Scottish Government publish next version of Building Standards for Domestic Buildings
The Scottish Government has now published the next version of their Building Regulations. Changes to standards for energy performance, ventilation, and overheating will apply to new building work from 1st December 2022
What are Building Regulations?Building Regulations establish a set of technical standards for the design and construction of buildings. If you’re building something new, or making big changes to an existing building, it is likely that you will need to comply with Building Regulations. In Scotland, the part of the regulations which covers energy performance is called Section 6 (overheating and ventilation is also covered within Section 6). In Scotland, local authorities are appointed as ‘verfiers’ to independently check buildings at design and construction stages. |
What does this mean?
Individuals responsible and involved with new build construction, will have some time until they will need to comply with these new regulations, which will be enforced from 1st December 2022. This means that any Building Regulation applications received after this date will need to adhere to the new regulations.
What has changed?
- A 32% reduction in carbon emissions compared with Section 6 2015
- Introduction of a Delivered Energy compliance metric alongside the existing carbon emissions standard
- Tightened limiting fabric standards for thermal elements for new homes and work to existing homes
- Mandatory airtightness testing on all new homes utilizing the CIBSE TM23 standard
- Overheating risk now addressed in standard 3.28 and no longer assessed in SAP assessments
- Adoption of the SAP 10 methodology
New Build Dwellings Manager Jason Hewins commented;
“We welcome the new version of the Section 6 technical handbook which will improve the energy efficiency of new homes in Scotland. As expected the new standards will commence in December 2022 and we look forward to receiving information from the BRE which will enable us to update Design SAP 10 for new build energy professionals to start understanding the impact of these new standards.
We agree that overheating is a series concern for buildings of the future therefore are delighted that the new standards will set out detailed requirements to mitigate this. For individuals looking at providing services for the dynamic thermal analysis method our Overheating Competency Scheme will be of interest to you. We will now digest the changes in more detail and expect to launch CPD events later in the year.”
https://www.gov.scot/policies/building-standards/monitoring-improving-building-regulations/