Articles published in 2013
TRADA and the BBA
The Construction Products Regulation: CE regulation is coming to the UK builders' mechants
The Construction Products Directive was a European Union directive introduced in 1989. Its purpose was twofold:
- To create a common framework for regulations on buildings and other construction works.
- To ensure the free movement of benign construction products within the EU.
(A construction product is any product which is sold for permanent incorporation into construction works – so it doesn’t apply to tools, etc.)
The directive made provision for the CE marking of construction products – for more about the CE and other marks see my article last month.
Insulation and R-values
The key to an energy efficient house is insulation, and plenty of it. There’s not much social kudos in this – you can hardly show off the thickness of your loft insulation to visitors – but it will insulate you from ever escalating fuel bills as well as the cold. And you can sleep easy knowing that you have done your best for future generations by curtailing your carbon emissions.
Books and Bookmarks: Where to go for knowledge
I started my first selfbuild in 1980, and at that time it seemed an odd thing to attempt. I'd never heard of anyone who had built their own house; there were no selfbuild magazines or shows, and selfbuild was never discussed in the media.
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If you are thinking now about selfbuilding, I would say that it has never been so easy! Or, at least, it has never been so easy to acquire the knowledge you need. There are four major monthly magazines for selfbuilders; there are national and regional selfbuild shows; there is a permanent national selfbuild exhibition centre; and there is even a selfbuild television channel. And of course, there is the World Wide Web.
Multifoils: A Controversial Insulation
The French company, Actis, has been pioneering multifoils since 1980, and in the UK their current product is Triso Super 10+. Astounding claims are made for it.
The multifoil is basically a quilt about 35mm thick, composed of many thin layers of plastic foam and wadding, with shiny foil between the layers and stronger foil on the outside. An ideal application of the multifoil would be in a loft conversion, where the sloping roof needs to be insulated but where putting in a thick layer of mineral wool would decrease the headroom too much.
[Webmaster note: this article was never published, and is released for the first time on this website, and is included in the published articles in 2013 section to aid continuation of the articles]
Standards
People have lived with standards since time immemorial. The Ten Commandments can be seen as standards for personal behaviour. And the ancient Babylonians had a simple standard for building control that was backed up by punishment – if a house collapsed and thereby killed its owner, the builder was to be put to death. From the Fourteenth century onwards, England had a standard of purity for gold and silver shown by a hallmark. (False hallmarks could also lead to punishment by death.)
Certificates Galore
In the last few articles we've seen that the certification of building products is leading to plenty of business for the British Standards Institution, the British Board of Agrément, and TRADA. This is part of the trend across all sorts of industry for more certification. In the more leisurely days gone by, purchasing decisions could be based on reputations made and spread by satisfied and dissatisfied customers. Nowadays, reputation cannot keep pace with the rapid evolution of the plethora of goods and services on offer. (A speculative thought, though, for the future – perhaps reputation will become important once again, spread online.) Anyway, increasingly certification is being used to give assurance to would-be purchasers.
The National Homebuilding Show
The big show of the year for selfbuilders is the National Homebuilding Show, held during the spring at the National Exhibition Centre near Birmingham. Last year I missed the show so thought I should go along this year to keep in touch with the latest developments. The show was held over four days, March 27-30, in Hall 5, the largest hall at the NEC. Tickets cost £10 per day purchased online, or £15 at the door. Subscribers to Homebuilding and Renovation, the magazine which promotes the show, were amongst the people who received offers of free tickets.
Astounding Insulation: Aerogels, VIP's, and dynamic insulation
Last month we looked at conventional insulation materials. Those with entrapped air have conductivities ranging from about 0.04 W / m.°C (cork) down to 0.03 (extruded polystyrene foam). Those with carbon dioxide and/or pentane entrapped instead of air have lower conductivities, ranging from about 0.025 (polyurethane foam) to 0.020 (phenolic foam).
Nowadays, in order to obtain the very high thermal resistances required, exterior walls incorporating these materials have to be very thick. New build can accommodate the extra thickness, but in renovation it is much more difficult. Fortunately, it looks like technology may be coming to our aid by giving us materials that have astoundingly low thermal conductivities.
More Bookmarks
My article last month was not the one I had originally intended. My plan had been to finish off the mini-series about insulation with an article on multifoils. As is my practice, I sent a draft of the multifoil article to the interested parties. That resulted in some London solicitors threatening to sue me for libel if the article was published as in the draft. So while I considered my position, I hurriedly put together a more uncontroversial article, Books and Bookmarks. This month, I add some more bookmarks. Next month, expect to see an article about multifoils!
