The Building Envelope

With the latest Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) guidance placing greater focus on Falls Between Levels, now is the time for housing providers to review their opening window safety measures and assess what the updated guidance means, and is having a restrictor fitted adequate.

The HHSRS provides a useful reminder that housing safety is about identifying and managing risk, rather than simply ticking off products or features. HHSRS covers 21 potential hazards, including Falls Between Levels: falls from one level to another, such as through a window where guarding or edge protection is too low or defective.

With hotter summers, high energy costs and the Future Homes Standard (FHS) on the horizon, the way homes are designed to balance energy efficiency, resilience and occupant wellbeing is coming under increasing scrutiny. In the first episode of its new Beyond the Board podcast series, MEDITE SMARTPLY brings together industry experts to examine one of the most fundamental elements of building design: the building envelope, and asks: “Is the secret to healthier, ultra-efficient homes hidden in the building envelope

“Did I make a mistake? Did I mess up this old building?”

These are the questions architect Níall Hedderman posed on his Youtube channel, Real Life Architecture, about an internal wall insulation specification for one of his projects. His search for answers led him on a journey through retrofit best practice to learning more about an insulation material that he describes as “supernatural” in terms of its performance properties.

It led to Níall and Proctor Group working together to explain how aerogel insulation can help to improve the energy efficiency of traditional buildings without covering up historic features, or taking up too much internal space.

The UK construction industry is under mounting pressure to meet stringent net zero carbon targets. Driven by frameworks such as the Future Homes Standard, regulations now increasingly require builders and developers to provide evidence that their materials and practices genuinely contribute to reducing the carbon footprint of construction projects.

This puts the onus on specifiers and sustainability leads to verify claims of carbon neutrality, while also seeing manufacturers use innovative materials and production methods which genuinely lower emissions.

As the built environment faces increasing scrutiny over its environmental impact, one tool is becoming indispensable - the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD). But what exactly is it, and why does it matter?

For too long, material choices have relied on claims rather than comparable, verified data. EPDs are helping to change that.

In today’s regulatory environment, façade design demands more than compliance - it demands certainty, particularly for building owners and housing providers responsible and accountable for resident safety.

As a manufacturer of classified A1, high-performance cladding systems, Valcan recognises that façade safety cannot be achieved through individual products alone. It requires a fully integrated, system-led approach, where every design is reviewed holistically as a system to ensure compatibility. 

In a first for UK roofing, Edgemere 2.0 combines Marley’s familiar concrete roof tile specification with carbon-capture cement technology and Carbon Bank evidence supplied for every order.

The carbon reduction story behind Edgemere 2.0* begins with the cement. CO₂ from cement production is captured at source, before it enters the atmosphere, and permanently stored beneath the seabed. The carbon reduction is then recorded in the publicly available Carbon Bank, which allocates captured and stored CO₂ reductions to specific Edgemere 2.0 orders, with full end-to-end traceability through an Environmental Attribute Certificate (EAC).