If the clever designs and technical innovations don't translate from the plans to the build, you've potentially got big problems. You've got a gap between the intended home - and what is built in reality.

Joining Chris Gaze to discuss the practicalities of 'building as designed' are:

• Debbie Haynes of OX Place
• David Robbins of Places for People
• Matt Crawford of Onward Homes

Get the latest tips on how to Build as Designed here.

Hello and welcome to the Future Homes podcast. My name is Chris Gaze and this

is where we look closely at the

ideas, policies and practical challenges shaping how homes are designed, built and delivered in the UK today. We unpack what's changing, why it matters and what it means in practice for developers, consultants, local authorities and the wider supply chain.

Our focus this time is Building as Designed, or as I like to call it, mind the gap, because a failure to build as designed can lead to a performance gap that means homes don't perform as intended. Today I'm joined by Debbie Haynes of OX Place, David Robbins of Places for People, and Matt Crawford of Onward Homes.

To start out, I asked David, when it comes to building as design, what is the most important thing to get right?

There's many things that we need to consider, particularly with low temperature heating solutions, but we need to make sure that we're collaborating on the designs, making sure that the designs are really clear and we're producing good quality information that the site teams and the procurement teams can actually use on site, and it is what they want to be building.

And Debbie, what do you consider the most important things to ensure homes are built as designed?

One of those things is definitely early engagement, just being early doors and seeing through early design intention. And site. Site is just so important, isn't it?

We use our energy quality assurance process to keep an eye on things on site, to check, to feedback, to test, to train, to try and make sure that that kind of site experience for carrying design through to sort of actual, actual build is kept through. So, yeah, I guess it's that checks on site really.

Tell us a little bit about that quality assurance process and how it all works?

It's quite novel, but it's really looking at assessing risks kind of as we go through.

So through the design process, we'll be checking, we'll be getting the energy quality assurance guides, who are all specialists in their area, to check all of the kind of details, that kind of thing, check them against your saps, check them against the energy statement that we do for planning and then see that move throughout the build.

So doing training for things like air tightness up front, talking to the team and then, yes, site visits, risk registers around and photographs as you do for building control, to show where air tightness is being compromised, where insulation is missing, check that that insulation is covered, all those little things, and looking of course at the heat pumps, the heating solutions that we have in there as well.

Okay, so a big attention to detail, really, and just making sure it's all all there and all quite right.

And there is the testing as well at the end, just - and I think it's helpful for the contractors to know that there is that process of us doing the post commissioning checks.

Yeah, okay, great. And Matt, what aspects of delivering the building fabric do you think are the most important?

You're going over the whole process, you need to start early, you need to make sure the details that go with the sections adequately, give the information that the builder, the contractor needs. For me, I'm quite fortunate then. I've got a pre-commencement manager, I've got a design manager that do a lot of that upfront work.

They're checking, they're looking at the information that the contractors are going to build to, because a lot of our schemes are brought to us, so the information is given to us. So it's checking that what the architect and what the engineer and what the contractor's priced is going to meet those standards.

As we're a housing association, we also have Clerk of Works, so I have them on site weekly, checking the build, checking the details, taking photos. Debbie, you, you said about the photos there. For me, having a photo log of a whole house throughout the build is invaluable.

If there's issues in the future, you can go back and look, you can see the installations there, you can see if it's missing. It just gives you a complete picture and that works right the way through to completion.

I think if we could get things like that right across the industry, that would be a massive bonus and allow us to build it right. But have that knowledge, it's been done right as well.

Now one of the questions that I've been really keen to ask is about ventilation. I mean, and I think probably most organisations have been on a bit of a journey with ventilation and its relationship to airtightness.

That sort of industry wording. It has been a learning curve. It really is a learning curve and we tend to specify NVHR or centralised mev, that would be our preference.

But I think working with the Energy Quality Assurance has helped me help us and help contractors work through that process.

So I think I've mentioned previously things like 10 millimetre gaps needed under the doors for airflow, looking at ducting runs, looking at the type of ducting you're using. That's all beyond the sighting of the ventilation system and everything like that.

So there's a lot of learning to do and I think it's easy for that just to be left to the subcontractor almost.

And I have noticed sort of in the people we work with, there's a need to sort of break down a bit of cynicism about the concept of build it tight, ventilate right. Because we were brought up in homes that breathed, breathe naturally. This is a step change.

So I think helping people understand airtightness has been really important training in that. And I'm learning as I go through, you know, I'm learning from technical specialists and so are the contractors.

So for me it's a really big part of that, that learning curve, that sort of looking at air tightness on one side and then the ventilation on the other and making sure the two truly do complement each other.

You say you're sometimes doing MEV, sometimes doing MVHR. What's the deciding factor that makes you go one way or the other?

