Reduce Space Heating Demand and go zero ODP
It is widely recognised that there are four main global
sustainability issues: global warming, non-renewable resource
depletion, toxic pollution and ozone depletion, and that these
global issues far outweigh any local sustainability issues in their
need for immediate attention and potential impact from
inaction.
Recent studies have shown that the first three issues are
essentially one. The extraction and consumption (burning) of
fossil fuels is by far the most significant contributor to global
warming, non-renewable resource depletion and toxic pollution.
In the UK 60% of fossil fuels are used to heat buildings and
half of this is housing. Therefore as far as housing is
concerned environmentally sustainability comes down to two
main issues: reduce fossil fuel use and specify zero ODP
products.
By far the most economical method of reducing fossil fuel use
in housing is to reduce space heating demand. The investment
for renewable energy sources only becomes convincing once
space heating demand is minimised as capital costs are
prohibitive to most.
There are two main methods of reducing space-heating
demand: reduce heat losses through the building fabric and
reduce heat losses from unintentional air-leakage.
The former has been the subject of Building Regulation
for 30 years but still has a long way to go before an optimum level
is attained. It is estimated that U-values of 0.10 W/m²·K would
be the practical optimum.
Building Regulations / Standards are only starting to attend to
the issue of air-leakage, which becomes more significant an
effect as U-values are reduced, but it is likely that Building
Regulations / Standards will come to focus more on air-tight
constructions over the coming years as U-values and energy
performance move closer to the optimum.
|