The Way We Live
The way we live and run our homes has a great impact on our environment and quality of life.
There has been much debate about how homeowners can reduce the negative environmental impact we have from our homes. Evidence suggests that the energy efficiency of a property is clearly related to its age, and is also influenced by the way in which our homes and environment are managed.
The house building industry has been called upon to introduce more environmentally friendly technologies into properties now being built. This places a greater onus of responsibility on the new home owner to better manage their new home.
The Evidence
A recent Government report suggests that domestic properties were responsible for 27% of UK carbon emissions in 2004. The same report highlighted that space and water heating accounts for 73% of domestic emissions and that this has largely grown from our increasing use of electrical appliances.
On a more positive note, within the new house building industry standards have noticeably improved with better technologies, however, there is still much more we can all do.
Code for Sustainable Homes
The Property Log Book Company is committed to working with our customers, to provide homeowners with access to skills, information and resource. A home with a Property Log Book will help you to better manage and run your home by capturing all information about how your property was built, maintained and improved and its energy performance. A property with a Property Log Book will gain 3 valuable points towards the Code for Sustainable Homes.
From the 1st May 2008 the Government has made it mandatory that all new homes must have a rating. The CLG states that ‘The new requirement to have a rating against the Code does not make it mandatory to build a Code home or to have each new homes assessed against the Code.’ What this means for developers and builders is one of two things; you can choose to build a Code home and have it assessed against the Code or build to current building regulations standards, not pay for an assessment and download a free nil-rating certificate to provide to the home buyer. Under the current proposals this document will be provided to the home buyer as part of their HIP. For more information please go the the links below and the CLG’s web site for more information.
Please download Building a Greener Future and Code for Sustainable Homes PDFs for more information.
