New Balls Please...

Well it has started....no not Wimbledon but the Building Regulations Part L review for 2010. And guess what...despite our best efforts to educate the CLG and associated 'worthy bodies' one of the first tables of possible average window U values for the future included the following:

Now - 2.2 2010 - 1.5 2013 - 1.1
2016/2018 - 0.7 the non dwelling sector lagging slightly.

Now I am a reasonable man who wants to see our industry do its bit to slow down global warming and save the planet's limited resources but when the laws of physics and the mathematics both suggest that such low U value targets are neither readily achievable nor desirable then it is 'deep breath' time. And 'no' this is not just a bleat from the metals sector because all the framing and glazing materials representatives feel equally strongly that such an approach is misguided, counter-productive (because product costs will rise significantly) and plain wrong.

Our Government is supposedly looking for ways to encourage home owners to upgrade their properties and new building designers to incorporate the highest possible specifications in their schemes - these 'Future Thinking Papers', proposals or whatever are hardly likely to do that, particularly when finances, personal and business, are tight and liable to get tighter.

Then there is the spectre of something called a Heat Loss Parameter being used instead of backstop U values, a sort of whole-house U value which, because solar gain through the glazing is not considered, leans towards small or very low U value windows. We are well aware of the value of solar gain through glazed facades and equally of the dangers of solar overheating - note the ever increasing number of solar control systems being introduced - so please can we move on from this obsession with ever decreasing U values.

In 1696 the then King William III introduced the 'Window Tax' (a sort of stealth Income Tax), paid as a 2 shilling flat rate and extra if you had more than 10 windows in your house, all to help finance his wars with various European states. People even bricked up windows to avoid the tax which lasted for 150 years.....I wonder if this and future Part L changes will encourage a similar result!

For more details contact the CAB Office on 01453 828851 or enquiries@c-a-b.org.uk

David Earle
Technical Officer
Council for Aluminium in Building.