Articles

Setting up a dedicated free website to provide highly topical and useful information to all comers isn’t the usual approach from a heat pump manufacturer, but as Russell Jones explains, Mitsubishi Electric is on a mission to increase everyone’s understanding of the need for energy efficiency in our homes.

Tell us about The Hub and why it won an award?
We created our unique blog site almost a year about to act as a useful resource for anyone involved in the built environment.
We publish new articles weekly from both our own experts and industry experts (such as HA’s own Joe Bradbury!) so that we can provide articles that will appeal to almost anyone – from a tenant who wants to know how a heat pump works, or how to Hygge their home; to a landlord who needs to understand about the latest legislation such as MEES (Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards);

As we start the year, renewable heating specialist Russell Dean from Mitsubishi Electric looks back at some of the major issues and topics from last year that point to a positive 2018.

If we put the ongoing trials and tribulations of Brexit to one side there were positive signs for the social housing industry last year such as November’s budget which focused on the Holy Trinity of housing, infrastructure and productivity
There are currently around 1.8 million households waiting for a social home – an increase of 81% since 1997, and two thirds of households on the waiting list have also been waiting for more than a year.

Donald Daw looks at whether the world is finally relinquishing its grip on carbon intensive fuel.

The news currently seems full of stories about how much renewable energy is on the rise yet there is still a lot of the World’s economy invested in gas and oil so what will the transition to a low-carbon economy over the next 10-20 years look like and what does this mean for the country’s consumers and businesses?

As I write, the political party conference season is in full swing; a time famed for promising proposals and heated debates. As party leaders took to their stands, the housing industry sat with bated breath and waited to hear what strategy would be taken in tackling the housing crisis and alleviating fuel poverty. Then, at the end of the Conservative Party Conference 2017 PM Theresa May took to the stand with BIG news… an impressive £2bn of additional funding to help deliver the affordable housing so sorely needed in this country today.

With so much left unsaid, but a bigger governmental focus on our industry from now on, HA Magazine’s Joe Bradbury takes a look at what the affordable housing sector needs from its government:

There is no doubt that the need to build more houses has become one of the key issues for all political parties and it is great news to see both government and opposition expressing determination to increase the number of affordable and rented homes.  The challenge, of course, is how to actually build them.

For the past two years, H+H has been working with SIG to develop an entirely new concept in modern masonry construction: the SIG I-House System incorporating Celcon Elements from H+H.  The promise of this innovative new offer is to deliver the complete weatherproof shell of a masonry house on site in just one week.

Significant changes to Building Regulations are likely to take place in 2018 to raise domestic boiler installation efficiency. How can you stay ahead of the curve? Chris Yates, Managing Director at
Johnson & Starley discusses....

In December 2016, the government ran  a consultation entitled Heat in Buildings – the Future of Heat. The purpose of the consultation was to ask views on options the government proposed for raising domestic boiler installation efficiency. The aim was to bring in measures that  reduced energy bills for tenants, giving more choice of ways to heat homes but also support the government’s targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through to 2050.   Gas boilers play a huge part in our heating industry accounting for around 1.5 million being installed every year.  The UK is by far the largest boiler market in Europe and the proposals do show that the government does recognise how big an impact these appliances make.

According to the housing white paper published earlier this year, the Government intends to utilise offsite technologies and build around 100,000 modular homes across Britain by 2020. This call for a quick and sustainable solution to the current housing shortage has created a unique opportunity for offsite construction to become a key building method to meet the demand in the housing industry.

The UK finds itself in the midst of an acute housing crisis. Current annual construction levels are typically less than half of the estimated 250,000 new homes this country needs built every year through to at least the 2030s. With only 63% of projects delivered on time and only 49% delivered to budget, it’s clear to see that traditional building practices, whilst still integral, are falling short of meeting major challenges on their own.