Renegade Conservatory Guy

How do you feel the impending changes to compliance with building regulations in October will affect the industry as a whole?

My feeling is it will have a tremendous affect on the entire industry. If the proposed Building Regulations are passed every single replacement window sold will have to have a C rating with the British Fenestration Ratings Council. This will impact on every business throughout the supply chain as suppliers will need to ensure they are supplying energy efficient alternatives, just as window companies will need to ensure they are using the most advanced technologies to meet legislation. 

Do you feel that companies in our industry are ready for these changes?

While there are forward thinking companies that embraced Window Energy Ratings as the differentiating opportunity they were early on, the majority of the market still hasn’t achieved a Window Energy Rating and if anything are as confused and worried about the process of getting one as they ever have been. They have had plenty of time but they haven’t taken any action. 

Even for those companies with Window Energy Ratings on their standard window – when they put fully reinforced (e.g. foiled) windows through the same process for example, will they still achieve a C rating? And if they do, will they be able to afford to put all of their combinations of windows through the process? 

It would also seem that there are numerous companies who believe that because their window achieves the perfromance required for a given rating, they are entitled to sell their products as energy rated. This is not the case. A window only has a BFRC Window Energy Rating when it has gone through the WER submission process, when it is registered at www.bfrc.org and when it carries the appropriate label. 

That’s why Edgetech has launched the ‘Journey to C’ initiative (www.journeytoc.co.uk) – the nationwide series of FREE workshops to help companies achieve the ratings they need. We recognise what a huge challenge this is for the industry and wanted to offer as much practical support for companies still daunted by the WER process or confused about how the proposed changes to Building Regulations will affect them.  

There seems to be a lot of concern about the real value of solar gain, which plays a major part in calculating a window’s energy rating. Do you feel U-Values are a better way of comparing different windows relative energy efficiency?

It would seem to me to be just as daft to ignore solar gain as it is to overrate it. Cleverer men than me have put their heads together to come up with a rating system that has the approval of government. I don’t really believe that CLG are adopting the BFRC Window Energy Rating scheme as the preferred method of Document L compliance because it is perfect but rather because it is there, it is functional and it is cost effective. To that end I prefer to get on with helping companies get on board with it, use it to their commercial advantage and get on with running their businesses. 

Personally, I’m concerned that having WERs as the only way of complying wit building regulations will stifle innovation, choice and create problems should any company in the supply chain cease trading. For example, what will an installer do if the company they purchase sealed units from ceases trading? Surely there needs to be a quick way for installers and fabricators to switch to an equivalent product from an equivalent supplier?

I understand your concern but there are provisions within the BFRC for licence submissions to include more than one supplier and the Licence of Addition option enables licence holders to use more than one supplier and more than one glazing combination in their WER offering. 

Following on from the above question, we currently have our energy rated windows tested with Swisspacer. Assuming Super Spacer is a similar Warm Edge product, what process would Conservatory Outlet and its installers have to go through to make such a minor alteration? How long would it take and what costs associated? 

Well of course I wouldn’t consider our unique Super Spacer product to be ‘similar’ to anything else! But for the purpose of your question, to make any product component changes; frame, mullion, sash, glazing bead, glass, spacer, glazing cavity fill, gasketry or even reinforcement requires a new thermal simulation report and possibly a new system air leakage report. This would then need a new BFRC submission and a new licence. This process need not take any longer than a week or two depending on the availability of the required technical reports and the workload at BFRC and your Independent Agent. The reports should be available from systems suppliers either free or at nominal cost, though if you have to get your own simulation reports done they will cost you somewhere between £500 and £1500 each. The change should be able to be incorporated into your existing IA audit regime so there should only be nominal costs involved here though this will need to be clarified with your IA. Current BFRC licence cost is £200 per product per annum. 

I understand there are currently around 300 companies in the UK with an energy rating but FENSA claim to have over 9000 companies in their scheme. Can the simulators simulate, the IAs audit and the BFRC register the rest of the industry by October? 

The simple answer is probably not. Before launching our ‘Journey to C’ initiative we considered very carefully the timing of the events and decided not to delay because if the proposed Building Regulations are approved in April, the industry would have even less time to prepare. ‘Journey to C’ will only scratch the surface of what needs to be done but at least we’re doing all we can to support our customers and potential customers meet up and coming legislation.  

Of course now we risk the Building Regulations not being passed or being changed, but in our view although this removes the urgency, the market will continue to move towards Window Energy Ratings and I honestly believe that companies without a rating will soon start to feel the pinch if they’re not already. 

Do you think that these proposed changes will ultimately force many smaller sealed unit manufacturers, PVC-U fabricators and installers out of business? 

I don’t think this will necessarily be the case but of course with any huge shift in legislation that let’s not forget costs a lot of money, this is a risk. All the more reason however to be prepared sooner rather than later. It’s the smaller companies that sit back and wait to see what happens with Building Regulations and how it will affect them, that will be caught short. Smaller companies that grab the bull by the horns have every chance of stealing a march on their competitors if they act sooner rather than later. 

While I understand that many people are fearful of the consequences of the proposed changes and nobody actually wants to see change for the sake of change, and I also understand that some sectors see current trends and proposed legislation as restrictive to their historic trading patterns, we are operating against a backdrop where the need to reduce emissions, provide ourselves with some energy security and conserve our fossil resources while we develop renewables, means that to just carry on as we are is no longer an option. 

In the bigger picture, governments the world over (I know there are some exceptions, but in the main) are looking to bring about fundamental changes in human behaviour on both individual and social fronts. Why should we be any different? A lot of the changes we will have to go through as individuals and as an industry may not be very comfortable but change we have to, and change we inevitably will.

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For more information about Edgetech visit http://www.superspacer.co.uk/