave windows open for fresh air could have the system paid for in energy savings in no time. The single room through-the-wall type are a little pricier but I think every kitchen should have one.
I have designed and installed many of these, A fully automatic MVHR is expensive to install correctly, which has to include correct adjustments of air flow, the filters have to be cleaned regularly, the units should be serviced annually and they need to be wired in such a way that they can't be easily turned off, the tenants in social housing don't want to pay for the two fans running 24/7/365 and I've found most are turned off.
@@seanmcardle The ones I've fitted had humidity sensors and ran at a very slow rate most of the time. I think this is when they are most effective because the heat exchanger has time to transfer the heat to the incoming air. At the slow speed they were barely audible. I don't really know about the multi-room ones because I didn't hear them when all else was silent but the through-wall ones were a little louder on high speed but I don't think as loud as a normal bathroom fan. I guess the positioning of the unit in the loft could make a difference. I made sure they were quite well isolated. Didn't hear any gripes from the customers.
We will be so pamperd in our homes when we go out we will catch every germ going. Some of us remember going in the front room were the fire was to warm up. People are sicker now we have all mod cons.🤣
The said thing is with these new regulations coming in, what is the point of pushing heat pumps, air to water or water to water. Given the insulation and air tightness levels are planned to be so high the most cost effective solution is air to air; i.e air conditioning systems with ERV. If the insulation levels and overhangs are designed correctly they won't need to be cooled in anything but extreme summer but will be more energy efficient and cost effective in the winter. Sadly most of these proposals aren't drawn up by in field engineers, they're dreamed up by idealists that think our climate isn't already in need of air conditioning. The boat sailed, climate change happened already it's better to address it as is than pretend we're still a heating dominated climate.
@@prendergastfantasmo1299 Immersion heater inside a hot water cylinder, which is also the case for ashp installations as it's required to be boosted over 60c for legionnaires as per pressurised hot water storage requirements 60-65c stored temp. Where ashp are designed to run at a maximum of 55c because the higher the temperature delta is the less efficient, it's better to just use Immersion heaters and offset them with PV. If a house needs large storage of hot water or can only have small storage with quick recovery currently a fossil fuel appliance is still a better option. This is why in north america you'll find AC running alongside tank-less water heater units, or in recent times heat pump hot water cylinders with immersions to top them off to meet the required legislation.
In cavity wall construction why not construct the inner leaf using 200mm insulation block eg aircrete, and the outer leaf (which only serves to protect from the elements ) can remain at 100mm.The cavity ought to be preserved and ventilated using airbricks to ensure no moisture build up and hence dry walls. Surely this is a better solution and would be easier for the block/brick layer as the need for cavity insulation which is awkward and problematic can be eliminated. An insulation backed plaster board may be attached to the inner walls to further improve thermal insulation. That would be my solution as far as the walls are concerned.
Did a quick U-Value for you. With 70mm PIR on the inside, you would get a UValue of 0.23 w/m2k for your suggested construction, this is using structural AAC blocks on the inside.
After renovating my house, i was astonished to learn that there is a regulation regarding the height of door handles, as well as numerous other pointless regs. I have ignored ALL of them. Two of the door frames i took out are now acting as a *"joist" above a door. The regs say they must be steel. My wood is cheaper, just as strong (given what it's doing) and will last just as long. *The original i removed was wood. As i widened the opening slightly, the original lintle was too small, 4 pieces of door frame stacked and screwed was 10 times as strong as the original. Also, this was during lockdown, i couldn't get a metal one and had to wait 18 months for plaster!
The problem isn't that the people who've drawn up this tosh haven't been to a building site before. The problem is that they're either drones or mediocre psycopaths, dutifully doing the bidding of a criminal cartel of more illustrious psycopaths.
@@richardsinger01 yes im loaded too those smelly poor people are so disgusting we need to starve them and force them to suffer we are green vegan all hail our glory
I think with the current price for energy, that in itself will make most people turn everything off. My electricity bill for April 2022 was £70. Looking back to the same period 5 years ago, it was £33.
I agree with your Heat Pump views, particularly on older properties. They should be mostly restricted to new highly insulated homes. We need a reduced population, to has grown by 15million in 25years, so it's not just nuclear power stations, but low density housing. Fewer high density areas such as in urbans areas. How about more thatched houses: insulated in winter and summer, a natural product.
I know this comment is way too late but Roger spoke of one word all the time and not mentioned once. Shambles! Everything about the UK can simply be described by that one word. Best intentions but always the same outcome!
Great video Roger, that's all well and dandy, but what about all these brand new crap houses that are signed off, yet have numerous faults.Alot of the big developers can't build a nice house now,let alone upping the standard.
Upgrading insulation is one way to go but the victorian housing stock in the UK was not built in a way that allows good insulation tecniques to work effectively, which is why trade off is allowed on new extensions etc.
I dont think it is only Victorian (large rooms , tricky to heat), or Edwardian terraces that are the only problem. The 1970s estates (often with the tile hung front walls) are incredibly cold, with lack of anything in the cavity, have small rooms and windows that even when double glazed are not good.
Another interesting vlog ( as always). I was cringing when you mentioned the kingspan going between the timbers as what usually happens is the builder fits it in place before us electricians have put cables in. Builder “ if you take it out you put it back . Electrician “No you put it back because you fitted it before the cables were fitted. Builder and electrician 😡🤬. All this insulation is a blinking nightmare when in place before it should be. 😊
@@Mongoose490 back in the day when i was an electrician the builder wanted to know why we hadn't fitted the switch gear, it was because the builder hadn't built the wall for it to be fitted on to.
@@Mongoose490 lol 😂. Builder “ I want you here tomorrow “ electrician “I’m booked in another job tomorrow ,You didn’t let me know in advance . Builder “ I’m telling you now !
You’re correct Rog, the pipe work from my boiler to the thermal store runs under my bedroom floor, we’ve never had to turn the rad on in the bedroom. If we insulated those pipes we’d have turn the rad on. Insulating them would make little difference to energy consumption.
All these changes to the English Regulations have actually been in the Scottish regs for years. I started my career in 2014, and pretty much all these things were already in the regs. Also, I used to think the Scottish Regs were too complicated but compared to the mess that the English regs seem to getting into with their letters etc, I'm actually starting to feel thankful for the logical organisation of the Scottish regs.
Brilliant -really sums it up with your last statement. Putting trickle vents in to most people defies the logic of the job done by the insulation as they have no idea that the house needs to breath. I think we need to copy house building construction from cold countries - Canada, Norway to get a better idea.
I have been insulating houses on upgrades with insulation board to 100mm plus 25mm underneath representing 5 inches or 10 inches of rockwool equivalent even though not required by Part L. Looks like the regs are finally catching up. Also been using old brick electric off peak heaters cheap as chips but the EPC assessors hate them.
Enjoy your videos! We are building our own home in the Arizona desert. It's a challenging climate, but it cools down at night, and is ideal for solar. We get passive heating in the winter from our south facing windows, and our overhang is such that we don't get any sun on the south side in the summer. We covered the whole outside of our house with rigid foam board, and will use an evaporative cooler in the summer. 😎🏜️
The problem with planning is that they not upto speed with all these changes. They need to be more realistic most of the times. Outdated policies and backward conservation ideals.
Completely right! The problem is not in the new technology, but in the people who have to install, maintain and use it. What I don't understand is the difference in heating and cooling with a mini split (aka air to air heat pump) or a air to water based system. When you have a good mini splt of a renowned brand it has the same efficiency numbers as an air to water system. Cheaper Chinese mini splits will work at lower efficiency. And when you have PV cooling needs will be the highest when your PV system is producing more than you need otherwise. Better to use this electricity to keep your home comfy than to feed it into the grid as a charity. This because the netting regulation in the Netherlands will end, and all backfeed in the grid will only gain you a few cents per kWh
A good way of shading in the summer but allowing the sun in in the winter to warm the house is to plant (at a suitable distance of course) deciduous trees
Insulating pipework behind dot and dab is a dead easy. Chase pipes into wall and clip them off the block work, expanding foam them and dot and dab over the top or solid plaster. Ive just completed a complete new domestic install for a house going ASHP, 14 aluminium rads all with the outputs calculated for a 30 degree system, 28mm primary pipework and each rad is fed off 22mm and stepped down to 15 for pretty much just the tails. Took longer to do but I know it's going to work. Also insulating pipework in under floors and in voids makes perfect sense especially on low temperature, systems, what is the point in heating the void under the floor when the floor coverings above will act as insulation, you're just wasting heat that could be sent to a radiator in a useful location.
I've seen lots of writings about insulation requirements helping to drastically reduce heat loss. What I have not seen are reams of writings about the cooling effect of the 8000mm2 holes we have to create in carefully double glazed/tripple glazed windows and doors.
I got caught up in this. I did a loft conversion and had to stick loads of insulation in. After consideration I went with the silver quilt which was so much less in thickness, and also for staging onsite and getting into the loft area. I also used the PIR backed plasterboard. A bitch to fit but im really happy with it and my word is that area warm now!
Thanks Roger. We need new windows in our house that has more holes than paper doilies. I can’t get my head around why I would pay lots of money for argon gas filled A rated thermal glass etc for them to put a great big hole in the frame. Also adds noise pollution. If I want a vent I will open the window! I wonder if anybody on here can tell us if there is a difference in u value between vented and solid frames? Thanks.
As you said, many tradesmen will be thankful that they are retired or retiring. I personally am glad that I only complete checks and maintain equipment in commercial buildings and do absolutely no installation work.
Regarding the costs and housing becoming more expensive. Homes will only cost what people can ultimately afford. The highest cost in almost every home is the plot of land. If the overall price of a house is limited by the market and the building itself becomes more expensive then land values will fall to take up the slack. In reality, it is more likely that a fall in the value of currency will keep them nominally the same with a reduction in real terms. It's a different matter in the few places that land is cheap.
Good point, but don’t forget the availability of credit. It’s a massive manipulator because the affordability is also dictated by what the buyer can borrow.
We may need AC though - climate change means more temperature extremes. AC load aligns with solar power though so it could be mostly "self powered" from the rooftop solar.
