Code For Sustainable Homes Products

What's the Code for Sustainable Homes? It's an environmental assessment method for rating and certifying the performance of new homes.

As well as aiming to reduce the carbon emissions and the environmental impact of new residential developments, the Code also introduces a requirement to encourage sustainable, good design that adds long-lasting value and real benefits to the people who will live in the homes. A lot of the environmental impact of any development occurs during its construction. This can be reduced simply by encouraging the construction of homes that will be lived in for longer.

The Code became operational in April 2007 in England, and having a code rating for new-build homes became mandatory from 1st May 2008. The scheme replaced the Ecohomes scheme.

From 1st May 2008, a minimum of Code Level 3 is required for all new housing promoted or supported by the Welsh Assembly Government or their sponsored bodies and, from 2nd June 2008, Code Level 3 has been required for all new self-contained social housing in Northern Ireland. The Code does not currently apply in Scotland.

To obtain a Code rating, the developer first chooses a service provider. The service provider will then provide details of qualified Code Assessors, one of whom must register the development and perform assessments at design stage, to award an interim certificate, and post-construction stage, to award a final score and Code Level.

Of the nine categories within the code for sustainable homes that a new home is assessed against, four are mandatory. These are dwelling emission rate, indoor water use, environmental impact of materials, and lifetime homes. The remaining points are taken from the other categories. Different levels of importance are placed on different environmental issues, using a weighting system.

The credits available within each category are weighted to give percentage points, which are totalled together by the Code Assessor at the post-construction stage to give an overall Code Level. The Code for Sustainable Homes rewards developers for achieving greater standards of sound insulation than Building Regulations currently require. This means that valuable extra credits can be gained from simply upgrading separating wall/floor specifications.
 

 An overall score of equal to or greater than 57 points is required to achieve a Code Level of 3.

To achieve the maximum four credits, separating floors and walls have to be shown to achieve 8dB above the performance requirements of Part ‘E’ 2003. Currently, there are no specifications within the Robust Details handbook that are certified for four credits. Therefore, compliance must be demonstrated by a scheme of pre-completion testing.
 

SRS has independently tested systems that have been shown to achieve the required levels of sound insulation for one, three and four credits for sound insulation. Achieving the full four credits accounts for 4.48 percentage points towards the overall points score due to the weighting system used by the Code.