Our homes and buildings are central to our daily comfort and wellbeing, and the ability to keep ourselves warm and control our comfort is fundamental to quality of life.
Objectives of the consultation
The Government wants to give all consumers, whatever their circumstances, greater choice over their heating technology and greater control over the space in which they live than ever before, bringing new ways to reduce their energy bills and costs of living. At the same time the proposals make a valuable contribution towards the UK's ambitious targets to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050. Buildings account for a fifth of all carbon dioxide emissions. Policies on heat and energy efficiency will be crucial to meeting the fourth and fifth Carbon Budgets.
With this consultation the Government was seeking views from consumers, installers and the supply chain on a range of measures and policy options that can:
- Keep energy bills as low as possible;
- Ensure the UK has a secure and resilient energy system;
- Reduce carbon emissions cost-effectively;
- Avoid unreasonable upfront costs for consumers which could discourage home improvements.
The Government was also seeking evidence on the costs and benefits of wider domestic and non-domestic central heating system performance improvements.
This consultation concluded on 27 January 2017.
Supporting papers
To download documents which supported this consultation, please follow the links below.
CIBSE response
Colin Ashford from the Domestic Building Services Panel was integral in producing CIBSE response to this consultation, with additional input from Phil Jones, Chair of the CHP & District Heating special interest group. The expertise from these members allowed for all appropriate questions to be answered in detail, along with providing valuable supporting information that was uploaded to the online response form.
Consumer engagement with heating controls in their homes was a particular focus of our response, along with identifying a skills need for installers to be competent in taking a systems-level rather than component-level approach to domestic heating. To read the full CIBSE response please follow the link below.
Results of the consultation and next steps
The Government published its response to the Call for Evidence on Heat in Domestic Buildings on 12 October 2017. The document summarises the responses received from a wide variety of interested stakeholders and sets out new standards which will come into force from 6 April 2018. From that date all boilers installed in existing dwellings in England, either as a new installation or as a replacement to an existing boiler, will need to comply with these minimum requirements. An amendment to the Domestic Building Services Compliance Guide 2013 were published alongside this policy document.
To read the Government response, the final impact assessment and the amendment to the Domestic Building Services Compliance Guide, please follow the link below.