Thank god ... I only generally deal with legal party wall matters in construction. Thanks again for your valued video on the changes. I can envisage a nightmare in trying to control all these changes.
I have just started my loft conversion so Part L will be key especially as main reason to do so was to try and retain heat in the house. Old 1920's house with high ceilings, single brick house and leaking heat everywhere. I am hoping the newly insulated loft will retain heat in the house however, I still have a lot to do. I still have to do something about the walls/windows and will look at EWI and newer glazing. I do worry that with houses so insulated, are they going to be able to breathe and in the summers, are they going to be hot. I am now looking at AirCon esp after the summer of 2022 and potentially, hot months being very common in the future. Great videos Roger - no building skills here but have learnt a lot from your videos.
Hit the nail on the head. I have recently had a number of clients opting for a rear garden room annex rather than an extension to their home. Either to use as a gym / workout room or an office due to the prevalence of working from home or setting up a personal business. These are usually built within 1M of a boundary and the Planning Regulations dictate a maximum height within the 1 M as 2.3M. If a flat roof is opted for then the whole annex at it's highest point will have to be 2.3M or less. But wait! The floor level is usually 150mm above ground level. Allow for the amount of insulation between joists and under joists given and allow for a 50mm air gap over the insulation - 400mm Allow for a 50mm titling piece to the higher edges of the flat roof and a 1:60 fall to the eaves (say) - 75mm Allow for the thickness of the roof covering and the ply decking (say) - 30mm Allow for the plasterboard ceiling - 12.5mm (excluding a 3mm skin coat and assume tape and joint finish). Total roof thickness in the region of 490mm. I'm guessing that leads to a ceiling height within the annex of around 1860mm ie. not enough and an external door height nigh on impossible to achieve. If a pitched roof (tiled) is chosen then the maximum height to the eaves is 2.3M and the maximum overall height is 4M. Even with a roofing tile that will achieve 17.5 degree pitch this is difficult to achieve leading to lowering the eaves height well below 2.3M in most cases. The above is predicated upon current Permitted Development allowances. The alternative is to apply for Planning Permission that in my experience in most cases will be refused. Or reduce the annex to more than 1 M from a boundary which for most of my clients would not provide an acceptable internal space. You can bet that the Permitted Development regulations will not be changed. NB the default position for most all of the Local Authority Planners is to look for reasons to refuse planning permission.
@@SkillBuilder Thanks for the reply. I advise all my clients to apply for Building Regulations approval to avoid any future complications and the Planners usually insist that it is an annex to the existing house and although not allowable as a habitable building should comply as if part of the dwelling. It may be a grey area but worthy of being cautious. The height restrictions still apply to put buildings such as sheds.
If its permitted development and low occupancy, the building regs dont apply to garden rooms. I build garden rooms and use a hybrid system which allows for greater headroom. I've never had a problem with any of them with regards to damp, moisture.
Decided to install a Korniche roof lantern, as you have already shown in one of your clips. How does the Korniche roof lantern stand up to the new part "L " building Regs with its single glazing lantern light.
I would rather have a house that can breathe even if it costs me more to heat. I don’t have cavity wall insulation and never will . In my opinion it’s not healthy sealing everything up . Health is more important .
@ 12:15 This is what I tell everyone in the last 2-3 years: if you put on a heat pump and it breaks down in winter, apart from the fact that there are extremely few technicians skilled in repairing them, how many of them will agree to come and fix them in winter when the outside temperature is -5, -10, -20 C?
Your last comment is one I’ve been saying for years, it’s very easy on a drawing board isn’t it, these people are nuts as proved by the omission of heat recovery ventilation, trickle vents won’t cut it, it the winter people will close them. Thanks for a great vid Roger and yes I agree, heat pumps won’t work in most houses in the UK especially with heating designed to run at 82C, if they are turned down to 50C they will need to run 24 hrs a day, won’t happen. Thanks to god, I’ve retired.
Of course, increasing the heat efficiency of the external walls can result in at least two physical possibilities: either the footprint of the building has to increase or, the size of the rooms has to decrease. You can bet developers will opt for the latter! Cynical? Maybe, but a developer in my region successfully persuaded the planners to allow narrower roads - vis-a-vis existing adjacent road system which it was extending, so that it could squeeze extra houses on the land; even going to the extent of reducing the footpath in at least two instances to just a single footpath along one side of the road. With the law now forbidding parking on pavements this results in an obstruction being created if vehicles park on each side of the road - even in the turnings with just a single footpath!
Worked for a 'builder' years' ago... council came to inspect the floor insulation... had to have chicken wire over it, too. Once he left they ripped it all up and laid, haha, concrete!!!
Thank you for this Roger. A thought regarding your point on air conditioning and all we need to do on hot days is have well insulated homes and use blinds.... they will keep us cool accordng to the government advisors.... really? So, when, as we have had this week, the temperature is in the mid 20s, those aforementioned actions will not lower the air temperature coming into the homes. I know this because on those days, or hotter, when I put the portable aircon unit on and bring the internal temperature down, the missus then opens the windows and doors and lets all that hot air into the house to let the breeze blow through.... the mid 20s degree breeze!!! I'm massively into energy saving, have solar PV and looking into battery bank install but we still need to be realistic surely?
In the 80s i rented 4000 Square feet of a old woollen mill basement. It was cool in the summer and felt warm in the winter. So no need for ac in summer and very cheap to heat in the winter. So good exterior insulation is key. That way you don't have extremes to deal with. Easier and cheaper said than done. Good rant Rodger, glad someone keeps pointing these things out.
Brilliant summary of the obstacles I'm dealing with building a new timber frame house - thousands of pounds to provide bridging drawings for the SAP assessor then more hassle trying to upload photo evidence through their app. The app is designed for brick built houses and the photo labels - ie insulated cavity - don't correspond to my drawings. Keep up the great work, big admirer of your videos! John of Letty Green
@@henrytwigger2245 When was the last time you heard/saw an over current device that had frozen? There’s several different types of over current devices in most domestic circuits.
@@jonathanrose456 madness. Seriously tempted to chop the drivers in for a beer fridge and some paint brushes. There are decorators earning more than us down my way now. No regs, nothing. Just a resrved bar stool in the local spoons.
@@eggster71 I’m doing less & less electrical work all the time. Consulting/managing projects is where the money is for experienced sparks. Let the youngsters do the heavy lifting 😉
Any new standard should be proven as practical with pilot builds. Engineering is compromise in search of perfection. If all the focus is on one thing - CO2 - that will likely lead to significant compromises elsewhere.
Changes in Building Regulations take years to gestate as there are extensive consultations with the building industry and especially large volume housebuilders regarding practicality and cost, which always delays necessary changes. The "new" changes to the regulations probably started life 5 years ago.
At my last house, I put in something like 10" of insulation then boarded it over. When it came to getting an EPC, the surveyor couldn't see the insulation and issued a certificate as if there was no insulation! Be warned.
Had some epc's done to some flats victorian house conversion, couldnt see half of it as I had covered it over, "I can only rate it on what I can see", he says, then goes on to make reccomendations that in fact had already been done, unless I was ready to open up the stud walls for him to measure and photograph, that wasnt going to happen.
We've been heading towards a land of over-insulation on new-builds for a while. Where do you think over-heating comes from? We design for mythical winter temperatures of -4C and then we're surprised when we're over-heated in the "shoulder temperatures", otherwise known as the 9 months of Autumn we have in this country! We used to ignore casual heat gains in a heating design, but when you insulate to these levels and a room only needs a few watts of heating at design winter conditions, then suddenly a few extra bodies in a room or a TV on 4 hours a day can start to raise the internal temperature. We don't need a house that swivels, we need dynamic insulation where the U-value changes! But as the U-value is fixed, as is the area, then the remaining variables are temperature and energy and if you increase the energy in a room the temperature will go up! I suspect the reason for the increased attention to pipework insulation is because uncontrolled heat gain to a room will now make them unbearable to live in for most of the year. Living in a new-build will be like wearing three vests and an overcoat in May! The building regs could have stopped increasing the thermal efficiency of the fabric with the last iteration and then should have concentrated on heat recovery of the ventilation air, this would have addressed the infiltration that has now been renamed trickle ventilation. It would have greatly improved the health of the occupants as well, by ensuring proper levels of ventilation. I agree with others on the existing building stock; insulate the roof spaces, try to introduce MVHRs or some controlled vent and put solar panels on the roofs. Simple, affordable technologies with existing workforces, that reduce the dependence on the electrical grid and the gas network. BTW, the dependence on the "grid" for powering all these new heat pumps and car charging points is laughable. Do we really think a network of 50 year old cables, each with a thousand joints, is ready for such an increase in load?! Contrary to what the Energy companies are saying, but I suspect to a man who sells electricity every problem needs a heat pump!
I think in a previous video you made a very good point that radiators do not actually radiate but are convection heaters and transfer heat to you using air. The hot air from your radiator becomes very precious and so yeah I can understand a reluctance to opening a vent and letting it out 🤣. However, if you have underfloor heating the transfer mechanism changes and the heat radiates to you directly. In fact if you heat the building constantly (albeit at a lower temp) every part of your house warms up becomes a source of heat that radiates. And then it's much less of a big deal to let out some hot air out and let in some cold air. Such a house can cope with the air change without you feeling like you are going to freeze.
