Skip to main content
search
0

GBE Other issues (Checklist) G#1570 N#1506

By 16 July 2014September 7th, 2019Checklist, Code, Encyclopaedia, Other issues

GBE Other issues Checklist

GBE > Encyclopaedia > Code > Checklist > Other Issues > G#1570 N#1506

GBE Other issues Checklist
Index:

STRATEGIC & TACTICAL ISSUES

  • Commercial Green
  • Natural Step
  • BREEAM
  • EcoHomes (BREEAM for Homes in Scotland)

ADAPTABILITY & FLEXIBILITY OF USE:

  • Lifetime Homes:
  • Provision or adding or updating new technology in the future:
  • Access and independence: Controls (disabilities)
  • Building Regulations Approved Document M (BRAD M)
  • Design for location as much as the building brief, avoid over design.
  • Positive approach
  • Negative approach

SOCIAL ISSUES:

  • Privacy and community
  • Health, Safety and Welfare
  • Choice of materials:
  • Children’s play and interaction
  • Noise impact
  • Daylight
  • Housing: Secure by Design (Police Commissioners)
  • Building for Life
  • Access and independence: Controls (disabilities)

ECONOMIC FACTORS:

  • Lean Construction
  • Co-ordinated Project Information
  • Reduced running costs (Energy & Utility services)
  • Understanding whole life costing
  • Integrating Best Value approach
  • Supply chain management:
  • Local sourcing

SUSTAINABLE CONTRACTING

OPERATIONAL CONSTRUCTION ISSUES:

  • Soil/ground conditioning 
  • Impact on neighbourhood
  • Considerate Contractor Scheme methods
  • Site Canteen
  • Waste minimisation and management
  • Preliminaries:
  • Social Issues 
  • Resources
  • Site Waste Management Plan
  • Substitution
  • Economic
  • Environmental 

GENERAL ISSUES: BUILDING ADAPTABILITY

  • consistent component life equal to design life
  • Alternatives
  • Renewable compliant/renewable ready:
  • Lifetime Homes standards
  • BS 7543:1992:Guide to durability of buildings and building elements, products and components
  • Component Life Manuals:

CONSTRUCTION PLANNING AND LOGISTICS

  • minimising carbon approach:
  • Lower embodied carbon
  • Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
  • Offsite prefabrication
  • standard size components

MATERIALS

  • CONSIDER: Life Cycle Analysis and Costing
  • Use of on-site as-found Materials
  • Allergy free materials
  • Toxicity-free
  • Reduce use of violet materials:
  • CONSIDER natural materials
  • External features:

METHODS OF CONSTRUCTION:

TRANSPORT ISSUES

  • Alternatives to the car

© GBE NGS ASWS Brian Murphy aka BrianSpecMan *
2nd February 2013 – 7th September 2019

GBE Other issues Checklist
About: %%%

%%%

This information is posted here but needs to be updated

STRATEGIC ISSUES

Commercial Green:

  • Moving sustainable-design towards greater commercial feasibility Commercial Green is promoted by multi-disciplinary engineers Gifford.
  • Applying existing sustainability standards in a coherent ‘one stop shop’ way.

Natural Step:

  • Natural Step is addressing the tendency to ignore the current environmental issues until they reach crisis point. Which manifests itself as the industry continuing to use materials and methods which will result in less choice as time progresses, until we reach the point where there is no longer a choice, to avoid oblivion the most draconian methods will have to be adopted, until the planet can recover.

BREEAM:

  • Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method for Offices, Retail warehouses, Industrial, Retail developments, Schools.
  • Apply principle to all buildings in the absence of a formal scheme, develop bespoke solutions and give something back to the industry. 

EcoHomes (BREEAM for Homes in Scotland)

  • Since an EcoHomes ‘Pass’ can be achieved for no financial outlay and is easy to achieve what is its purpose, always aim for ‘Excellent’ or higher.

BRE Green Guide to Specification

  • Choice of materials to achieve EcoHomes rating is on an A+ABCDE scale 
  • A+ being the best, 
  • but it only classifies the greener end of conventional violet materials available
  • scope does not address many sustainable, renewable, natural, recycled materials, yet.

ADAPTABILITY & FLEXIBILITY OF USE:

Lifetime Homes:

  • Accommodate changes in families from young couple, add children and into old age

Case Study: Greenwich Millennium Village housing by Proctor & Matthews

  • Flat layouts, slide away acoustic walls, between bedrooms and living rooms, fold up beds into wardrobes, allow opening up of the house during the day.
  • The plan also allows the family to grow to have one then two bedrooms, then one bedroom again, the bedoom that is not required to be a bedroom can become a work room or just more living space.
  • The flat plan can also become 3 bedrooms and one living/kitchen/dining room in a flat-share arrangement.