It really depends. Sometimes it can be simplicity of the ducting that's required or sort of some of the site based constraints.

Sometimes it may be because there's no need for the mbhr, it may be a site viability, it may be, you know, we value engineer there and put some solar panels in or it really, it really depends.

I think the other thing we've been a little bit nervous with early doors and we're working through with the people that we hand the units over to is the changing of the filters in the MVHR.

That can be quite a big thing in social housing and also for shared owners.

So I'd worked quite a bit with the people who give us the units to say, okay, I need the specification for the filters and, and where we can buy them from. And even that has been a process of opening up the industry to go, oh yes, you want these things. So I think Matt's nodding.

I think in social housing we do have. Yeah, we have to think about these things quite carefully in terms of maintenance and ongoing responsibility.

Well, I think you've lined Matt up so we'll get to Matt.

Yeah, no, you're definitely right. We've moved away from intermittent funds. There was still that question in the consultation whether it was intermittent or whether it went to MEV.

Thankfully they made the logical move, I think in moving to DMEV as a minimum, apartments have been MVHR for quite a while now and that's the right. I think in most situations probably the only option to try and make them work with regards to filters and cleaning.

That's a much bigger issue for us because if the schemes social or affordable rent, we as an organization is the one responsible for doing that maintenance of the filters.

So we need to make sure that that's factored into our repairs business, our compliance business, so that the teams are picking that up at the intervals within. Normally, I think it's six months in the MVHR filters that they have to be replaced or cleaned.

If we're not doing that, we're then as an organization compromising the effectiveness of a system. As our buildings get even more airtight, that system becomes more critical for ensuring that natural ventilation is brought in for our customers.

It's a very complicated thing to get right. Even, you know, go back a couple of years ago, I had an issue where flexible ducting in the house not connected properly, issue with damper mould.

New build property that was only just out of its defect, period. We shouldn't be getting that in this day and age.

And hopefully with these changes it will push the architects, the designers, the contractors to make sure the solution and the systems are right for what they're intended to be doing.

There's also your, what's your approach to commissioning looking like?

So at the moment we're trying to look at how we can introduce people being certified to commission. So, you know, on from an approved scheme. We haven't been doing that.

It has just been done by the electricians to generally fit in the fans or the M & E contractor and the certificate reports being given for building REC compliance. But we're actively looking at dictating that.

We want X number commissioned by an independent approved consultant to start to give us that comfort that they are right. Yeah.

Okay.

People generally have seen that the results can be very close to what the manufacturer's guidance that the system should do. I think that's the only way that we'll see systems effectively working. If you've got that independent confirmation.

Okay. And so David, what's the journey for you with regards to airtightness and ventilation?

Yeah, I think we've tried to keep it very simple. You know, if you use MVHR, it does come with a maintenance requirement which does put burdens on the tenants and the maintenance team.

So we've tried to keep it simple with either doing natural ventilation or centralized DMEV or CMEV systems, but it's all about sort of getting that balance between your design airtightness and the ventilation. So it's, again, it's another one of these things you need to consider it at a very early stage.

We're all going to be moving to the DME model, which is the right thing to do, and it's just trying to get the balance of that airtightness right in the volumes that we're doing.

Where do you think the sweet spot is sort of turning out for you? I mean, and how do you define what that sweet spot is?

Yeah, that's a good question. You know, anything between 3 and 5 and 5 is where you need to be changing. Anything at 3 or below, then you're into MVHR.

Above that, you're into the decentralised, continuously running fans and five and above, you're into the intermittent.

So I think the days of the intermittent fans are probably numbered, but it's critical just to make sure that the site teams know that, so they're getting the airtightness right in the construction phase and don't go too mad. And then your ventilation doesn't match. Because we all know about the issues around damper mould, it's critical that we go get that right.

We're starting to see councils consulting on their own design guides and we had one come out last year where one of their questions is looking at MVHR in all new build properties, which, which is great and as a system is brilliant.

But then that does add in the potential viability issue of putting a system in, that, you know, you've got the cost of the system, you've got the cost of all the ducting, the installation cost as well, that will have a massive impact on schemes, viability.

And whilst I agree with it, there needs to be a balance across what's right to do in each location and for each purpose.

I mean, viability challenges are very big for the sector at the moment, aren't they?

Also, there's the other thing is the space, you know, the Future Homes Standard now means we've got to put a hot water cylinder in, that's a big cupboard on your first floor, ground floor.

And now all of a sudden you need a big cupboard or, you know, medium-sized cupboard, but your MVHR kit in, which is accessible for changing the filter. So it just puts more pressure on the internal layout, particularly if you're meeting NDSS or M4.2 requirements. Yes, it just takes up storage space.

So it's getting that balance between storage, airtightness and ventilation.

