Indoor and outdoor air pollution – how can Home Quality Mark reduce the number of deaths?

As a new dad, you tend to sit up when headlines talk of 40,000 deaths due to the air we breathe.  The recent report by the Royal College of Physicians and Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health is quite stark about all the different pollutants, where they come from and how they can impact … Continue reading “Indoor and outdoor air pollution – how can Home Quality Mark reduce the number of deaths?”

House of Lords is right to emphasise housebuilding quality over focus on speed and volume

Published last week, the House of Lords Select Committee report Building Better Places makes significant and welcome recommendations to improve the quality and health of homes being constructed in the future rather than merely focusing on delivery. But will they be taken seriously by Government which has committed itself to building 400,000 homes by 2020? … Continue reading “House of Lords is right to emphasise housebuilding quality over focus on speed and volume”

NSC helps secure planning for solar farms on old colliery sites

The NSC have been supporting APSE Energy and assisting a number of their member local authorities through the development stages of large scale solar projects, providing technical expertise for planning and grid connection applications. Three sites, with a cumulative capacity of 12.4MW, have now received planning consent and grid offers and a further eight sites … Continue reading “NSC helps secure planning for solar farms on old colliery sites”

Building performance: Bridging the gap between design and operation

By 2050, around half of the total carbon dioxide emissions from the UK non-domestic sector are likely to be from buildings that were constructed before 2020. While newbuild stock constitutes only 1% of the total building stock each year, it drives thinking across the sector in terms of physical design features, system design and operational practices, and this thinking has an … Continue reading “Building performance: Bridging the gap between design and operation”

New BRE Global certification scheme for the thermal performance of details and products is launched

BRE Global is launching a new certification scheme which aims to reduce the level of thermal bridging that can arise in buildings and homes causing heat loss. Typically occurring where there is a break or weakness in the continuity of the insulation in the building fabric, heat loss due to thermal bridging can account for … Continue reading “New BRE Global certification scheme for the thermal performance of details and products is launched”

RPS are cutting costs and improving efficiency with recent BIM certification

Paul Oakley, BIM Director at BRE caught up with Mark Costello, Director at RPS in Ireland about the company’s recently awarded BRE Global BIM Business Systems Certification which demonstrates a company’s compliance with the requirements of BIM Level 2. He explains how BIM is making a positive impact on their internal processes as well as … Continue reading “RPS are cutting costs and improving efficiency with recent BIM certification”