Case Study: BRE’s Integer House

  • has partitions between two bedrooms hung on tracks to allow lateral movement to change room sizes, the partitions can also swivel in vertical axis to allow ways through between rooms.

Provision for updating or adding new technology in the future:

Case Study: BRE’s Integer House:

  • services run behind removable skirting, architraves, etc. 
  • to allow rapid rewiring or additions of services

Case Study: BedZED

  • services run behind hollow skirting, dado, movement joint covers, etc.

Access and independence: Controls (disabilities)

  • Door openings minimum 900 mm. wide
  • corridors minimum 900 mm. wide
  • Flush threshold front and rear.
  • Building Regulations Approved Document M (BRAD M) 
    • Entrances, doors, halls, rooms, toilets, bathrooms, kitchens, electrics, gardens.

Design for location as much as the building brief,

  • avoid over design.
  • Positive approach: 
    • do not over design to meet specific requirements of the brief that if the Client moves out the building become redundant because no other users can occupy the building
  • Negative approach: 
    • design an ice rink as a factory to revert to a factory use if the Ice Rink use fails

SOCIAL ISSUES:

  • Privacy and community
  • Health, Safety and Wellfare
  • Build tight, Ventilate right
  • Poor indoor air quality if high performance windows and doors and air-tightness improvements without adequate purposeful ventilation

Choice of materials:

  • Less synthetic paints,
  • less materials which off-gas when new or for longer,
  • less solvent based paints, but be careful low VOC paints can have harmful chemicals added to ensure performance of water based paint is similar to solvent based.

Children’s play and interaction

  • Noise impact
  • Daylight

Secure by Design (Police Commissioners)

  • Affects doors and windows construction, e.g. internal glazing beads,
  • Limit number of flats to one stair core,

Building for Life

  • Access and independence: Controls (disabilities)
  • Door openings minimum 900 mm. corridors minimum 900 mm
  • Flush threshold front and rear
  • BRAD M Toilets with grab bars

Decent Homes:

  • Upgrades need to consider sustainability and adopt EcoHomes standards
  • Consider the significant issue of waste generated and need to divert from landfill.

ECONOMIC FACTORS:

  • Lean Construction seeking efficiency and waste reduction in all management activities
  • Co-ordinated Project Information to minimise Quality Related Events and reduce defects and waste
  • Reduced running costs (Energy & Utility services)
  • Retire to no domestic services bills
  • Understanding whole life costing
  • Integrating Best Value approach

Supply chain management:

  • materials choices,
  • minimising packaging waste,
  • Take-back (off-cuts) schemes: e.g. British Gypsum for plasterboard, Kingspan for foamed insulation,
  • Take-back for refurbishment: e.g. Interface Europe and Milliken carpets
  • Take-back for packaging: e.g. Crown take back clean empty plastic paint cans
  • Use or return to stock: Some speculative housing developers have supply chain partnership arrangements which require surplus to requirement materials are take back into stock by the supplier
  • Take-back for packaging: e.g. Algood Ironmongery produce simple recyclable packaging
  • uses of recycled materials
  • Local sourcing reducing transport miles for materials
  • Use of builders merchants for transporting of materials between manufacturer and site

Internet shopping anytime delivery:

  • Consider secure external storage provision for

SUSTAINABLE CONTRACTING

OPERATIONAL CONSTRUCTION ISSUES:

  • Soil/ground conditioning
  • Considerate Contractor Scheme
  • Impact on neighbourhood

Site Canteen

  • Waste minimisation and management
  • Recycling paper and segregating plastic bottles and tin cans etc
  • On-Site canteens to reduce journeys and traffic concentrations around lunchtimes
  • Efficiency in mass production of hot food
  • Efficient waste management in kitchens and food areas

Preliminaries:

Social Issues

  • Require the recruitment of labour from the communities local to the site (Bovis Lendlease and Carrillion examples)
  • Work with the Local Employment Office to set up recruitment office at site boundary on larger projects.
  • Require the adoption of the Considerate Contractor Scheme by Contractor

Resources:

  • Require the adoption of the Site Waste Management Plan (DTI and Constructing Excellence)
  • Require the adoption of one of the SMARTWaste monitoring schemes
  • Require waste reporting based on the KPI Key Performance Indicators (Constructing Excellence)
  • Maximise the use of local/regional materials and products used on the project.
  • Aim to make the site autonomous in respect of materials, especially in respect of landscape materials and to a lesser extend building materials. 

