Vent-Axia welcomes Green Homes Compliance Scheme

Ventilation industry leader Vent-Axia has welcomed BEAMA’s Green Homes Compliance Scheme – aimed at installers, the scheme provides guidance on how to ensure adequate ventilation, when a building’s air tightness is improved through Green Homes Grant energy efficiency measures, such as insulation.

The scheme sets out to help installers easily identify products through its Green Homes Compliance Scheme badge, for accredited ventilation products. The badge demonstrates that fans will meet Building Regulation requirements and deliver effective ventilation.

Homeowners and residential landlords are now able to apply for a Green Homes Grant to help improve home energy efficiency.

The voucher is worth up to £5,000 and covers up to two-thirds of the cost of installing energy saving home improvements.

These can include insulating a home to reduce energy use by making it more airtight, such as by insulation, double glazing and draught proofing.

However, installers and households must consider improving ventilation too, otherwise if a home is made more air tight to save energy it can end up with indoor air pollution, condensation and mould.

Improving a home’s energy efficiency by making it more air tight reduces the amount of heat escaping and so saves energy, but is also limits the amount of air that naturally passes through gaps in a building.

Many homes rely on this ‘natural infiltration’ to provide fresh air and to remove air pollutants and moisture in indoor air, which can be harmful to health.

Considering ventilation under the Green Homes Grant is also a legal requirement for installers – installers working under the scheme must be Trustmark registered and meet Publicly Available Specification Standards (PAS 2030) to install energy efficiency measures.

In line with Building Regulations, installers therefore need to comply with the legal requirement that a home’s indoor air quality (IAQ) must not be made worse by carrying out building works on an existing building, for example by adding insulation, double glazing or draught-proofing measures under the Green Homes Grant scheme. 

Jenny Smith, Head of Marketing at Vent-Axia (pictured above), commented: “We welcome the Green Homes Compliance Scheme since we are committed to good indoor air quality.

“When making a home more airtight through energy efficiency measures such as insulation it is vital to consider improving ventilation.

“Whilst increasing the airtightness of a building reduces the amount of heat escaping improving energy efficiency, without sufficient ventilation indoor air quality can really deteriorate and households can also have ongoing issues with condensation and mould.

“We welcome this latest initiative from BEAMA which aims to ensure that vital ventilation meets best practice in the Green Homes Grant scheme.”

Fortunately, repairing and improving controlled ventilation is covered by the Green Homes Grant voucher, under reasonable enabling work to support the retrofit.

A cost-effective route to compliance within the Green Homes Grant scheme is to install intermittent extract fans of the right capacity in ‘wet’ rooms and to ensure fresh air enters the building through background ventilators without causing draughts or discomfort.

By fitting a Green Homes Compliance Scheme accredited fan will help ensure installers overcome potential ventilation problems that could happen due to increasing the airtightness of the dwelling.

Vent-Axia has a wide range of Green Homes Compliance Scheme accredited intermittent extractor fans available to installers to help ensure they provide effective ventilation and comply with legislation.

These include the Lo-Carbon Svara, Silent Fan, and the Vent-Axia PureAir Sense – the Svara combines condensation control to avoid mould with improved IAQ for a healthier home environment backed up by easy installation and quiet operation.

On top of this is the ability to control the fan via a smartphone, putting households in complete control of their IAQ. The versatile Svara can also be installed in a variety of rooms making it quick and simple to install and suitable for a wide range of applications.

Meanwhile Vent-Axia’s new and improved Silent Fan range boasts eight models and a raft of new features, including IPX5-rating (for Zone 1) making installation easier and safer.

It can be installed anywhere in a bathroom, including in the splash zone, making it ideal for bathrooms of all sizes. The range also offers both humidity and variable speed models and is still the quietest bathroom fan available at just 12 dB(A).

The Vent-Axia PureAir Sense is the UK’s only bathroom fan with Odour Sense Technology. Designed to improve the air households breathe, it’s equipped with a pioneering odour sensor that increases airflow when the air is poor, helping ensure a comfortable living environment. When the sensor detects a strong odour, the fan speed increases and quickly neutralises the odour to help ensure the air always feels fresh.