The Future Homes and Building Standard is a set of standards that homes and buildings must adhere to. This ensures that all new homes built from 2025 onwards produce 75%-80% less carbon emissions than homes built under the current regulations. This is a huge step forward for the construction industry, and it’s something that the industry needs to start preparing for now. The standard will require a change in the way homes are designed and built, so we must begin to explore these changes now. In this article, we will explore what the Future Homes Standard is, why it is so important and why as a company we produce all our current products to meet these crucial standards now to be ready for the change in the law.
According to the government’s consultation in 2019, 20% of greenhouse gas emissions are made by new and existing homes in the UK. Future Homes Standard aims to improve energy efficiency in newly built homes from 2025 onwards, applicable to homes built in England.
New homes built from 2025 must have:
low carbon emission heating systems installed
high rated insulation for maximum energy efficiency
double glazing, which can insulate around doors and windows and reduce energy consumption
75%-80% less carbon emissions than current homes
These moves help homes move toward the government’s goal of becoming Net Zero in 2050 and decarbonising the electricity grid. The Future Homes Standard should mean that these new homes built will not need to be retrofitted with the latest technology to meet the net-zero targets. The government will continue to consult the industry and refine the standard before they are made into regulations. These will be given out with notice for the industry to implement.
The Immediate Future for New Homes:
The government also introduced the interim uplift regulations that will come into force in June 2022. This is so building regulations make sure homes emit up to 30% less carbon, prevent over-heating and improve ventilation and insulation before the Future Homes Standard comes into effect.
There are caveats, including transitional arrangements in place. If a building notice or full plans for building work are submitted to a local authority before 15 June 2022, then, provided the building work starts by 15 June 2023, the building is subject to previous building and regulation standards. All contractors must be aware of this as the deadline approaches.
How we can prepare for the Future Homes Standard:
Learning about the new standard and how it will affect the way we design and build homes
Updating our skillsets to reflect the new requirements of the Future Homes Standard
Looking into new technologies and materials that can help us reduce carbon emissions in homes
The Future Homes Standard is essential to reducing carbon emissions and ensuring that all new homes are energy efficient. We need to start preparing for this change now, and the construction industry needs to act fast to meet the 2025 deadline. We provide multiple sustainable building materials to help homes achieve greater energy efficiency, insulation, and sustainability and help meet the Future Homes Standards, including THERMOMUR® building systems and JACKODUR® insulation. Contact us to discuss your requirements today!
Most owners build only one house in their life. As a result, they have to take a lot of things into consideration during the planning phase – because once taken, their decisions have long-term consequences.
One such decision, for example, concerns which energy standards the new construction will meet. Here, the lower the heating energy requirement, the greater the long-term appreciation of the real estate is likely to be. So it is advisable to go beyond the minimum standards required by law. And that leaves no choice but to use high quality thermal insulation. For an example of how to combine energy efficiency with comfortable living, consider the Schaefer family.
Well insulated from below
In the Altmarkkreis Salzwedel district of Lower Saxony (Germany), the owners are realizing their dream of a home of their own: the newly constructed building where the family is now going to live has 250 square meters of floorspace. Right from the outset, Daniel Schaefer recognized the value of efficient and durable thermal insulation. “Our house complies with the KfW 40 standard. In addition, we have eco-friendly heating using a ground source heat pump with a borehole heat exchanger.” In order to avoid energy losses through the building shell, the owner made sure that the entire property was well insulated – even underneath. The floor slab insulation made of durable, robust XPS insulation – an extruded polystyrene foam – inhibits heat losses and also protects the structure. The material is also used in the ventilated cavity wall of the upper floor.
Secure floor slab insulation with JACKODUR® Atlas
One way to install thermal bridge-free floor slab insulation in all types of buildings is with JACKODUR Atlas. The certified system also allows you to install insulation and formwork in a single step. That means complicated formwork is a thing of the past. The owner was particularly impressed with the handy, reliable insert system that eliminates the possibility of thermal bridges: “The insulation boards are really easy to install and fit together perfectly.” At the construction site, the precisely prefabricated elements are inserted into one another according to the installation diagram. First a frame is created, that establishes the shape of the floor slab. Then the insulation boards can simply be installed inside the area. The formwork elements inserted along the sides, which correspond to the height of the concrete slab, provide the required lateral support. They also serve as formwork. In this way, JACKODUR Atlas provides secure, thermal bridge-free floor slab insulation for all types of construction. By selecting the right thermal insulation thickness, it is possible to achieve insulation values that comply with the German Energy Saving Ordinance (EnEV) up to the passive house standard – for future-proof buildings ranging from residential construction to office buildings to public facilities such as kindergartens and schools.
XPS – robust material with a long service life
As with many things, the differences among types of thermal insulation are in the details. XPS has established a reputation as an excellent insulation material because it offers especially high efficiency, compressive strength and durability, and is even unaffected by moisture. These properties make this insulation material the right choice for the floor slab, for example, and also for the roof. JACKODUR Atlas boards are easy to handle and save time during installation. This lets owners create durable, effective floor slab insulation.
Sustainability is much more than just a trend. Especially in the construction industry, projects that harmonize ecological, economic and social aspects in planning, construction and operation are no longer pie in the sky dreams: rather, more and more of them are being realized every day.
The EUREF Campus in Berlin-Schöneberg is a model project for the energy revolution unlike any other in Europe. The EUREF Campus 14 office building is an architectonic highlight of the grounds, with outstanding energy efficiency – sustainable from the base of the building up to the green roof construction with the JACKODUR® thermal insulation system for inverted roofs.
