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This year's extreme weather posed new questions for cladding specification. Amendments to Part L of the Building Regulations will demand they are answered, and that energy use is cut, says Max Thompson
Views about climate change once dismissed as a hypothetical, are now accepted currency between governments, climatologists and environmental groups. This year alone has seen an unprecedented number of extreme weather events - floods devastating Boscastle, Cornwall, and a series of hurricanes in the Caribbean.
Cladding specifiers, manufacturers and contractors are taking notice. In the long term, performance standards may have to rise as facades in the UK have to cope with ever more extreme weather patterns.
Mike Jones, general manager of Stancliffe Stone Company, says that specifiers need to work with manufacturers to address the problem now. "One of the key challenges is choosing the right materials to construct buildings - particularly external facades which come into contact with the elements - so that they are capable of standing up to more extreme weather conditions. This is where suppliers of building materials can play an increasingly important role."
Perhaps not surprisingly, he believes that natural stone will prove a good choice in the long term. More immediately, under pressure from the looming transposition into UK law of the EU's 2003 Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), the UK government's answer has been to propose changes to the already recently amended Part L and, to a lesser extent, Part F, of the Building Regulations.
The proposed amendment to Part L - which requires that from April 2005 there must be a 25% improvement in energy efficiency on top of the standards set by the current 2002 Part L regs -is the bedrock of the government's wider target to reduce carbon emissions by 60% by 2050.
At 332 pages, the Part L guidance document is not light reading, but contained within it are heavyweight proposals which are set to radically change the face of British architecture and building design - particularly regarding the external design and appearance of buildings. The ramifications for architects - particularly of Part L2 that covers non-dwellings - are beginning to hit home.
At the heart of the new Part L is a requirement to quantify buildings' energy efficiency in...