Zero Carbon House, Birmingham UK

The Code for Sustainable Homes

This UK Government code sets standards for energy and water use, and assesses nine areas of sustainability:

• Carbon dioxide emissions, and energy use
• Water use (including the use of rainwater)
• Materials (including their “embedded energy”)
• Surface water run-off (should be minimised)
• Waste (including facilities to make recycling easy)
• Pollution (including pollution from insulating materials)
• Health and well-being (including good use of daylight)
• Management (including the process of construction)
• Ecology (including preserving wildlife)

A Level 6 home is highly sustainable, and over the course of a year, the net carbon emissions are zero. From 2016 all new homes should be built to this standard.

More details can be found at www.communities.gov.uk. There is a new website at www.zerocarbonhub.org, “established to make Zero Carbon homes a reality from 2016. ”

These key features have been suggested for Level 6 (see www.greenspec.co.uk/)

Key features

• Excellent levels of insulation.
• Minimal thermal bridges.
• Advanced windows.
• Excellent levels of airtightness.
• Effective orientation for winter solar gains and summer cooling.
• Mechanical ventilation with heat recovery and very efficient in its use of electricity.
• Space and water heating normally from a large solar heating system supplemented by a low-powered gas, oil or LPG fired condensing boiler.
• Lighting by high-efficiency fluorescent lamps.
• Electrical appliances normally A+ rated or better.
• Sufficient on-site electricity generation from renewables to offset the electricity used for lighting, appliances and ventilation.
• A guidebook to explain to users how/why the building differs from normal.