That is all true but very few people will know or appreciate the difference. It is hard enough getting them to understand that they don't need to turn the trv up and down every 10 minutes
I'm sure they'll find a way to get around installation images they need to provide. I live in social housing but was in the building trade for many years. Every single job I've had done on my place has had to be done twice due to shoddy work or no knowledge of what materials they have to use for certain jobs. I just recently had them out to fix 2 leaks in a gutter. They took over a month to erect a scaffolding, it sat there for over 2 months when the scaffolding company came to take it away not realising the job hadn't even been done. They left it in place and a workman turned up a few weeks later and painted something on them and the scaffolding was also taken that day. £ days later it rained, and guess what? Yes the leaks were still present. This must have cost them a fortune. They lose so much money by not doing a job right in the first place it's ridiculous. The worst part is that they sometimes send out an inspector first and he tells you what is going to be done, only for the trades turning up asking you what's the problem and usually saying..."well we weren't told to do the other wall, so we're only doing one, take it or leave it , as happened with a problem i had with penetrating damp on an outrigger. Believe it or not, the wall they did do with dot n dab was flapping about after it was dry so another joker came along to screw it back to the wet wall. I'm having the same issue again, even with the new plasterboard wall. I explained to the inspector in the first place that the problem was with spalled brick, I even circled the damp patches inside and showed him the corresponding bricks outside because his first diagnosis was condensation, to which I explained that I don't even get that on my window, which is a good indication of a dew point. I've now got a brickie coming in a few days as I reported it again online as brickwork problem. They've recently done the walls below in the kitchen. They were sopping wet and the lad put some black paint on to act as a membrane barrier. I suppose it's a form of tanking but not? But to be honest, it didn't adhere to the failing mortar between the bricks, so I don't know if that will last. Anyhow I'm going to appeal to the brickie's good nature when he turns up and see if he'll do all the bricks on the outrigger, and even better repoint it all. I have no doubt he hasn't the authority to do this, but hopefully he will go back and say this fella has had enough of upevil and expense over our usual sticking plaster approach and that we do the job that needs doing. Rant over haha! I think the images of work are a great idea in my situation, as we can call out the "That'll doers, Incompetents or the organisation's abuse of works, for the sake of expense or an undermanned workforce".
I have never liked the idea of living in a sealed box. The more people living in a home the more diseases spread. I accept draughts are costly but I feel somewhat better for you.
Great video! Same in Holland at this moment. It amazes me how our Dutch government is going to tackle this. QOUTE: Vanaf 2026 is een hybride warmtepomp verplicht bij de vervanging van de cv-ketel. Het kabinet hoopt op die manier minder afhankelijk te worden van aardgas. So, from 2026 on it is obligated (!) to have a heat-pump next to your new central heating device inststalled. Not one word about isolation or efficiency or temperature. Not one word! We do not have enough a/o skilled laborers to make this work and a lot of advantages will be taken from this (making money over stupid customers). What will happen in the long run?
Ground source heat pumps may be OK, but air source heat pumps are rubbish! Disgusting law. They want us to suffer, while they sell us heat pumps, overpriced insulation, and eventually; blankets
At a time when these requirements are being forced on everyone all of a sudden insulation and building materials are more expensive than ever 🤔 It's all to make the rich richer
It's not all of a sudden though, is it? It was supposed to be done by 2016, but the Tories scrapped it to appease their mates in the housebuilding industry. The rich won't get richer by lower fuel bills for the general public, hence why it's taken so long. The arse about tit approach to heat pumps and ventilation that Roger mentions is very likely a con to make people pay twice though.
If you are going to operate a heating system at 50c with radiators, then not only will you require bigger pipework but the radiator will have to be much bigger. Radiators are designed to operate at 82c flow 71c return top and bottom opposite ends to give the correct heat output. 50c works perfect for underfloor heating, with pipes encased in the floor screed.
Not always. Sometimes the radiators are oversized, so ok for 50 degrees. If insulation has been added to a room, that can have reduced the heat load to the radiator's output. And if single panel radiators gave been used previously, using a same width double panel or connecting radiator achieves the required heat output without having to change the pipework.
Agree no point in insulating heating pipes in voids. But hot water pipes.. They contribute to overheating the building in the summer. Not much, but with new "super insulated" homes, they will make a difference.
Buy an old house which is not compatable with any of this crap and just live in it. Boll**ks to the over nannyish regulations. The kind of modern mass new house estates are already awful to live on anyway.
I have a 1930s house, one brick wall which really needs insulating. A quote for external insulation was £29k, and it would take 58 yrs to payback. Ok with fuel costs doubling its probably nearer 30 yrs to payback. When will the government take off VAT from proper insulating materials, and seriously assist improving the old housing stock which many of us live in ?
Thank god we are going to get our next app in by 15th June - not sure I would bother otherwise. Need to get footings in for all plots in 12 months and job done. Thinking this might be our last one on current trends - been doing an average of 15 plots a year since 2015. Probably for the best - starting to have all sorts of health issues (bad lifestyle choices I suppose) so it won't hurt to knock it on the head and just start a planning gain play.
Great video many thanks Roger. Just really confused on one point: For copper pipes behind dot and dab I thought they had to be sleeved (e.g. traditional brown wool) to avoid corrosion with the sulphur in the block wall. Copper is recyclable so how can it be rejected in favour of plastic or laminated plastic/aluminium.
I will make one comment. This all should start long ago but with the education in schools so the public is fully aware how to look after and manage energy
so lets get this straight. Seal the building airtight to prevent cold leaks - then open the trickle vents. Demand that a house owner uses less power but discourage the use of full climate control heat pumps (I have a dual mini-split that even on a UK cold day has a CoP greater than 1 and upto 5). Bring out initiatives such as ECO3 and 4 but dont allow the installation of solar panels as a micro-gen plant (one idea would be for the DNO to fund the installation of a 3 or 4kWp solar array on most roofs to reduce grid demand). And of course stop new builds being affordable by increasing the requirements to an extent that will add 10's of 1000's to the price!
This whole issue is madness, heating systems that will not supply sufficient heat ,and houses that have zero ventilation. Allergies will increase as mould, and fungus rises. Far better to leave your house draughty, and heat with a proper fireplace.
We had a timber frame extension built with a warm foof. I spent a couple of days filling in the gaps that the builder left in the insulation with spray foam and foil tape.
insulating pipes within the house 'envelope' is a nonsense unless you have shares in an insulation manufacturing company. I remember when under floor slab insulation went from 100mm to 150mm and thinking just how much heat can travel downwards through 100mm of concrete and then through the insulation. Some might say the ground is cold in winter but the reality is once you get a foot under a house footprint seasonal ground temperature changes are tiny.
The ground temp. might be reasonably constant, but it will still be lower than the temperature you want the house to be so an uninsulated slab will continually transfer heat into the ground.
@@patrickwheeler2646 pipes have never been insulated in joist spaces since central heating was invented (other than where they pass directly over wood or cables). Ok a bit of heat will be lost but it's not being lost to outside, it is still contained within the building....it's a complete irrelevance thought up by numpties who learned their building industry from a manual and are devoid of any actual practical thinking skills.
Thank you for your videos. Yours are the most accurate and sensible videos on the subject of heat pumps and insulation. I live and work in Ireland now, in the insulation, air tight and ventilation business. interesting what you say about PIR sizes and so true, the roll out insulation is pre cut to size. I find it shocking that anyone would even consider retrofitting a heat pump in a older house that does not have modern standards of insulation, airtightness and ventilation. Heat recovery ventilation is well established and fairly inexpensive to install in a new house, and with the full package the heat pumps work well and are very efficient. Triple glazed windows are pretty much standard here now. Installing all the modern stuff in an existing house comes under the heading of a deep retrofit, there are large grants here available for deep retrofits but even with the large grants it’s still extremely expensive.
They really need to just bite the bullet and abandon radiators if they ultimately want to enforce heat pumps. Air to air systems work much better than air to water.
God, now you are really taking me back. I and many, many of my friends took out warm air underfloor heating systems and replaced them with gas boiler powered heating and hot water systems. Being forced back to warm air systems brings a cold chill to my heart. Next it will be Economy 7 systems. We all know how well they worked out.
External curtains ftw in the summer...if only there was room on our top floor for them too! Blinds on the inside don't stop the sun getting in as the heat's already in the building by that point. External shutters could work assuming the wind doesn't wreck them but I'd rather not risk it with our weather. Literally strung a steel wire between two eyelets and old curtains for the hot times 🥵
It'll be easy to achieve a 30% reduction in carbon emissions as no-one's going to be able to afford to put the heating on with the way fuel prices are going 😡🤦♂️
Set plastics on fire to keep warm..release hydrocarbons back into the environment to make up for the lack of warmth from grossly inefficient modern over subscribed boilers that don’t work…!
Im going to be buring tyres in the fireplace this winter.
Im pretty sure that scrapyard tyres will be cheaper than oil, coal or gas.
@@sahhull top tio
@@stigkrakpants3052 that's the crazy part , they will need more energy for heat and cooking and more land to accommodate all these extra people , less land to grow crops to be self sufficient , more building materials like wood , doesn't make sense , plus villages are not anymore they have grown so much , when you are used to and want to live in a quiet village you now find you are expanding to a town , if I wanted to live in a town I'd have moved to one ,
We won’t need to keep adding more insulation as the world will be heating up. In 20 years we’ll be removing insulation and putting it in landfill.
I am being sarcastic here before anyone is triggered.
I do EPC surveys on commercial buildings. Often tasked to do these out of hours, i.e. when the occupants have gone home. For example, I did one the other day on an adult education centre. I was told to go at 4pm when classes had ended. Nearly every room used for classes had the A/C running with nobody in the room. Each of these rooms had local controls for the A/C able to be adjusted by any old Tom, Dick or Harry. I turned them all off on my route. I get to go to loads of these types of buildings and shake my head at how they are managed. Sorting out controls, who can adjust them, setting up responsibility for building managers, central BMS systems ONLY and accountability is more important. The issue is occupants do not give a shit because it isn't their electricity, isn't their building and isn't their responsibility. Clown world.
Hi Robert
You are so right and I also find a lot of it in public buildings. Heating on full blast with all the windows wide open. I ask why and they say "We don't know how to turn it off".
This is where an occupancy sensor would come in handy, no point in trying to change people you have to improve the machine..
@@michaelcoles6140 So true, occupancy sensor linked to heating / AC and not just lighting.
Another problem is the companies who install x y z system get paid to install. They have no idea how to actually use it in day to day life. The company that install take no responsibilty to maintain the equirement. Sometimes building managers say to me we cannot fix the system because the people that can are from another country or company gone bankrupt.
Parts and unit knowledge are massively lacking in this country, not one single company/merchant has gained parts or the actual knowledge to sort issues out! The future for AC and Heat pumps needs looking at. Standardised parts better user interface etc is needed and more training given! even if it’s on line and is over the course of a year… (plus at an affordable rate or payment plan)
After 46 years in the building with the way its going I'm glad I'm retiring. Never thought I'd say that. Keep it up roger
I know what you mean. I wouldn't want to buid today.
