Driving Sustainable Refurbishment
- Published on Tuesday, 12 June 2012 11:46
- Posted by Scott Buckler
BREEAM Refurbishment for domestic buildings is launched today at the Housing 2012 conference in Manchester, developed with industry and following extensive piloting across a wide range of buildings to ensure that an improved home can be achieved in a highly affordable way
The new BREEAM Domestic Refurbishment is available for use on projects ranging from home improvements such as replacing windows and fitting new insulation, through to developments ranging in size from multiple to single dwellings.
To ensure that the new BREEAM standard drives real change, the process has been independently peer reviewed and extensively trialled in a pilot scheme involving more than 200 properties. The scheme has also been developed to align with the Government’s Green Deal (due for launch in Autumn 2012) which will make grants available to householders to make energy efficiency improvement to their homes.
Commenting on the refurbishment standard, Carol Atkinson, Chief Executive of BRE Global, says: ‘The new scheme helps building owners and occupiers to save operating costs and reduce the environmental impact of refurbishments. It pinpoints those elements of the refurbishment that will bring the greatest returns and provides a methodology, software tool and certification for those responsible for the delivery of sustainable domestic refurbishment projects.
As well as addressing overall sustainability issues, the scheme can help specific initiatives to tackle fuel poverty, reduce flooding and security risks, and enhance the health and wellbeing of tenants and householders. Certification under the scheme will provide market recognition for residential buildings that have had sustainable and higher quality refurbishments.’
One of the projects involved in the piloting of the scheme was the refurbishment of the Cornbrook Court care home in Manchester. ‘The economic downturn, coupled with increasing energy prices, has brought refurbishment and retrofit to the fore’ say Pozzoni LLP, which provided the architectural services for the project. ‘We need to do everything we can to reduce the energy demand of our existing housing stock to deliver affordability.
Measuring these improvements and ensuring the right works are carried out can only be done with an assessment method specifically designed for this purpose. The new BREEAM Domestic Refurbishment assessment method is a bespoke, robust tool to benchmark future refurbishments and has filled a gap in a growth sector.’