Articles

As April is National Stress Awareness Month, Charis business development director, Ollie Gray, underlines the importance of flexibility, speed and efficiency in alleviating the effects of the financial crisis that is hitting individual households across the UK.

From January 23, 2023 all firefighter and evacuation lifts in high rise residential buildings are now subject to an additional new monthly check. Lee Dean director of LECS UK looks at the implications and new responsibilities for owners/ managers of high-rise buildings
The Grenfell Tower Inquiry noted in the Phase 1 report that “When the firefighters attended the fire at Grenfell Tower, they were unable to operate the mechanism that should have allowed them to take control of the lifts.”
The Inquiry recommended that the owner and manager of every high-rise residential building be required by law to carry out regular inspections of any lifts that are designed to be used by firefighters and to report these results to the fire and rescue service at monthly intervals.  They are also required to undertake tests of the mechanism that allows firefighters to take control of the lifts and to inform the fire rescue service monthly that they have undertaken.

There are 282,000 people currently classed as homeless in the UK, according to the national charity for homeless people, Crisis1. To help tackle this, award-winning housebuilder The Hill Group set out a mission to donate 200 purpose-built modular homes that would provide people experiencing periods of homelessness with fully equipped, safe and secure single dwellings to live in before finding a permanent home.

Having cultivated a collaborative working relationship with Hill for several years, Vaillant specified and installed six of its aroTHERM air source heat pump units to Hill’s SoloHaus development in South Tottenham, London to help with the heating and hot water needs.

WMS underfloor heating is proud to announce its involvement in delivering national housebuilder Bellway’s latest carbon reduction research project, The Future Home @ The University of Salford, which aims to address domestic energy efficiency challenges by putting low-carbon technologies to the test.
 
The developer’s experimental eco home has been constructed within one of two environmental chambers inside Energy House 2.0, this collaborative project between Bellway Homes and other partners, including The University of Salford, Barratt Developments and Saint-Gobain.

Energy House 2.0 is a unique £16 million research facility, part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and is playing a pivotal role in accelerating the progress towards low carbon and net zero housing design and builds.

Heat pump manufacturer, Mitsubishi Electric, is calling on the construction industry to come together to address the UK’s need to quickly transition to low carbon heating – as it launches what it believes is the widest range of commercial and residential heat pumps on the market.

Achieving the Government’s ambitious target of 600,000 heat pump installations a year by 2028 will require a tenfold increase in the number of installations over the next five years. This presents a significant opportunity for businesses throughout the supply chain to help customers in the transition to low-carbon heating.

For many home owners and tenants, the increase in energy bills is causing real concern, with many facing the tough choice of heating their home or being able to afford to eat. And whilst we begin to look towards the spring and the upturn in weather the problem isn’t going away.

Every project is always a combination of competing demands for budget and funding and the trade off against performance. A balance between what can be afforded today, and what will be required in the future.

The increases seen in energy prices last year have made improving the energy efficiency of homes an urgent social priority. It’s critical importance as part of Government climate change objectives is long established.

Homes make up around 14% of all of the UK’s emissions. With a commitment to cut total UK emissions by 80% relative to 1990 levels by 2050 under the Climate Change Act (2008) reducing household carbon emissions assumes critical importance.