My timing is out im in the middle of doing a knock down rebuild on my house to retire into, what a bloody fiasco
Round and round in ever decreasing circles till we disappear up our own fundament - really cheered me up this time Roger.
I think I definitely got the boy doing my roof insulation. I think he must have only had about 3/4 of the king span he should have had based on the gaps. In my limited experience good builders are a rare breed. I love the channel and just wish I could employ your guys for my building projects. There are few things worse than getting home from work and looking at the efforts of some so called professionals and thinking I could have done that better myself.
@John Chapman 100% - I don't trust hired help to do anything properly or honestly. Prefer doing it myself.
@@michaelatkinson9396 very constructive comment there Mick.
Good builders get a good reputation and typically don’t need to advertise, they get more than enough work by word of mouth. When choosing a builder, if you can’t get a recommendation from someone you trust then you need to see examples of work they have recently completed and speak to their customers. If they can start work immediately then be suspicious, if they are the cheapest then be suspicious. It’s not rocket science.
I agree with you're last comment Rodger.
If you want to learn to fly a plane, ask a pilot.
If you want to learn how to build a bridge, ask an engineer.
If you want to learn how to build a house, ask a politician .... wait what?????
Or ask somebody who knows what they are on about.
Which Roger doesn't.
Basically he is the daily mail made flesh.
@@prendergastfantasmo1299 You gotta be kidding right?
If you want to learn how to build a house, ask an engineer.
It's little to do with energy conservation and more to do with commercial profits. There comes a point where the cost of the energy conservation procedures are not justified by the savings. But it's a nice little earner for the commercial companies involved, and the state gets payout in taxes and lower unemployment....
I work I a school a couple of days a week and they’ve decided to replace the old oil powered boiler with a heat pump system. It’s partially installed with enormous radiators in a 1960’s leaky building so I think is going to struggle to work! Also they’ve realised that the building now needs a larger electrical supply to support the heat pump system which is going to cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, the installer who disconnected the old oil fired system is now going to reconnect it as it’s not going to happen this year!!!
Lots and lots of building regs, but no regulating of builders! Its simply unbelievable that any Tom Dick or Harry can carry out pretty much any building work, without any sort of qualifications, experience .. nada!
Heat pumps WORK!!!
If your rich
If you want to totally update your house
If you can insulate it to the highest spec......
Only for the rich really
Ah the 3 phase electricity conundrum. They rarely say just what power supply is required. We are single phase electric and could not convert from gas if we wanted. £23k + quote to get 3 phase for a pensioner. As with wifi until the entire countries infrastructure is fit for purpose we cannot embrace 'progress'.
Very good information Roger , but considering the standard of work being done under the existing regulations ie often not compliant . I can’t see a lot of this happening , a total tightening of the existing regs wouldn’t go a miss . And who is going to monitor all this , considering they can’t stop dodge builders as it is . Just more work for the good guys , and more for the bad to ignore. Best wishes and kind regards to your good self 😀👍👍👍
It will probably lead to employment of additional Building Inspectors and a rise in on site inspection fees to pass on the the client along with all the additional costs for complying leading to clients deciding not to build and less work for builders of all kinds.
Michael, you only need to look over the water to Republic of Ireland to see how it’s going to work. This year instead of just needing to certify compliance, all work now need to be independently checked for compliance by a certified third party.
In thirty years time it'll turn out that manufacturing all that insulation was terrible for the environment and/or made by firms that had links to senior government officials. 😏
100 percent. PIR insulation has maaaasive amounts of embodied carbon because of the high temperatures needed during its manufacture. Continually adding more and more insulation in buildings doesn't necessarily mean lower carbon emissions overall it can actually lead to more if you look at lifetime emissions. But since there's no inclusion of calculating embodied carbon in the new regs this has been swept under the rug. Madness.
@@scottm4193 probably fuelling a new industry, like electric cars
Roger, I have my own plumbing business in Belgium and doing my last year before retiring. Discovered your videos today and they correspond 100% to my experiences, though the materials you use are slightly different. Just like you, I can see how the whole world has gone crazy. Practical things are no longer taken into account. This has devastating implications for us as plumbers/ technicians. I have always enjoyed this profession a lot but I'm happy to quit now. Keep up posting these great videos Roger!
How old are you Ludo? I am thinking of retiring but keep putting it off.
Hello Roger, happy to see you respond your messages so fast ! I'll be 63 end of this year... been working since I was 20 so I'll have 43 years on the counter ;-) Can't you make a living out of posting these videos? Actually, after retiring I want to continue finishing my house in France. After all, as a plumber you end up beeing verry well skilled in all kind of techniques concerning construction. Don't have to tell you, do I? haha
@@SkillBuilder if your enjoying what you do why retire as keeping busy is the best way, just tone it down a tad and don't push your self as that leads too problems, a sudden retirement is the worst as the body cant take the sudden stop , trust me known many contacts and people who did this and there not here now , sad as they were top people
Continually adding more and more insulation in buildings doesn't necessarily mean lower carbon emissions overall it can actually lead to more if you look at lifetime emissions. PIR insulation for example has maaaasive amounts of embodied carbon because of the high temperatures needed during its manufacture. And guess what produces those high temps? Fossil fuels. But since there's no inclusion of calculating embodied carbon in the new regs this isn't evident. And instead we get homes with smaller internal volumes and for higher costs!
Luckily we are de-carbonising industry as well. PUR panels are produced at around 40-45ºC with no primer; PIR panels need temperatures of around 60 to 65ºC and a primer. These temps are easily achievable using renewable energy. For example Celotex manufacturing plants are certified to ISO 14001, ISO 50001 and ISO 9001: 2008 and use 0% CO2 electricity.
Great information, thanks Roger! Having spent quite a bit of time in Sweden where high insulation, triple glazing, heat pump heating and good air tightness and mechanical ventilation are standard, I can confirm those houses are much nicer to live in. We might not need the same levels of insulation for our climate, but we have plenty of room for improvement so I think raising the standards is a good thing. The way the Swedes deal with waterproofing in their bathrooms is also very interesting - baths are never sealed to the wall, instead all bathrooms are fully wet-roomed, the bath is dry butted against the tiled wall and there is a gulley under the bath with appropriate floor falls. Any water that hits the wall and flows down past the bath just flows along the floor into the gulley. The waste from the the bath is just a stub of pipe directed into the gulley. They've effectively designed out the common failure point that is the bath-wall mastic seal.
The weather conditions are totally different in Sweden than the UK.
In the 1950's The Ministry of Public Works copied many of the Swedish timber frame designs but found that they would be expensive and opted for single glazing, less insulation, and other cost cutting methods to suit the British climate, resulting in thousands of families living in properties that were basically not fit for human habitation.
Much as I DESPISE doing the caulking around a bath, I would really rather the hairs and grease and soap scum stayed on top of the bath whence they can be washed away. Also, a freestanding bath needs to be a lot sturdier than one that is stuck to the wall on two or three edges. I have no issues with a nice thick steel bath but that extra weight is extra thermal mass which is extra money down the drain (or...not) every time you have a soak.
My personal view is that many of the measures being mandated will lead to rot and decay in many British housing. The only way to get round this is to demolish areas of poor housing and build decent housing in it's place. The comment by Sichere that adoption of Swedish housing standards was abandoned in the 1950s is a prime example of cost cutting and poor management by government of the day. As only 2% of the land in the UK is used for housing there is scope for more homes to be built. There's also the argument that the Royal family needs to relinquish more of its lands, does one very rich family need to occupy 70% of the landmass in the UK? Do they think the great unwashed are just going to conduct raids and attack them willy nilly? That mindset says more about them than about us, but I digress.
Patching up problems in existing houses is prohibitively expensive on top of the cost of housing at today's prices. There's an argument for doing away with a lot of Victorian, Georgian and older housing that falls way below the standards we are trying to obtain. This will be costly in itself as people will have to be rehoused or adequately compensated. People will also need to be educated on how to live in these new buildings, as at present some of my own neighbours don't bother opening their windows in the summer to allow proper ventilation and then complain of damp in winter. People need and deserve better housing than they currently have, just continuing as before because its always been like this just isn't an option
@@mypointofview1111 You're spot on but it'll never happen. Drive down any road in the UK and imagine how many houses need new kitchens Bathrooms Windows or a complete overhaul.
Maintenance is often neglected as a low priority but in many cases it now cost more to fit a Bathroom to an old Georgian or Victorian house than it did to build it originally
I think that a stand-alone shower cubicle is better overall.
It's about damn time nuclear energy is being accepted again! Trickle vents are the cheap alternative, but it really does feel counter intuitive to have huge amounts of insulation, then to open vents and let the cold in; but the cost of a heat recovery system is enormous in comparison.
I completely agree about the documentation side - every installation will be like gathering evidence for a C&G qualification, while not a bad idea to prove the job is done right - a MASSIVE cost to burden the customer with.
Exactly. Mandatory hermetically sealed insulation and mandatory trickle vents on new windows. Thus proving the perfectly gapless insulation standard to be pointless
I hope this applies to the people who do EPCs as well. We spent lockdown renovating a property to rent out and tried our best to put as much insulation in as possible when framing out the walls. We took detailed photos of everything - hundreds of them. When we got the EPC done we were informed that photographic evidence was not acceptable and they could only include things they could see unless we let them open up all - and they meant all - the freshly decorated walls. We are now saddled with an EPC rating of a low D which should be a high C.
@@kissarmy1347 The whole EPC system is a joke. It also underpins the whole UK energy insulation grant system which produces vast theoretical CO2 savings (funded by your bills) which is also a joke.
Whoever told you that isn’t right. If photographic and documentary evidence can be provided you absolutely can put that into the epc.
I ask for photos of the insulation fitted and a photo of the room (so you can see the photos apply to that property). You can either ask the assessor to re do it or get another assessor who knows what they’re doing to give you the proper rating
@David Handley Thank you for that. I think I will get a different assessor. I won't name him but he was most insistent that his accrediting body would not increase the EPC level based on us submitting photographic evidence. After all the work we put in to the insulation I was very disappointed to only get a D rating.