I also wanted to ask you about, you know, wider building services, so primarily about heating, space heating, hot water and solar panels. What processes and procedures are you finding that are most successful to ensuring your homes are built as designed?

And I'll start with David this time, if I may.

So we went early in terms of sort of talking to air source heat pump manufacturers so that we could learn those process and the design, et cetera, and the manufacturer that we've chosen is supporting us in a number of ways, obviously providing design lines at the early stage.

Then they can come and help the plumbers at the first plot make sure that they understand that how it should be installed correctly.

And then when it comes to commissioning again, they come back to site and help the commissioning of the air source heat pump so that it's set up correctly that then can be replicated across all of the other homes. The systems are then sort of locked down to prevent, to prevent home user having a play with all the buttons and then remote access can be given to reset it again. All they should be doing is just changing the thermostat by a degree or two to suit the changing weather pattern.

Yeah, I'd agree with that.

And. Okay. And what else are you doing? I mean, Debbie, have you been early heat pump adopters or have you gone for other systems?

Yeah, we've had heat bumps for, I think three to four years now. And we kind of. We trialled them sort of. Initially we were nervous.

We were nervous just because of the costs for end users attached to electric systems. But the city council really wanted to push the decarbonisation agenda, so we jumped about four years ago.

A lot of the work we've been doing around that is the energy quality assurance. It's that process we go through to get those checks, those checks done as we go through it, and some of the conversations that we have with get M and E, how many people around, what we expect to see. I think the other thing is the calculations. We don't really want off the pack solutions.

We want to see people's heat loss calculations, we want to see the whole raft to make sure we have got the right system, the right unit in there.

Yeah. Okay. And Matt, I've heard you speaking quite a bit about people and contractors.

I'm lining you up to talk about that in terms of thinking about how we get these new systems in and working as built.

I've got a Clerk of Works internally, so that works really well for a degree of scrutiny that we're able to give ourselves. When we're building apartments and going beyond your low rise two story dwelling, you're into a completely different ball game.

For us we were actually appointing specialist consultant to give us that Clerk of Works function. But in an area their expertise. If you go into apartment blocks or into an extra care facility, the complexity of that install.

We can't be expecting my normal team to undertake those sort of inspections. So I'm now looking at who's right to be on the team to check. I employ a consultant via a Clerk of Works. Over and above everything the contractor's doing.

That's purely my insurance. They come and do ad hoc visits like M and E consultant does. It starts to build me up a picture, gives me more assurance that the end result that the commissioning when it's done because those systems are far more complicated.

In the housing side you are much more reliant on those local teams and the site team. So I think there's a degree of work to be done to try and educate them and get them to. To a level where they.

They understand enough about them to be comfortable to know it's right. And is that using the people around to gain it because we ultimately you're given a certificate to build a control to say that works in the the greatest sense that the builder control officer they are not an expert in the finer details of an MVHR system.

It's making sure that everyone involved in that process can get us to that end result of having comfort that what's been designed has been installed and it's going to work as the design.

What we will do is where we have high risk heating systems going in. obviously we're not building them. We have contractors buildings. It's probably slightly different but we bring in heat pump specialists.

So communal systems, our first communal system. We worked with the contractor there to sort of challenge and engage and have M and E conversations around what was there.

And that was a very helpful and productive process. And we'll go and check their site going forward.

So it's really much more hands on than we've been used to in the past.

We are. I know we are and it can be challenging but I think we may be. I don't know Matt. I think maybe we're slightly unusual in that. I don't know.

It'd be interesting to see what the industry says.

We're quite similar in the fact we don't actually build. People build for us. So we take those and those end units. It does put us in a Different way.

And you know, in the extra care we did, we had the contractor, we had the M, the E, everybody else, we had the specialists in door entry, we had the specialists in contractor facilitated all of those people being around the table.

That allowed us to then bring in our internal teams that are going to run and manage the facility and the customers that are going to ultimately live there. They understand the needs of those people far better than we do.

So when we were designing it, we were going beyond what we needed to because we were future proof in that building.

So with the heating system that went in, we've then maxed out the roof with PV and we've put batteries on way over what the original specification was. But that, you know, obviously it helps the building, it's future proofing.

It's then allowing that store electricity to feed back into, which as a housing association allows us to reduce the service charge element on the building because that's running and feeding and supplying that. So it's looking at a much bigger picture of what you can do.

So we've been talking about ventilation, we've talked about space heating and some of the other services. What are the things that you're looking for when we're looking in the fabric?

What are the key quality checks that you think that builders should be putting in place today? David, I'll start with you for May.

Yes, that's a good question, Chris.

I think there's a running theme, it's collaboration, it's making sure you get your designs right, understanding what the site teams can build and what materials can be purchased, where they can be purchased from, and making sure that the design teams know that as they start the detailed design and then they can produce some clearly signposted drawings, probably a little bit like a reference manual. So starts off with a really clear site plan, identifying which home goes where, which plots are going where.

