Written By
Jon Hill, Technical Manager of Polypipe Ventilation
According to analyses by the NHBC and the Zero Carbon Hub, families who live in new build homes built to the current standards could save more than £1,400 a year on their energy bills when compared to their neighbours living in older homes. In fact, a four bedroom detached new home could be 57% cheaper to run than a comparable Victorian-built home. This gap is very likely to widen with inevitable increases in energy bills and the zero carbon construction targets which are due to come into effect in 2016 (although small developments may now be excluded from this).
Rising energy bills are always a cause for concern – or at the very least a topic of breakfast table discussion – for most households these days. Properties that can halve these bills will have far more appeal to potential home buyers; which is good news for house builders and developers.
As we know, there are a number of ways to make a domestic property more energy efficient, including solutions ranging from low cost insulation and double – or even triple - glazing through to the incorporation of green technologies such as solar panels and Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR) systems. Whilst the former are an integral part of the building and are pretty much a fit and forget product, the latter require a degree of interaction by the home owner.
According to the NHBC Foundation, here is where problems may arise. Their report – ‘Low and zero-carbon technologies in new homes; Learning from the experiences of consumers and on-site sales teams’ – explores how home owners use the low carbon energy technologies incorporated within their dwellings. The report identifies a poor level of understanding of these ‘green’ systems by the home owner; including a basic lack of awareness of the potential benefits provided, coupled with limited understanding of how to correctly operate the systems.
Many home owners haven’t ‘grown up’ with these energy saving systems and simply aren’t familiar with them. If you ask the average man-in-the-street what a Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR) system is, I’m pretty certain you’d get a blank look and understandably so.
It’s simply not enough to fit these energy saving systems and expect the home owner to muddle through – even if technical information is provided in their appliance information/handover pack. The NHBC Foundation report identified that the current level of written guidance on the use of the technology was not deemed suitable by the recipients, who generally felt there was insufficient effort made to enlighten them to the potential benefits and opportunities that these technologies may provide. If the home owner doesn’t understand the systems they have in place, they are very unlikely to reap the full benefits. So all the effort that installers, builders and developers have put into making a new build sustainable could be wasted and the suggested savings in energy bills may never be realised.
All parties have a role to play here to improve user understanding.
Firstly, let’s look at the developer’s sales/customer service team. The research identified inconsistencies in the level of understanding of the ‘green’ technologies being offered by sales personnel. This translates into a very limited ability to communicate the benefits in an easy to understand way. It is therefore essential that the sales team are fully trained in both the benefits of these systems and how to operate them. An MVHR system, for example, is not a substitute for heating, but it can help to reduce the amount of heat required in the property and has proven health benefits ranging from the provision of fresh pre-warmed air to the reduction of indoor airborne pollutants. Thus there are a number of points to convey here and house builders and developers alike need to consider which are the key points required by their customer base and how to impart this information. Maybe equipment manufacturers should look to support developers by jointly producing a comprehensive set of material using consumer friendly methods such as videos and easy to understand graphics.
This brings me on to another point regarding the sale. What happens when the owners of the new property decide to move on and the property changes hands?
Whilst new homes usually come with a detailed appliance information pack, this information rarely makes it through to subsequent buyers. As a result, many new home owners don’t even know what technologies they have in place, let alone know how to operate them.
This is especially the case with MVHR systems as the fan unit is often fitted in the loft and the ducting is mostly concealed behind walls and in ceiling voids. The only clue to the presence of the system is the vents in the ceilings, but even these are designed to be unobtrusive.
This is now out of the hands of the developer, but the manufacturers and installers can assist here.
Firstly, rather than installing the unit in the loft which is often the norm in new builds, could it be fitted within an easy-to-access cupboard or a utility room? This has the added advantage of greater heat retention within both the fan unit and the ducting and is immediately accessible for regular filter maintenance. Clearly it will need to be a system that has a small enough fan unit to accommodate this. The new home owner is then unlikely to miss it! The filters themselves should also be readily accessible without the need to remove the unit cover. Polypipe’s Silavent Green Line HRX systems have been designed with this in mind; after pulling out the caps from the front of the appliance, the filters simply slide out in their carrier frames, ready to be washed in warm soapy water.
Secondly, the system itself must be easy to operate and the instructions should be attached to the unit, permanently for all future resident access. Silavent Green Line HRX systems, for example, have the user instructions printed in large and easy to understand illustrated text and are mounted directly onto the front of the fan unit. Simple control switches are also supplied which can be installed anywhere in the home, making the system easy to understand and operate.
One of the other key aspects that the NHBC Foundation report addressed was whether consumer behaviour needs to change to secure the benefits from the technology and if so, can we expect that change to occur? I think the honest answer is that apart from committed eco warriors, getting people to change their habits is very difficult. The technology therefore needs to be designed to take this in to account and work with the day to day lifestyle of the average person. Some home owners will also require more sophisticated controls and interfaces and even the simplest systems should be future-proofed and designed to be readily upgradeable.
In the case of MVHR systems, for example, they work by transferring the heat from the waste stale air extracted from kitchens or bathrooms to the fresh filtered air drawn in from outside, which is then distributed to the living rooms in the home. In order for the system to work effectively it is preferable that the dwelling’s windows – especially in a steam filled bathroom (gold dust for MVHR systems!) – remain mostly closed. This isn’t too much of a change in habit for the resident in winter, but in summer it can be a lot to ask. At Polypipe we have adapted our technology to work in this scenario by introducing a summer bypass facility that only feeds in fresh filtered outdoor air. It’s this sort of thinking that’s important for the manufacturer to take on board and an important consideration when specifying such systems.
Despite the zero carbon target being watered down over recent months, energy saving technology is here to stay. People like it: the NHBC Foundation report showed that occupiers may not fully understand the underlying principles of the technology, but they were comfortable using them and that four out of six households in the study would recommend them to friends. But only if we can make the technology fit in with people’s lifestyle and make it simple to use and understand can residents truly reap the benefits.
Polypipe Ventilation provides customers with a complete sustainable ventilation package, with ducting and appliance working in harmony, to meet the most demanding of energy efficiency targets. For more information please call 03443 715523 or read through our website further.