I like the idea of adopting the Swedish housing standards in the UK, I think it's long overdue. However my main gripe is the open plan interiors, I hate them, they don't work. It's very rare that even in a 2 person household everyone will want to do the same thing at the same time. One will want to do some work, another will want to talk to friends on the phone or virtually, if there's more people someone will want to watch tv, another will want to read or listen to music. If you add kids into the mix they'll want to play somewhere. There's a reason why we have rooms with doors, so there's some separation, somewhere you can do what you need to do without having to be in your bedroom. In this respect the late Victorian houses got things right, particularly those that are double fronted. Each person can have their space and you can still have a lounge to relax or entertain. We need to understand that our need for our own space is still vital to function in our lives
Open living sounds good but doesn't provide enough soundproofing (sounds echo around the whole house), smells and oils will circulate through the whole house (fish, eggs, toilets), it means you have the heat the whole house and not just the rooms you need at the time (different parts of the house need to be heated to different temperatures, especially the bedrooms); privacy when you are hosting or have guests is less available, and these days when lots of people are home working there are a lot more disruptions. We seem to going backwards and not learning from what our Victorian forbears learnt a long time ago. Houses need active, passive, shared, personal and quiet areas to be fully functional for all our needs. Roger - you forget to mention Building Regs Part Z - The self-powered local nuclear reactor and underground power cell for when your power company switches off your own power supply when the grid is maxed out, so you can keep all your devices running.
@@karlphillips3259 Swedish houses don't hold on to smells like your wonderful Victorian houses - they have mechanical ventilation and heat recovery. Our whole house is heated with tiny luke warm radiators (or quite often just the people in it) so we don't all huddle around the fireplace. And Roger, the house doesn't have to rotate like the Thunderbirds because the eaves are designed to shade us in the summer and allow passive heating in the winter when the sun is low. BTW my triple glazed house was imported to the UK from Sweden 40 years ago and now we've got 40deg heat outside we shut the doors and stay cool inside.
@John Chapman Ah you don't have a separate utility room I suppose. I have to put my ear to the dishwasher to tell if it's running.
@@johnhunter4181 Hi John, I didn't mean any disrespect to Swedish Houses. When our leaders do anything, they pick the lowest bidder, forget the critical issues (don't install the proper mechanical ventilation and heat recovery systems), and short cuts on everything possible (just look at any snag list on any new house we build today). The UK wouldn't build to the proper standards or use the proper ancillaries, so we would be stuck with a glorious-looking Swedish House on the outside but smelling like our wonderful Victorian houses on the inside. We don't tend to do things properly, except for those few people who take time, care to investigate properly and do things properly. We live with a short-term culture/mindset, get-rich-quick mentality at the expense of everyone else. The UK leaders don't have the same mindset as the Europeans or Swedish.
@@karlphillips3259 Hi Karl,
Totally agree with you about our so called leaders but it's not just their mindset that has to change, its the mindset that an Englishman's home is his castle and preferably made of solid stone walls. We’ve all been brought up with the story of the three little pigs and wolf blowing down the house made of sticks. When I bought my triple glazed timber framed imported Swedish house 35 years ago friends joked about termites, they thought it would catch fire or rot away as quickly as a waney edged fence panel. As a result I got a complete bargain and went from huddling around an open fire to keep warm to a house where we can happily use every room at any time. On freezing cold winter mornings when the sky is usually clearest - sun streams through under the eaves and our heating stays off while the house is at >23C.
I’m done with period features, fireplaces as a focal point, plasterboards, sash windows, trickle vents, steamed up windows, dripping condensation, draughty letterboxes, and stuffy rooms - it's unfortunate that the UK is still going to sleep with bedtime stories about straw houses.
Nice presentation. Share your concerns too. I look forward to seeing how Building Control Officers or AIs police all this within the constraints of paltry fees they charge at the moment. They are failing massively to do the job now.
If the real objective is energy conservation why is improvement to existing stock not the priority? I survey houses in 🇬🇧 UK with little or no loft insulation. Surely compulsory minimum loft insulation certified at each time of sale is a tool that could be used. None compliance and no conveyance and no register of transfer.
That’d do a great job of kicking up house prices again.
Government subsidised microgen grants with requirement to install insulation instead of heat pumps… that might work!
Spot on this is the only difference heat leaky housing can be improved. The second point is that the onus is not on the tax payer, the home owner should be paying for the upgrade of the R value in the loft space. Maybe both parties pay 50% each.
@@cloudyskies1323 Great for those who can afford it. Around 1 in 6 can’t. Heat pump grants are for those who can already afford it.
There’s also a huge stock of social & privately rented accommodation that should be upgraded… on their own expense!
Industry bleeds more energy than domestics so, providing low cost loans to businesses & home owners would be a great incentive before resorting to legislation.
How about you shove that up your arse. Unbelievable level of sticking your nose where it doesn't belong. Imagine thinking it's acceptable to block the sale of private property like that. Unbelievable.
I found it ridiculous that my new build home in 2022 didn't even have the *option* to specify a heat pump, solar panels, or any other "green" technology other than an EV charger. I didn't necessarily expect them to be the default, but it was surprising to find it wasn't even an option I could pay for
They are not even heat pump ready in most cases there is a lot of upgrading. I bet you have a combi boiler
They really want you in a box, no windows, no vents, no heating, about 6 foot long and ideally buried to not be an eyesore.
Pretty accurate
Coffin
They'll want a trickle vent on the top
@@BrumCraft 😂
Hey i like my underground house! 😁
I can honestly say the building game is goin mad , cant wait to get out of it
All industries are
loft insulation is increasing to 450mm. When is enough? Next year 500mm? year after 600mm? Might as well fully fill it up to the rafters and be done with it.
Take a few steps back and see that the whole WORLD is going mad, and it's all deliberately planned.
Well said building games a joke for operatives now.
Rent the house eat the bugs own nothing and be happy.
As an owner of a double glazing company the changes to the trickle vent regs are ridiculous. Customers want windows that are quieter, draft proof and more efficient. Then we're told by building regs to drill a hole through them and put in a vent that is noisy, drafty and not efficient (try asking a trickle vent manufacturer if their vents have an energy rating!)
100% agree the best solution is an MVHR system, or as a minimum PIV.
The building regs are forcing the public to spend more money to have something they generally don't want by insisting on trickle vents. If I have windows I want them as draught free as possible. If I want some ventilation I open the window for a bit. Why complicate things???
I'm an architect for a UK house builder and although MVHR is defiantly the way to go, however they wont touch it because of the price. For instance, part O overheating they are actually reducing the size of windows! I've already noticed a few new sites from Barrett's were the smaller windows are really noticeable. This is much more of an issues it city's such as Manchester and Birmingham which are area inland which are more likely to suffer over heating to somewhere like Liverpool on the coast. PV from 2023 will also be standard on new builds
I pity those in their 50s who have to grapple with this. My father ended up mentally ill as a result of changes in gas installation regs and concomitant training requirements in the 90s; a highly competent gas installer but non academic, who was apprenticed in the 1950s, being made to do exams. He gave up on gas installation and lost a lot of business as a result. Worry about the resultant loss of earnings finished him off.
I remember those gas changes, it made lots of very capable gas fitters give up simply because they couldn’t handle the paperwork and bureaucracy. I’m sure it was driven by profit more than safety. I gave up my registration in 2005. I’m so glad I left the industry.
you've gotta love rodger, great video as always
I live in a passive house and we have no need for heating. We need to have more insulation than the new rules are allowing. We have solar for our hot water which works brilliantly for 8 months a year and an immersion heater for the other four months. We have very low energy bills. The future for new builds needs to be passive house standards or similar. We heated our house last winter with a few tea lights. We have an effective MVHR system and triple glazing as well as walls that have 750mm of insulation. If you are looking to buy a house please look at this 20 year old technology as it’s light years ahead of what we are currently advocating for England. A private members bill in Scotland which appears to have bi-partisan support will ensure passive standard homes will soon be the law there.
I agree it is a great system . But unfortunately it does not make the mass house builders make excess profit as the house foot print is higher . and we already make the smallest houses in Europe because of this .
how thick are your walls with 750mm of insulation- it sounds you made a mistake in measuring as we build passive houses in EU with only 400mm total wall thickness. with 750mm wall,your windows will hardly bring any light into the house
Who designed your house please? I am south scotland and really want to build one, have done for many years and maybe it can now be doable…
I fully agree with the point about heat recovery ventilation. Fitted a few several years ago and the customers were delighted. A multi-room kit is easily fitted where there is a loft above and not very expensive. Those folk who have the heating on full and leave windows open for fresh air could have the system paid for in energy savings in no time. The single room through-the-wall type are a little pricier but I think every kitchen should have one.
I fitted a through the wall unit but there is noticeable temperature drop in that room when the unit is on?
I have designed and installed many of these, A fully automatic MVHR is expensive to install correctly, which has to include correct adjustments of air flow, the filters have to be cleaned regularly, the units should be serviced annually and they need to be wired in such a way that they can't be easily turned off, the tenants in social housing don't want to pay for the two fans running 24/7/365 and I've found most are turned off.
Noisy?
@@seanmcardle The ones I've fitted had humidity sensors and ran at a very slow rate most of the time. I think this is when they are most effective because the heat exchanger has time to transfer the heat to the incoming air. At the slow speed they were barely audible. I don't really know about the multi-room ones because I didn't hear them when all else was silent but the through-wall ones were a little louder on high speed but I don't think as loud as a normal bathroom fan. I guess the positioning of the unit in the loft could make a difference. I made sure they were quite well isolated. Didn't hear any gripes from the customers.
We will be so pamperd in our homes when we go out we will catch every germ going. Some of us remember going in the front room were the fire was to warm up. People are sicker now we have all mod cons.🤣
The said thing is with these new regulations coming in, what is the point of pushing heat pumps, air to water or water to water. Given the insulation and air tightness levels are planned to be so high the most cost effective solution is air to air; i.e air conditioning systems with ERV. If the insulation levels and overhangs are designed correctly they won't need to be cooled in anything but extreme summer but will be more energy efficient and cost effective in the winter.
Sadly most of these proposals aren't drawn up by in field engineers, they're dreamed up by idealists that think our climate isn't already in need of air conditioning. The boat sailed, climate change happened already it's better to address it as is than pretend we're still a heating dominated climate.
Where does your hot water come from?
