National Ventilation Webinar Explains How Building Regulations Will Affect Ventilation in New Build Homes

National Ventilation, a leading UK-based ventilation manufacturer and supplier, is hosting a useful webinar, ‘Domestic Legislation for Ventilation’, which will look at the new Building Regulations and what this means for ventilation in new build homes.

Aimed at architects, developers, and contractors with developments of less than 100 plots, the webinar explains the changes to the legislation and how the new Building Regulations will affect ventilation in their developments. 

Published on 15th December 2021, the new Part F (Means of Ventilation) and Part L (Conservation of Fuel and Power) of the Building Regulations are set to help the UK deliver Net Zero including a reduction of almost a third less carbon for new homes.

But as buildings become more airtight, to improve efficiency and help achieve this goal, it is crucial to consider indoor air quality (IAQ) too. The new Part F is therefore seen as a vital development since it sets out important changes which will accelerate the move towards low carbon ventilation as an industry standard while improving IAQ.

This useful webinar ‘Domestic Legislation for Ventilation’ will be an hour long and is scheduled to take place on the following date:

 – Tuesday 31 May 2022 at 12 noon.

In the webinar National Ventilation will explain the important changes to both Part L and F of the Building Regulations, with a detailed look at Part F.

The webinar will also look at the best ventilation solutions to specify for new build homes; design considerations, such as noise and ingress of pollutants; as well as installation and commissioning. Delegates will also be able to ask questions at the end. To sign up visit: https://www.nationalventilation.co.uk/building-regulations/

Christian Rehn, National Sales Manager at National Ventilation, comments: “We welcome the changes to the Building Regulations and the recognition of the essential role ventilation plays in buildings. But we also recognise the challenges this presents to those working in the housebuilding industry and so we are running this webinar to support and inform architects, developers, and contractors about the changes. Another way we can help them ensure their projects comply is through our free ventilation system design service.

“MVHR will provide a pivotal role in meeting new Part F requirements, since it is energy efficient and provides excellent indoor air quality. Our design team boasts the knowledge and experience to design whole house systems that provide effective energy efficient ventilation and comply with the latest legislation.”

For new build residential homes, the new Regulations require higher rates of ventilation to protect resident health. This means a move to more advanced ventilation solutions, such as Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR) and Continuous Mechanical Extract Ventilation. This is instead of traditional Intermittent Extract Ventilation (now referred to as Natural Ventilation in Part F), which is now only suitable for dwellings with a design air permeability higher than 5 m3/(m2·h).

This means many new build homes will not be suitable for this technology therefore higher performing options are needed. Here, continuous mechanical extract units that offer a 125mm diameter spigot model will be favoured by housebuilders as the larger surface area allows greater airflow through the fan at a much lower noise level and SFP meaning fewer fans are required to achieve whole house ventilation rates.

Another important factor regarding the Building Regulations that new build developers should consider is the new 2021 edition of Part F, L and O take effect on the 15th June 2022 in England. There is a 12-month grace period, which ends June 2023. Following this, each individual plot must follow these regulations, to comply.

Historically Building Regulations applied to each site (multiple houses), this has now changed to being specifically applicable to each plot (i.e. individual houses). This means that if a site designed to previous regulations has not started every plot by June 2023, any remaining plots would need to be redesigned to meet the 2021 edition of the Building Regulations.

National Ventilation’s free whole-house ventilation design service for design and build projects, aimed at architects, developers, and builders with developments of 100 plots or less, provides a full whole-house ventilation design with unit calculations, a full kit list, recommended duct routes, as well as a pre-order site visit where necessary.

The design team offers customers the knowledge they need on design, ventilation and regulations including the new Part L and Part F, as well as the Future Homes Standard. The team also provides ventilation designs that fits seamlessly into a project and ensures no clashes with architect drawings, steels etc. 

To take up the free design service architects, developers and builders can go direct to the National Ventilation website at www.nationalventilation.co.uk/design-service/ where they can upload their building drawings. Once the design team has the project’s building drawings it will then produce free professional REVIT ventilation designs for the customer.

The service will help in designing and specifying whole house ventilation, such as Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR), with National Ventilation providing a free step-by-step guide to explain the process.