The gasometer in Schöneberg is one of Berlin’s best-known landmarks. On the 5.5-hectare grounds of what was once the GASAG industrial complex, an ultra-modern urban district has been under construction since 2008. It shows how the planned energy revolution can succeed. According to project developer EUREF AG, the Campus has been meeting the German federal government’s CO2 climate objectives for 2050 already since 2014. A nearly climate-neutral energy supply, the intelligent energy grid, and highly efficient buildings are the key components of the innovative concept. The photovoltaic systems, wind turbines and biogas-fired combined heat and power plant installed on the grounds generate most of the total energy required there.
The EUREF Campus features a wide range of special buildings and styles.
Alongside listed, painstakingly renovated historic structures, attractive new buildings that satisfy the most contemporary architectural demands are being erected. Economically advanced buildings that can last for generations and conserve valuable resources during their construction and operation while offering their users a comfortable working space that complies with the principles of sustainable building.
The EUREF Campus 14 office building is one of the new buildings on the grounds. It was completed in December 2015. The facade of the tower reflects the shapes and lines of the gasometer as well as a vertical wind turbine and harmonizes superbly with its surroundings. The interior of the structure and the materials used are designed from maximum efficiency: Its building services and energy concept make it a high-performance building. The thermo-active building system for the regulation of heating and cooling, centrally controlled blinds on the triple glazed windows and automated lighting provide a high level of comfort and a good indoor climate. And the building’s insulation is also a major factor, whereby the roof construction of EUREF Campus 14 particularly stands out: planners, architect and roofing company opted for the inverted roof method with JACKODUR® thermal insulation boards.
The inverted roof is an invented flat roof where the thermal insulation – unlike with the conventional arrangement – lies on top of the roof membrane and is thereby exposed to the weather.
Though this might seem out of the ordinary at first, it offers a big advantage: the insulation layer provides the membrane with effective and durable protection against mechanical damage, UV embrittlement and extreme temperature fluctuations. However, the insulation itself must also withstand them. With JACKODUR® insulation boards, JACKON Insulation supplies the ideal products for inverted roof applications. Made of extruded polystyrene foam (XPS), JACKODUR® thermal insulation boards have a closed-cell structure that makes them insensitive to moisture and maintains their compressive strength and dimensional stability even under high loads. Mani Pentschew, design consultant for JACKON Insulation, describes one of the special features of the EUREF roof: “With a building height of about 32 meters, the EUREF Campus 14 is classified as a high-rise, so the roof design requires special measures to secure it against wind suction. Subject to those conditions, implementing the inverted roof configuration in an ideal manner was a challenge – but one that the roofer was able to overcome very well with our products.”
To that end, the inverted roof was constructed in multiple layers. The roof’s load-bearing structure and root-resistant membrane were covered with JACKODUR® KF 300 Standard SF in a thickness of 240 mm. Ralf Logsch, Construction Manager at SKD Bau, the roofing company contracted for the job, justified the choice of JACKODUR® this way: “The boards can be installed easily and quickly, so it wasn’t hard to fit them along all of the curves of the oval roof layout. We installed the roof during the fall and winter months at the end of 2014 and early 2015. Because XPS is weather-proof, we were able to work under nearly all weather conditions. And the insulation loses none of its properties over time due to heavy rains or alternation between frozen and thawed states.” In order to impart the necessary load and prevent drifting, grass pavers were laid on the insulation boards and filled with coarse gravel. The green roof installation used a system from Optigrün. The planting itself was installed by rolling out prefabricated vegetation mats planted with sedum. This kind of extensive planting requires very little maintenance and remains permanently green. The accessible areas of the roof were filled in with a gravel bedding layer and covered with pavers. As a result, the inverted roof construction method is not only functional, but also contributes visually to the value of the building.
The high quality of the overall building is certified by, among other things, the Platinum rating level LEED certificate for EUREF Campus 14.
LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is the most widely used green building rating system in the world. Where Environmental Product Declarations – or EPDs for short – are available for a certain quantity of the construction products used, this has a positive effect on the rating. Here, too, JACKODUR® was able to provide impressive results, because JACKON Insulation has obtained several EPDs for its XPS boards. Using eco-balance sheets, EPDs render the environmental impacts of products transparent, thereby making it much easier to calculate the ecological sustainability of a building.
The building’s tenant is DB Engineering & Consulting, the engineering and consulting firm of Deutsche Bahn, which works on the development and implementation of mobility and transport solutions. The company has joined the ranks of the more than 100 start-ups, global players and research institutions that are making the EUREF Campus into an innovative center for the energy revolution. As the project development continues, even more office space, residential units, restaurants and event facilities are being built. In some 15 building complexes, nearly 6,000 people will then be able to work and carry out research. The prospect pleases design consultant Mani Pentschew: “The use of our JACKODUR® products in such a pioneering project is something quite special and a great project for JACKON Insulation.”
Property data:
EUREF Campus 14, office building
10829 Berlin, Germany
Building height: approx. 32 m
Floor space: approx. 7,000 m²
Architecture and construction management: EUREF Consulting GmbH, Berlin
General contractor: Wolff & Müller GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin
Roofing Company: SKD Bau GmbH, Göda
The material used: approx. 650 m² JACKODUR® KF 300 Standard SF, 240 mm