Electric boiler
@@prendergastfantasmo1299 the neighbours house
@@prendergastfantasmo1299 Immersion heater inside a hot water cylinder, which is also the case for ashp installations as it's required to be boosted over 60c for legionnaires as per pressurised hot water storage requirements 60-65c stored temp. Where ashp are designed to run at a maximum of 55c because the higher the temperature delta is the less efficient, it's better to just use Immersion heaters and offset them with PV.
If a house needs large storage of hot water or can only have small storage with quick recovery currently a fossil fuel appliance is still a better option. This is why in north america you'll find AC running alongside tank-less water heater units, or in recent times heat pump hot water cylinders with immersions to top them off to meet the required legislation.
In cavity wall construction why not construct the inner leaf using 200mm insulation block eg aircrete, and the outer leaf (which only serves to protect from the elements ) can remain at 100mm.The cavity ought to be preserved and ventilated using airbricks to ensure no moisture build up and hence dry walls.
Surely this is a better solution and would be easier for the block/brick layer as the need for cavity insulation which is awkward and problematic can be eliminated. An insulation backed plaster board may be attached to the inner walls to further improve thermal insulation.
That would be my solution as far as the walls are concerned.
Did a quick U-Value for you. With 70mm PIR on the inside, you would get a UValue of 0.23 w/m2k for your suggested construction, this is using structural AAC blocks on the inside.
1ne question, how much CO2 will be produced regarding production of all needed systems which make house insulation much much better?!Is it worth ?!
New builds will get more expensive and the internal living space smaller.
Take your trickle vents off then duct tape up the cut outs before refixing your vent back on. This energy saving tip was bought to you by me!
😂☝️ please nobody do this 🤷♂️
You guys are cutting edge, with a firm background of knowledge. Thank you for all your great information
After renovating my house, i was astonished to learn that there is a regulation regarding the height of door handles, as well as numerous other pointless regs. I have ignored ALL of them. Two of the door frames i took out are now acting as a *"joist" above a door. The regs say they must be steel. My wood is cheaper, just as strong (given what it's doing) and will last just as long. *The original i removed was wood. As i widened the opening slightly, the original lintle was too small, 4 pieces of door frame stacked and screwed was 10 times as strong as the original. Also, this was during lockdown, i couldn't get a metal one and had to wait 18 months for plaster!
raging against the machine eh ?
@@brianlopez8855 No, trying to get my house sorted whilst the govt made it almost impossible to get materials.
The problem isn't that the people who've drawn up this tosh haven't been to a building site before.
The problem is that they're either drones or mediocre psycopaths, dutifully doing the bidding of a criminal cartel of more illustrious psycopaths.
and you're doing the bidding of arrogant, greedy, selfish cowboys!
I'm one of those people, we are elite you are bad
Climate change is real and British building standards need to react. Get used to it.
@@richardsinger01 yes im loaded too those smelly poor people are so disgusting we need to starve them and force them to suffer we are green vegan all hail our glory
I think with the current price for energy, that in itself will make most people turn everything off. My electricity bill for April 2022 was £70. Looking back to the same period 5 years ago, it was £33.
I agree with your Heat Pump views, particularly on older properties. They should be mostly restricted to new highly insulated homes. We need a reduced population, to has grown by 15million in 25years, so it's not just nuclear power stations, but low density housing. Fewer high density areas such as in urbans areas.
How about more thatched houses: insulated in winter and summer, a natural product.
How about fewer kids……
Those with four kids are just greedy - discuss…..
@@PhilbyFavourites Nope - we need the next generation of surfs to pay for my retirement...
@@PhilbyFavourites 4 kids!! I'm oldest of 6 and my brother in law is somewhere amongst 13.
I know this comment is way too late but Roger spoke of one word all the time and not mentioned once. Shambles! Everything about the UK can simply be described by that one word. Best intentions but always the same outcome!
Great video Roger, that's all well and dandy, but what about all these brand new crap houses that are signed off, yet have numerous faults.Alot of the big developers can't build a nice house now,let alone upping the standard.
Good point
Upgrading insulation is one way to go but the victorian housing stock in the UK was not built in a way that allows good insulation tecniques to work effectively, which is why trade off is allowed on new extensions etc.
I dont think it is only Victorian (large rooms , tricky to heat), or Edwardian terraces that are the only problem. The 1970s estates (often with the tile hung front walls) are incredibly cold, with lack of anything in the cavity, have small rooms and windows that even when double glazed are not good.
Another interesting vlog ( as always). I was cringing when you mentioned the kingspan going between the timbers as what usually happens is the builder fits it in place before us electricians have put cables in. Builder “ if you take it out you put it back . Electrician “No you put it back because you fitted it before the cables were fitted. Builder and electrician 😡🤬. All this insulation is a blinking nightmare when in place before it should be. 😊
Well if electricians showed up when they said they were going to builders would'nt fit the inulation..
@@Mongoose490 back in the day when i was an electrician the builder wanted to know why we hadn't fitted the switch gear, it was because the builder hadn't built the wall for it to be fitted on to.
@@Mongoose490 lol 😂. Builder “ I want you here tomorrow “ electrician “I’m booked in another job tomorrow ,You didn’t let me know in advance . Builder “ I’m telling you now !
You’re correct Rog, the pipe work from my boiler to the thermal store runs under my bedroom floor, we’ve never had to turn the rad on in the bedroom. If we insulated those pipes we’d have turn the rad on. Insulating them would make little difference to energy consumption.
But that's accidentally beneficial because of poor workmanship, another person would have an under heated area because of the same thing.
@@patrickwheeler2646 that's what I'm saying. It makes little difference to the energy used.
All these changes to the English Regulations have actually been in the Scottish regs for years. I started my career in 2014, and pretty much all these things were already in the regs. Also, I used to think the Scottish Regs were too complicated but compared to the mess that the English regs seem to getting into with their letters etc, I'm actually starting to feel thankful for the logical organisation of the Scottish regs.
Brilliant -really sums it up with your last statement.
Putting trickle vents in to most people defies the logic of the job done by the insulation as they have no idea that the house needs to breath. I think we need to copy house building construction from cold countries - Canada, Norway to get a better idea.
Yes, having been to Scandinavia and Finland more times than I care to recall, I can confirm that the way they build their houses is very effective.
I have been insulating houses on upgrades with insulation board to 100mm plus 25mm underneath representing 5 inches or 10 inches of rockwool equivalent even though not required by Part L. Looks like the regs are finally catching up. Also been using old brick electric off peak heaters cheap as chips but the EPC assessors hate them.
Enjoy your videos! We are building our own home in the Arizona desert. It's a challenging climate, but it cools down at night, and is ideal for solar. We get passive heating in the winter from our south facing windows, and our overhang is such that we don't get any sun on the south side in the summer. We covered the whole outside of our house with rigid foam board, and will use an evaporative cooler in the summer. 😎🏜️
The problem with planning is that they not upto speed with all these changes. They need to be more realistic most of the times. Outdated policies and backward conservation ideals.
All by design
Completely right!
The problem is not in the new technology, but in the people who have to install, maintain and use it.
What I don't understand is the difference in heating and cooling with a mini split (aka air to air heat pump) or a air to water based system.
When you have a good mini splt of a renowned brand it has the same efficiency numbers as an air to water system.
Cheaper Chinese mini splits will work at lower efficiency.
And when you have PV cooling needs will be the highest when your PV system is producing more than you need otherwise.
Better to use this electricity to keep your home comfy than to feed it into the grid as a charity.
This because the netting regulation in the Netherlands will end, and all backfeed in the grid will only gain you a few cents per kWh
A good way of shading in the summer but allowing the sun in in the winter to warm the house is to plant (at a suitable distance of course) deciduous trees
Insulating pipework behind dot and dab is a dead easy. Chase pipes into wall and clip them off the block work, expanding foam them and dot and dab over the top or solid plaster. Ive just completed a complete new domestic install for a house going ASHP, 14 aluminium rads all with the outputs calculated for a 30 degree system, 28mm primary pipework and each rad is fed off 22mm and stepped down to 15 for pretty much just the tails. Took longer to do but I know it's going to work. Also insulating pipework in under floors and in voids makes perfect sense especially on low temperature, systems, what is the point in heating the void under the floor when the floor coverings above will act as insulation, you're just wasting heat that could be sent to a radiator in a useful location.
Very expensive in terms of labour but, perhaps even more importantly, this will negatively impact the structural integrity of the walls.
I've seen lots of writings about insulation requirements helping to drastically reduce heat loss. What I have not seen are reams of writings about the cooling effect of the 8000mm2 holes we have to create in carefully double glazed/tripple glazed windows and doors.
These people have never left education never had a normal job, just like teachers
I got caught up in this. I did a loft conversion and had to stick loads of insulation in. After consideration I went with the silver quilt which was so much less in thickness, and also for staging onsite and getting into the loft area. I also used the PIR backed plasterboard. A bitch to fit but im really happy with it and my word is that area warm now!
Thanks Roger. We need new windows in our house that has more holes than paper doilies. I can’t get my head around why I would pay lots of money for argon gas filled A rated thermal glass etc for them to put a great big hole in the frame. Also adds noise pollution. If I want a vent I will open the window! I wonder if anybody on here can tell us if there is a difference in u value between vented and solid frames? Thanks.
Trickle vents are daft and ugly. Nothing wrong with simply opening the window!
As you said, many tradesmen will be thankful that they are retired or retiring. I personally am glad that I only complete checks and maintain equipment in commercial buildings and do absolutely no installation work.
Regarding the costs and housing becoming more expensive. Homes will only cost what people can ultimately afford. The highest cost in almost every home is the plot of land. If the overall price of a house is limited by the market and the building itself becomes more expensive then land values will fall to take up the slack. In reality, it is more likely that a fall in the value of currency will keep them nominally the same with a reduction in real terms. It's a different matter in the few places that land is cheap.
Good point, but don’t forget the availability of credit. It’s a massive manipulator because the affordability is also dictated by what the buyer can borrow.
Not true, simply and plainly wrong. Land costs only outweigh construction costs in certain clearly delineated parts of the country.
I am not convinced that the average building firm is up to the job. I also have little confidence surrounding final inspection.
