A Few Facts about the Code for Sustainable Homes

How the Code Works

The Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH) offers a headline star rating system (1-6 stars) depending on the amount of points a house is awarded. Points are gained for a whole range of features including, controversially, the environmental impact of how materials were sourced; provision of a home office; energy sources; and the provision of low-energy white goods. The full points scheme is provided in detail in the CSH.

Five Strange Things About the Code

• In order to achieve 1-star status, the Code demands that recycling containers ‘should not be stacked, to facilitate ease of use’.
• The Code gives you points, and therefore a higher rating, ‘for providing space and posts, footings and fixings for drying clothes in a secure environment’.
• Appliances are included in the assessment. Housebuilders (including self-builders) will get the same points score for the inclusion of A+ rated fridges and freezers as they will ‘for providing information on purchasing and benefits of efficient white goods, where they are not supplied with the new home’.
• Where provision is made for the safe, weather-proof and secure storage of cycles, at one cycle space per bedroom, extra points and possibly a higher rating is awarded.
• Best to include a home office. It gets the same rating of importance as the provision of at least 10% of energy by renewable sources.

The Financial Implications of Zero Carbon

The Stewart Milne Group had a 5-star rated house at BRE’s Offsite 2007 exhibition and Glenn Allison, MD of Stewart Milne, said: “It’s incredibly expensive to do, and we have some real doubts as to the performance of solar panels and wind turbines in particular. We know that there are also all kinds of insurance obstacles.”We can only wonder what his comment on a 6-star house would be.

Which raises another issue. The Stewart Milne house, not uncommonly, uses wind power to generate electricity. A wind turbine costing around £5,000 will generate the necessary 25% of the electricity demand (still some way off zero carbon) but cannot be simply bolted to the pine-end wall of a timber framed house. It needs a good deal of structural support to carry its weight and the loads imposed by the wind. In addition, the NHBC won’t insure any of these products which are fixed to buildings.

Referencing the Code means having some form of Code assessment, which will not be free. Assessors charge at around the same rate as your architect and a full assessment could take anything from eight to 24 hours, depending on the location of the site and the complexity of the development.

Download the latest CSH guidelines PDF from Communities and Local Government

Further reading:

• Read more about Zero Carbon Homes
• How to Achieve Level 3 of the Code for Sustainable Homes
• A Super Insulated Self Build With No Central Heating