The floor plans then take you to the elevations and sections and the sections then pick up the construction details which should really identify all of those really tricky thermal bridging details and junctions which often get missed and will now be really crucial in a low temperature heating solution.

And then making sure that our site teams can build that and understand that of access to the systems via sort of cloud based document management systems.

We at police of people have got QR codes which take you to those drawings or those packs of information either built by trade or on a plot, by plot basis. It's just making sure that there's a clear line of information and then that there's an on site quality checking process going forward.

From there we have a photographic evidence system for our part L requirements. So it's a matter of picking those up, making sure they're checked, you know, signed off at the rope at the appropriate time.

And presumably those drawing details, particularly around things like thermal bridging and just so that information is available and we're not relying on customer practice?

Yeah, absolutely.

So we already have a number of standard details in our portfolio, but just by nature we can't draw everything and there are some options and variations. For example, take the ground floor junctions, numerous different types.

Whether it's a level, threshold, step threshold, with gas membranes, without gas membranes.

So it's about the architectural team and the design team picking the right detail and tagging it in and not just saying, oh, here's a whole load of details and letting the site teams work it out for themselves. And you know, it may well be that none of those details are applicable.

So which case they're going, oh well, I'll take that detail, I'll amend it, or, you know, there isn't a detail for what they particularly want, so they've got to do those one or two details to support the designs for that particular project.

Okay, thank you. And Matt, earlier you talked about a Clerk of Works. Is this really where the Clerk of Works really comes into play in your thinking?

Yeah, it does start before, like David was saying, the design, the details, the junctions.

You know, we've developed a set of standard house types, but because we have a lot of schemes brought to us with a contractors, so a national house builder's house types, they're nailed down, they're going to be probably far more efficient in their cost and they're not going to want to vary from them.

I'm looking at my standard set about whether I can get to that level that David was talking about, where I am providing the details, I am providing those thermal junction and the information.

The problem and the dilemma I've got with that is that if I start specifying, I then start taking away a contractor's ability to bring their own product.

And that because I'm saying that that junction will do X, Y and Z and performers as 1, 2 and 3, that I'm taking away some of that ability for a contractor. So I'm like in that sort of in between place about how far we should develop our own stuff to get to that fixed point.

The Clerk of Works, though they are funded, for me it's fundamental because I'm relying on that contractor building the scheme in line with the drawings.

If I have nobody going out to check that on a regular basis, I don't know myself if it's built to that standard, to that detail, to the right quality, with the right product, with the right gaps, the right interfaces.

You know, I think when you're, if you're a national house builder and you're building everything yourself, quite often they will have their own QA processes that they go through, signing off as they go through, so they're providing that their own internal sort of audit as they go through the build. I've not seen it to that degree when, when a contractor is building that for, for us as a housing association.

So my Clerk of Works does give me that assurance.

They give me that knowledge that they will challenge and they will raise concerns with a contractors, with the design, with an issue on site, with a quality where it's not where we'd expect it to be. So for me, yes, it's an essential role because we don't build it ourselves.

I've come to the point where I'm going to ask my last question. This is the point where I like to give three wishes about things you'd like people to take away from this podcast.

But I'm really mean you're only going to get one one wish each.

Debbie wow, that's a difficult question.

But I think for me, just because of the nature of the journey we've been on with the quality and the performance gap reduction, it's that element of collaboration which is understanding each other's specialisms, bringing in specialists when you need it for the new technologies we're seeing in the future. Home standard and yeah, keeping talking and learning from each other.

I think it'd be very easy for us to all say the same, but I think the collaboration goes further.

It's collaborating with the contractor and it's collaborating with the supply chain, and it's collaborating with the customer and listening to what the customer's got to say and bringing that right back to the very beginning of the process. That's something that we do as an organisation. Our customers do have a voice and we have a panel where they sit on, engage with us.

The more of that we can do, I think it will only improve the whole industry and the product and the homes that we're building for our customers.

David

At risk of saying collaboration again, I think this needs sort of a mindset change, sort of a cultural shift so that the design teams are in tune with what is needed on site, but equally through the process of procurement and being on site.

It's avoiding the customer practice and having to follow what's on the drawing and that continuous feedback for ultimately, as Matt said, it's the customer at the end of the day is going to benefit from a well built, well insulated, warm home.

Brilliant. Thank you very much. Well, that brings us to an end. Thank you so much to Matt, Debbie and David for joining us on the podcast today. It's been a real pleasure having you.

Thank you. It's been great being here, Chris.

Yeah, thank you.

Thanks, Chris. Thanks for that.

Thanks.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Future Homes podcast and thank you once again to David, Debbie and Matt.

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