We may need AC though - climate change means more temperature extremes. AC load aligns with solar power though so it could be mostly "self powered" from the rooftop solar.
Thank god ... I only generally deal with legal party wall matters in construction. Thanks again for your valued video on the changes. I can envisage a nightmare in trying to control all these changes.
So we must have both air-tight buildings and more ventilation!
Roger is right, we need ventilation with heat recovery.
I have just started my loft conversion so Part L will be key especially as main reason to do so was to try and retain heat in the house. Old 1920's house with high ceilings, single brick house and leaking heat everywhere. I am hoping the newly insulated loft will retain heat in the house however, I still have a lot to do. I still have to do something about the walls/windows and will look at EWI and newer glazing. I do worry that with houses so insulated, are they going to be able to breathe and in the summers, are they going to be hot. I am now looking at AirCon esp after the summer of 2022 and potentially, hot months being very common in the future.
Great videos Roger - no building skills here but have learnt a lot from your videos.
Hit the nail on the head. I have recently had a number of clients opting for a rear garden room annex rather than an extension to their home. Either to use as a gym / workout room or an office due to the prevalence of working from home or setting up a personal business.
These are usually built within 1M of a boundary and the Planning Regulations dictate a maximum height within the 1 M as 2.3M.
If a flat roof is opted for then the whole annex at it's highest point will have to be 2.3M or less.
But wait!
The floor level is usually 150mm above ground level.
Allow for the amount of insulation between joists and under joists given and allow for a 50mm air gap over the insulation - 400mm
Allow for a 50mm titling piece to the higher edges of the flat roof and a 1:60 fall to the eaves (say) - 75mm
Allow for the thickness of the roof covering and the ply decking (say) - 30mm
Allow for the plasterboard ceiling - 12.5mm (excluding a 3mm skin coat and assume tape and joint finish).
Total roof thickness in the region of 490mm.
I'm guessing that leads to a ceiling height within the annex of around 1860mm ie. not enough and an external door height nigh on impossible to achieve.
If a pitched roof (tiled) is chosen then the maximum height to the eaves is 2.3M and the maximum overall height is 4M. Even with a roofing tile that will achieve 17.5 degree pitch this is difficult to achieve leading to lowering the eaves height well below 2.3M in most cases.
The above is predicated upon current Permitted Development allowances. The alternative is to apply for Planning Permission that in my experience in most cases will be refused.
Or reduce the annex to more than 1 M from a boundary which for most of my clients would not provide an acceptable internal space.
You can bet that the Permitted Development regulations will not be changed.
NB the default position for most all of the Local Authority Planners is to look for reasons to refuse planning permission.
you are right if the garden room needs to be built to comply with Part L but maybe it is a shed and not habitable.
@@SkillBuilder Thanks for the reply. I advise all my clients to apply for Building Regulations approval to avoid any future complications and the Planners usually insist that it is an annex to the existing house and although not allowable as a habitable building should comply as if part of the dwelling. It may be a grey area but worthy of being cautious. The height restrictions still apply to put buildings such as sheds.
@@nedmoulders4814 thought min habitable heights should be 2400mm
If its permitted development and low occupancy, the building regs dont apply to garden rooms. I build garden rooms and use a hybrid system which allows for greater headroom. I've never had a problem with any of them with regards to damp, moisture.
Decided to install a Korniche roof lantern, as you have already shown in one of your clips. How does the Korniche roof lantern stand up to the new part "L " building Regs with its single glazing lantern light.
I would rather have a house that can breathe even if it costs me more to heat. I don’t have cavity wall insulation and never will . In my opinion it’s not healthy sealing everything up . Health is more important .
why not have well insulated and sealed house and a heat recovery ventilation system to breathe fresh air and not loose much heat?
@ 12:15 This is what I tell everyone in the last 2-3 years: if you put on a heat pump and it breaks down in winter, apart from the fact that there are extremely few technicians skilled in repairing them, how many of them will agree to come and fix them in winter when the outside temperature is -5, -10, -20 C?
Built my own house with masses of insulation. Large house. Cost me less than half what a mass build monopoly house would have .
Your last comment is one I’ve been saying for years, it’s very easy on a drawing board isn’t it, these people are nuts as proved by the omission of heat recovery ventilation, trickle vents won’t cut it, it the winter people will close them.
Thanks for a great vid Roger and yes I agree, heat pumps won’t work in most houses in the UK especially with heating designed to run at 82C, if they are turned down to 50C they will need to run 24 hrs a day, won’t happen.
Thanks to god, I’ve retired.
Of course, increasing the heat efficiency of the external walls can result in at least two physical possibilities: either the footprint of the building has to increase or, the size of the rooms has to decrease. You can bet developers will opt for the latter! Cynical? Maybe, but a developer in my region successfully persuaded the planners to allow narrower roads - vis-a-vis existing adjacent road system which it was extending, so that it could squeeze extra houses on the land; even going to the extent of reducing the footpath in at least two instances to just a single footpath along one side of the road. With the law now forbidding parking on pavements this results in an obstruction being created if vehicles park on each side of the road - even in the turnings with just a single footpath!
just seen your bit at the end explaining this method ,give it a go nothing to lose,put some ct1 miracle seal in when you fill up😉
@@tavspeed1101 ? Are you answering a different comment??
@@thetessellater9163.... tavspeed... phone home !! 🙄😂
haha sometimes I wonder if these planners even know what a brick is.
Worked for a 'builder' years' ago... council came to inspect the floor insulation... had to have chicken wire over it, too. Once he left they ripped it all up and laid, haha, concrete!!!
Thank you for this Roger. A thought regarding your point on air conditioning and all we need to do on hot days is have well insulated homes and use blinds.... they will keep us cool accordng to the government advisors.... really? So, when, as we have had this week, the temperature is in the mid 20s, those aforementioned actions will not lower the air temperature coming into the homes. I know this because on those days, or hotter, when I put the portable aircon unit on and bring the internal temperature down, the missus then opens the windows and doors and lets all that hot air into the house to let the breeze blow through.... the mid 20s degree breeze!!! I'm massively into energy saving, have solar PV and looking into battery bank install but we still need to be realistic surely?
🤣🤣🤣😂
In the 80s i rented 4000 Square feet of a old woollen mill basement. It was cool in the summer and felt warm in the winter. So no need for ac in summer and very cheap to heat in the winter. So good exterior insulation is key. That way you don't have extremes to deal with. Easier and cheaper said than done. Good rant Rodger, glad someone keeps pointing these things out.
One year later and not so much as a thumbs up or thumbs down.
Brilliantly presented and edited 👍
Brilliant summary of the obstacles I'm dealing with building a new timber frame house - thousands of pounds to provide bridging drawings for the SAP assessor then more hassle trying to upload photo evidence through their app. The app is designed for brick built houses and the photo labels - ie insulated cavity - don't correspond to my drawings. Keep up the great work, big admirer of your videos! John of Letty Green
That’ll be like the advice on consumer units to test RCDs. They changed that from not testing it every 3 months to not testing it every 6 months 😂
@@henrytwigger2245
When was the last time you heard/saw an over current device that had frozen?
There’s several different types of over current devices in most domestic circuits.
Just? Nearly 4 years ago.....
@@eggster71
Seems like yesterday 😂
Getting a little old.
I hadn’t noticed until it was pointed out to me last year 😱
@@jonathanrose456 madness. Seriously tempted to chop the drivers in for a beer fridge and some paint brushes. There are decorators earning more than us down my way now. No regs, nothing. Just a resrved bar stool in the local spoons.
@@eggster71 I’m doing less & less electrical work all the time. Consulting/managing projects is where the money is for experienced sparks. Let the youngsters do the heavy lifting 😉
The worst thing is walking past building sites and seeing all the excess insulation board dumped in skips.
No that's just skip insulation to avoid heat loss. Another one of the governments schemes...
Any new standard should be proven as practical with pilot builds. Engineering is compromise in search of perfection. If all the focus is on one thing - CO2 - that will likely lead to significant compromises elsewhere.
Changes in Building Regulations take years to gestate as there are extensive consultations with the building industry and especially large volume housebuilders regarding practicality and cost, which always delays necessary changes. The "new" changes to the regulations probably started life 5 years ago.
At my last house, I put in something like 10" of insulation then boarded it over. When it came to getting an EPC, the surveyor couldn't see the insulation and issued a certificate as if there was no insulation! Be warned.
Had some epc's done to some flats victorian house conversion, couldnt see half of it as I had covered it over, "I can only rate it on what I can see", he says, then goes on to make reccomendations that in fact had already been done, unless I was ready to open up the stud walls for him to measure and photograph, that wasnt going to happen.
We've been heading towards a land of over-insulation on new-builds for a while. Where do you think over-heating comes from? We design for mythical winter temperatures of -4C and then we're surprised when we're over-heated in the "shoulder temperatures", otherwise known as the 9 months of Autumn we have in this country! We used to ignore casual heat gains in a heating design, but when you insulate to these levels and a room only needs a few watts of heating at design winter conditions, then suddenly a few extra bodies in a room or a TV on 4 hours a day can start to raise the internal temperature. We don't need a house that swivels, we need dynamic insulation where the U-value changes! But as the U-value is fixed, as is the area, then the remaining variables are temperature and energy and if you increase the energy in a room the temperature will go up!
I suspect the reason for the increased attention to pipework insulation is because uncontrolled heat gain to a room will now make them unbearable to live in for most of the year. Living in a new-build will be like wearing three vests and an overcoat in May!
The building regs could have stopped increasing the thermal efficiency of the fabric with the last iteration and then should have concentrated on heat recovery of the ventilation air, this would have addressed the infiltration that has now been renamed trickle ventilation. It would have greatly improved the health of the occupants as well, by ensuring proper levels of ventilation.
I agree with others on the existing building stock; insulate the roof spaces, try to introduce MVHRs or some controlled vent and put solar panels on the roofs. Simple, affordable technologies with existing workforces, that reduce the dependence on the electrical grid and the gas network.
BTW, the dependence on the "grid" for powering all these new heat pumps and car charging points is laughable. Do we really think a network of 50 year old cables, each with a thousand joints, is ready for such an increase in load?! Contrary to what the Energy companies are saying, but I suspect to a man who sells electricity every problem needs a heat pump!
