Energy, Sustainability and Carbon – Page 3
Energy statements, Part L, the Future Homes Standard, whole life carbon and BREEAM.
Energy, Sustainability and Carbon articles – page 3
301 articlesDomestic wind turbines and the Class H limits
The swept area cap and the one-turbine-or-heat-pump condition rule out most useful domestic machines. What Part 14 controls and when a full application is needed.
Ground-mounted solar and best and most versatile land
Provisional ALC mapping is a risk indicator, not evidence. A detailed soil survey splitting grade 3a from 3b is what decides how hard the policy argument becomes.
Energy statements for student housing and other non-SAP uses
SAP does not apply to student accommodation, care homes or hostels. What SBEM does differently, why distribution losses dominate, and how to present the percentage.
SAP or PHPP: which figures belong in an energy statement
PHPP tells you how a building will behave; SAP answers the policy. Why the two sets of figures cannot be converted, how to present them side by side, and the conditions that mix them up.
Overheating risk in a listed building retrofit
Insulating and draught sealing a historic building reduces winter heat loss and raises summer temperatures. The measures that are usually acceptable, the glazing decisions, and the evidence a conservation officer expects.
Sustainability statements for a change of use
With no new floorspace, policy reaches water efficiency, charge points, cycle and waste storage and anything you are proposing anyway. On a prior approval route it may not reach energy at all.
Making the retrofit first case in a planning statement
No national policy presumes against demolition, but a planning statement proposing it needs a consistent option appraisal with structural evidence, honest carbon boundaries and a deliverability case.
Battery energy storage: the planning consent route
Standalone battery storage in England is decided by the local planning authority whatever its capacity. Fire safety and noise decide most applications, landscape decides the rest.
Domestic solar panels and the Class A Part 14 limits
Roof-mounted solar on a house is usually permitted development, including in conservation areas. The traps are flat roofs, walls fronting a highway and listed buildings.
Fabric energy efficiency and the fabric first argument
A dwelling must beat its fabric target as well as its carbon and primary energy targets, and no amount of photovoltaics will help. Junctions and airtightness are where the figure moves.
The Part L uplift: three targets for a new dwelling
A new dwelling now has to pass three separate targets, not one. Primary energy is the target that catches schemes designed around a gas boiler.
Carbon reporting in an outline planning application
Outline permission fixes the quantum, not the form. That limits what a carbon assessment can honestly say, and it decides how the commitment should be worded in the condition.
Fabric first: the U-values officers look for
Planning wants the strategy and the committed performance. Building control wants proof. Here is how to set U-values, airtightness and bridging targets for a self-build.
Electric vehicle charging in planning conditions
Part S sets a floor for charging infrastructure. Planning conditions sit on top of it. Here is how to tell which applies, and how to draft and discharge a condition that works.
The notional building and why baselines confuse officers
Energy statements are measured against a notional building generated from the regulations. State which edition, which metric and which scope, or the percentage you quote cannot be compared with anything.
Battery storage alongside a solar scheme
Electricity storage is determined locally whatever its capacity. Co-locating it with solar changes the application in four places: fire safety, night-time noise, compound layout and decommissioning.
Roof mounted solar on agricultural buildings
Part 14 Class J usually answers the planning question for a farm roof array. The 0.2 metre projection limit, the structural check, the grid offer and glint matter more.
BREEAM credits that planning conditions usually target
A BREEAM condition names a rating, not credits. The credits that decide whether you hit it are energy, water, materials, waste, surface water and ecology.
Future Homes Standard transition on a small site
A three plot site can end up with one house on the old standard and two on the new one, because the transitional test is when work started on each individual building.
Heat pump evidence for a planning energy statement
Most domestic heat pumps need no application. The condition that decides it is the MCS noise standard, calculated at 1 metre from a neighbouring habitable room window.
TM59 modelling inputs a reviewer should check
A TM59 result is only as good as its inputs. Here are the assumptions to interrogate before accepting an overheating assessment, and how to read a failure honestly.
How to cite an embodied carbon benchmark honestly
Most disagreements about embodied carbon performance are disagreements about scope. Here is how to cite a benchmark so a reviewer can tell exactly what was counted.
Battery storage on a commercial roof: the planning route
Rooftop battery storage at commercial premises nearly always needs permission, and the application is decided on fire safety, structure and noise rather than on carbon.
Siting an air source heat pump on a terraced house
Most heat pump installations on a terrace are permitted development, but the noise test at the neighbour's window and the conservation area limits decide where the unit can actually stand.
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