On 22 Jan 2006 20:47:54 GMT Ian Stirling wrote :
Set goals, which might be CO2 emission, operating cost, price,
.... for a house.

Scrap _all_ building/fire/planning regulations for these, and
instead rely on a detailed engineering survey to ensure they meet
the spirit of the regs. Rewrite the regs if required.

The energy regs change in April. A quick and dirty summary of the
requirement is: work out the CO2 emissions for a house of your
proposed size built to the 2002 regs. The estimated CO2 emissions
from your house have to be 20% less than this. How you achieve this
is up to you - more insulation, better windows, condensing boiler,
solar panel are all options

One of the changes is to allow manufacturer's certified figures for
windows: the very best windows now have a negative energy figure -
the solar energy they let in exceeds the heat that leaks out.

More on this at http://www.bfrc.org/Contents.htm

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk
Free SEDBUK boiler database browser http://www.sda.co.uk/qsedbuk.htm
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