I think in a previous video you made a very good point that radiators do not actually radiate but are convection heaters and transfer heat to you using air. The hot air from your radiator becomes very precious and so yeah I can understand a reluctance to opening a vent and letting it out 🤣. However, if you have underfloor heating the transfer mechanism changes and the heat radiates to you directly. In fact if you heat the building constantly (albeit at a lower temp) every part of your house warms up becomes a source of heat that radiates. And then it's much less of a big deal to let out some hot air out and let in some cold air. Such a house can cope with the air change without you feeling like you are going to freeze.
That is all true but very few people will know or appreciate the difference. It is hard enough getting them to understand that they don't need to turn the trv up and down every 10 minutes
I'm sure they'll find a way to get around installation images they need to provide. I live in social housing but was in the building trade for many years. Every single job I've had done on my place has had to be done twice due to shoddy work or no knowledge of what materials they have to use for certain jobs. I just recently had them out to fix 2 leaks in a gutter. They took over a month to erect a scaffolding, it sat there for over 2 months when the scaffolding company came to take it away not realising the job hadn't even been done. They left it in place and a workman turned up a few weeks later and painted something on them and the scaffolding was also taken that day. £ days later it rained, and guess what? Yes the leaks were still present. This must have cost them a fortune. They lose so much money by not doing a job right in the first place it's ridiculous. The worst part is that they sometimes send out an inspector first and he tells you what is going to be done, only for the trades turning up asking you what's the problem and usually saying..."well we weren't told to do the other wall, so we're only doing one, take it or leave it , as happened with a problem i had with penetrating damp on an outrigger. Believe it or not, the wall they did do with dot n dab was flapping about after it was dry so another joker came along to screw it back to the wet wall.
I'm having the same issue again, even with the new plasterboard wall. I explained to the inspector in the first place that the problem was with spalled brick, I even circled the damp patches inside and showed him the corresponding bricks outside because his first diagnosis was condensation, to which I explained that I don't even get that on my window, which is a good indication of a dew point. I've now got a brickie coming in a few days as I reported it again online as brickwork problem. They've recently done the walls below in the kitchen. They were sopping wet and the lad put some black paint on to act as a membrane barrier. I suppose it's a form of tanking but not? But to be honest, it didn't adhere to the failing mortar between the bricks, so I don't know if that will last. Anyhow I'm going to appeal to the brickie's good nature when he turns up and see if he'll do all the bricks on the outrigger, and even better repoint it all. I have no doubt he hasn't the authority to do this, but hopefully he will go back and say this fella has had enough of upevil and expense over our usual sticking plaster approach and that we do the job that needs doing. Rant over haha!
I think the images of work are a great idea in my situation, as we can call out the "That'll doers, Incompetents or the organisation's abuse of works, for the sake of expense or an undermanned workforce".
I have never liked the idea of living in a sealed box. The more people living in a home the more diseases spread. I accept draughts are costly but I feel somewhat better for you.
Great video!
Same in Holland at this moment.
It amazes me how our Dutch government is going to tackle this. QOUTE: Vanaf 2026 is een hybride warmtepomp verplicht bij de vervanging van de cv-ketel. Het kabinet hoopt op die manier minder afhankelijk te worden van aardgas.
So, from 2026 on it is obligated (!) to have a heat-pump next to your new central heating device inststalled.
Not one word about isolation or efficiency or temperature. Not one word!
We do not have enough a/o skilled laborers to make this work and a lot of advantages will be taken from this (making money over stupid customers).
What will happen in the long run?
Ground source heat pumps may be OK, but air source heat pumps are rubbish! Disgusting law. They want us to suffer, while they sell us heat pumps, overpriced insulation, and eventually; blankets
If these insulation rules apply to the Netherlands, there are many houses that would be better off putting a bulldozer in front of them.
Unbelievable. I thought it was bad with fire regs. Thanks for the heads up it was a brilliant watch.
At a time when these requirements are being forced on everyone all of a sudden insulation and building materials are more expensive than ever 🤔 It's all to make the rich richer
It's not all of a sudden though, is it? It was supposed to be done by 2016, but the Tories scrapped it to appease their mates in the housebuilding industry. The rich won't get richer by lower fuel bills for the general public, hence why it's taken so long. The arse about tit approach to heat pumps and ventilation that Roger mentions is very likely a con to make people pay twice though.
When do you suggest it happens? The more expensive materials won't go down in cost until mass adoption
If you are going to operate a heating system at 50c with radiators, then not only will you require bigger pipework but the radiator will have to be much bigger. Radiators are designed to operate at 82c flow 71c return top and bottom opposite ends to give the correct heat output. 50c works perfect for underfloor heating, with pipes encased in the floor screed.
Not always. Sometimes the radiators are oversized, so ok for 50 degrees. If insulation has been added to a room, that can have reduced the heat load to the radiator's output. And if single panel radiators gave been used previously, using a same width double panel or connecting radiator achieves the required heat output without having to change the pipework.
If you can obtain the correct flow rate through the pipes with an appropriate pump, then you don't necessarily have to increase all the pipe sizes.
Hi Roger. This is a bit financially scary to be honest. How much do you think this will increase the cost of extending a ~30 year old building?
Agree no point in insulating heating pipes in voids. But hot water pipes.. They contribute to overheating the building in the summer. Not much, but with new "super insulated" homes, they will make a difference.
Buy an old house which is not compatable with any of this crap and just live in it. Boll**ks to the over nannyish regulations. The kind of modern mass new house estates are already awful to live on anyway.
Does it not apply to existing homes?
I have a 1930s house, one brick wall which really needs insulating. A quote for external insulation was £29k, and it would take 58 yrs to payback. Ok with fuel costs doubling its probably nearer 30 yrs to payback. When will the government take off VAT from proper insulating materials, and seriously assist improving the old housing stock which many of us live in ?
Thank god we are going to get our next app in by 15th June - not sure I would bother otherwise. Need to get footings in for all plots in 12 months and job done. Thinking this might be our last one on current trends - been doing an average of 15 plots a year since 2015. Probably for the best - starting to have all sorts of health issues (bad lifestyle choices I suppose) so it won't hurt to knock it on the head and just start a planning gain play.
In the Tube culture of sales Rogers rants are a breath of fresh air. I am learning a lot from this guy.
Great video many thanks Roger. Just really confused on one point: For copper pipes behind dot and dab I thought they had to be sleeved (e.g. traditional brown wool) to avoid corrosion with the sulphur in the block wall. Copper is recyclable so how can it be rejected in favour of plastic or laminated plastic/aluminium.
I will make one comment. This all should start long ago but with the education in schools so the public is fully aware how to look after and manage energy
so lets get this straight. Seal the building airtight to prevent cold leaks - then open the trickle vents. Demand that a house owner uses less power but discourage the use of full climate control heat pumps (I have a dual mini-split that even on a UK cold day has a CoP greater than 1 and upto 5). Bring out initiatives such as ECO3 and 4 but dont allow the installation of solar panels as a micro-gen plant (one idea would be for the DNO to fund the installation of a 3 or 4kWp solar array on most roofs to reduce grid demand). And of course stop new builds being affordable by increasing the requirements to an extent that will add 10's of 1000's to the price!
Which is as good as..
"GO to work... DON'T go to work... 😂😂😂
You are absolutely correct. Lunatics with disjointed thinking are running the planning system.
This whole issue is madness, heating systems that will not supply sufficient heat ,and houses that have zero ventilation. Allergies will increase as mould, and fungus rises.
Far better to leave your house draughty, and heat with a proper fireplace.
If only we could stop politicians talking we could reduce UK emissions by 100% overnight!
Maybe if we burned them as Biofuel we could heat our homes whilst reducing emissions?
We had a timber frame extension built with a warm foof. I spent a couple of days filling in the gaps that the builder left in the insulation with spray foam and foil tape.
insulating pipes within the house 'envelope' is a nonsense unless you have shares in an insulation manufacturing company. I remember when under floor slab insulation went from 100mm to 150mm and thinking just how much heat can travel downwards through 100mm of concrete and then through the insulation. Some might say the ground is cold in winter but the reality is once you get a foot under a house footprint seasonal ground temperature changes are tiny.
How would you prevent overheating an area for instance or accurately heating another area if you didn't insulate pipes?
The ground temp. might be reasonably constant, but it will still be lower than the temperature you want the house to be so an uninsulated slab will continually transfer heat into the ground.
@@patrickwheeler2646 pipes have never been insulated in joist spaces since central heating was invented (other than where they pass directly over wood or cables). Ok a bit of heat will be lost but it's not being lost to outside, it is still contained within the building....it's a complete irrelevance thought up by numpties who learned their building industry from a manual and are devoid of any actual practical thinking skills.
@@smartbuildengineering I'm not saying not to insulate I'm suggesting the current 150mm is already ludicrously over the top without adding more.
Thank you for your videos. Yours are the most accurate and sensible videos on the subject of heat pumps and insulation. I live and work in Ireland now, in the insulation, air tight and ventilation business. interesting what you say about PIR sizes and so true, the roll out insulation is pre cut to size. I find it shocking that anyone would even consider retrofitting a heat pump in a older house that does not have modern standards of insulation, airtightness and ventilation. Heat recovery ventilation is well established and fairly inexpensive to install in a new house, and with the full package the heat pumps work well and are very efficient. Triple glazed windows are pretty much standard here now. Installing all the modern stuff in an existing house comes under the heading of a deep retrofit, there are large grants here available for deep retrofits but even with the large grants it’s still extremely expensive.
They really need to just bite the bullet and abandon radiators if they ultimately want to enforce heat pumps. Air to air systems work much better than air to water.
God, now you are really taking me back. I and many, many of my friends took out warm air underfloor heating systems and replaced them with gas boiler powered heating and hot water systems. Being forced back to warm air systems brings a cold chill to my heart. Next it will be Economy 7 systems. We all know how well they worked out.
External curtains ftw in the summer...if only there was room on our top floor for them too! Blinds on the inside don't stop the sun getting in as the heat's already in the building by that point. External shutters could work assuming the wind doesn't wreck them but I'd rather not risk it with our weather. Literally strung a steel wire between two eyelets and old curtains for the hot times 🥵