HBF Technical Conference 2014

HBF TECHNICAL CONFERENCE Tuesday 14 October 2014 - Austin Court, Birmingham The new standards arising from the Housing Standards Review will come into force in October 2015, the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) confirmed at HBF’s technical conference, held in Birmingham on October 14.
Bob Ledsome, DCLG’s head of Building Regulations and standards division,, said that the new standards covering energy, water, access, security and space would be implemented in 12 months. “Where a local authority has a policy in place that is equivalent to the new Building Regulation, this can be passported through,” he said.
He also stated that from next spring, the Code for Sustainable Homes would “wind down”.
Also speaking at the conference, John Tebbit, md of Robust Details Ltd, announced that the company was looking to produce a pattern book for ventilation systems after its success with Part E.
Tebbit said that ventilation was causing some concern for housebuilders, customers and suppliers.
“If you get ventilation wrong, it can be awful,” Tebbit said. “There is one housebuilder that has indoor air quality as a board level agenda item.
“As we move to 2016, MVHR (mechanical ventilation with heat recovery) is becoming an option. We’re looking at a pattern book approach to try to standardise some of the systems.”
Robust Details said that it was looking to pilot the details next year.
Exploring NHBC’s latest work on raising building standards, Mark Jones, NHBC’s head of housebuilding standards, said that the construction quality of new homes was “under pressure” as housebuilders continued to ramp up production.
NHBC found that for some companies “construction quality is not a priority", he said.

If you have any questions then please contact the Housebuilder events team on 020 7960 1630

Where

Austin Court, Home of the IET, 80 Cambridge Street, Birmingham B1 2NP

Agenda

This is a full day event, approximate timings 9.30 - 16.00

Speakers include:

Bob Ledsome
Head, Building Regulations and Standards Division
DCLG

Dave Baker
CEO, Robust Details Ltd
&
John Tebbit
MD, Robust Details Ltd

Mark Jones
Head of House-Building Standards, NHBC

Vince Coyle
Group Saftey and Environmental Director, Barratt Developments

Rob Pannell
Managing Director, Zero Carbon Hub

Stewart Dalgarno
Project Lead AIMC4
& Director of Product Development
Stewart Milne Group

DEFRA Representative

Dave Mitchell
Technical Director
HBF
(conference chair)

Andrew Whitaker
Planning Director
HBF

Additional speakers to be confirmed..