The Future Homes Standard 2025
The new Future Homes Standard being introduced will require significant additional information to be collected and documented to pass Building Regulations, Dec 21, 2022
The Future Homes Standard, renamed the Future Homes
and Buildings Standard in December 2021, will complement the Building
Regulations to ensure new homes built from 2025 produce 75-80% less carbon
emissions than homes delivered under the old regulations.
Existing homes and certain home improvements will also
be subject to higher standards, although homeowners will only be affected if
they are planning on making thermal upgrades or building an extension.
The Future Homes Standard was first announced in the
government’s spring statement in 2019, although the full details have yet to be
completely mapped out. But we know through the Building Regulations changes
that all future homes will need to be net zero ready from 2025 and not require
retrofitting.
Additionally, new buildings such as offices and shops
will have to cut emissions by 27%.
We are in a
transition period at the moment up to June 15th 2023, but this is not clear
cut. If you have planning agreed but the foundations have not been started by 15th June, the new more
stringent regulation may well apply.
We have been told
that some critical issues will need to be comprehensively documented in the
O&M manuals:
- Overheating planning is
becoming a critical issue in the planning process and it is advisable that
the work to plan for this is part of the design process rather that an end
of project adjustment which may be very hard to make.
- Under Part L the requirements
in L1A represent a 31% uplift in the assessment standard
- If it is a development with
multiple dwellings of the same type, it currently only required
certification in a representative sample, now each dwelling will need to
be assessed.
- There is also a higher
requirement of documentary evidence of the build quality to show that the
design was carried through by the builder.
This means photographic evidence of each stage of the build. Each
photo will also need to be documented with a signature, date and perhaps a
GEO location. If the requisite
documentation is not supplied, then
the 'default' value for the undocumented element will be applied and the
dwelling will not be compliant.
- Every single dwelling will
need to be air tested. (not just a
sample)
- For more details see New building regulations are now in effect from 15th June - O&M Manuals Document Centre (denaploymanuals.co.uk)
It is expected that no new homes will be able to
connect the gas network from 2025 as part of the Future Homes Standard.
Instead, they will be equipped with energy-efficient insulation and heated by a
low-carbon heating source such as an air source heat pump.
This would mean agas boiler banin new build homes from
2025, but the government's language changed when it published its Heat and
Buildings Strategy in October.
The government said in the Strategy that it plans to
consult on whether it is "appropriate" to prevent new build homes
from being connected to the gas grid in England from 2025.
The prospective gas boiler ban is yet to be officially
confirmed within the Future Homes Standard guidance.