Substitution

  • Control and limit Specifications Substitution on site
  • NBS reported substitution to be 30% of materials Aug 2004

Economic

  • Purchase local materials to minimise transport costs and emissions.
  • Waste reduction can save 3% of build costs (DTI at SWMP Launch July 2004)
  • Waste reduction can same 20% of materials costs (DTI at SWMP Launch July 2004)

Environmental

  • Require the site to use a green tariff electricity supply for the duration of the construction

GENERAL ISSUES: BUILDING ADAPTABILITY

  • Set out to achieve consistent component life equal to design life

Alternative:

  • Design a long life durable structure with replaceable shorter life building fabric and secondary components
  • Design shorter life components to be robust enough to dismantle and reassemble,
  • Allow for sizing and operation of current and foreseeable lower carbon energy systems and appliances

Renewable compliant/renewable ready:

  • Make provision for additional services in future, on roofs, in the structure, roof upstand, etc
  • Design easy access to services to allow simple additions or replacement of system wiring
  • Specify reversible fixings for internal walls, fittings and services
  • Specify layering of building and services to minimise penetrations through vapour barriers, air tightness layers, damp proof membranes and gas proof membranes, thermal and acoustic insulation, etc
  • Specify modular components and make assemblies multiples of units
  • Specify easily replaceable external wall components: Segal method

Services:

  • Adopt wireless networks with caution since radiation from mobile phones is an issues the same may apply to wireless networks which are often left on all the time 24 hours a day 356 days a year.

Adaptable floor plans:

  • Greenwich Millennium Village adopted 1956 Parker Morris Standards for Housing (set minimum space standards for house, room and storage floor areas); included moveable internal walls – reduces need for extensions, improves quality of life.
  • Lifetime Homes standards (adaptability through whole life of family through 3 generations)
  • Integer House Projects: services run behind skirtings fixed for easy removal
  • 300 mm. wide doors into services ducts to allow access for adaptation and additions

Durability & Design Life

  • BS 7543:1992:Guide to durability of buildings and building elements, products and components
  • 60 year normal life

Component Life Manuals:

  • HAPM Component Life Manual (published by SPON)
  • Building Performance Group Building Fabric Component Life Manual (published by SPON)
  • BLP Services Component Life Manual (published by Blackwell)

Embodied carbon:

  • emerging products often only available from europe
  • transport emissions rise with transport distances
  • most of Construction Resources’ products were imported
  • NBT import many but are trying to get UK manufacturers to adopt alternative methods
  • We need a robust methodology to assess the carbon emissions of any action carried out on the project
  • an applied and flexible Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

Offsite prefabrication

  • use of standard size components to minimise waste

Store materials

  • to prevent deterioration
  • unused materials for snagging,
  • 12 month defects inspection
  • ongoing FM (Facilities Management) maintenance of building

Return of palleting and packaging to manufacturer or third party specialist

Segregation of waste to allow return to manufacturer under take-back schemes

MATERIALS

Increase the use of the following:

  • Product Quality marks (BSI Kitemark, BBA, etc) 3rd party accreditation
  • Durable materials, long Component Life
  • Recycled primary materials
  • High Recycled content
  • Use of materials made from secondary materials: aggregates
  • Reuse and recycling of construction or demolition waste
  • Natural and renewable materials (wool, timber, non-food crops, etc.)
  • High Natural content
  • Manufactured renewables (e.g. biopolymers, biotechnology-manufactured materials)
  • Appropriate advanced materials e.g. self compacting concrete
  • FSC certified timber sources and timber based materials, See Z10
  • FSC Chain of custody from forest to site. See Z10
  • ZODP Zero Ozone Depleting Potential materials, See Z50

Reduced carbon impact as well as ozone and health benefits

  • Low Greenhouse Gas Potential materials, (reduced carbon impact as well as ozone and health benefits)
  • Use of materials with Hygroscopicity, for less risk of condensation and degradation due to moisture, and no loss of performance if wet or in humid conditions

CONSIDER: Life Cycle Analysis and Costing

  • Use of on-site as-found Materials
  • On site storage for excess for future maintenance
  • Allergy free materials
  • Toxicity-free

Reduce use of the following:

  • Fossil fuel-based materials, petrochemicals, plastics
  • Materials containing halogens, formaldehydes and other VOCs, See Z12 and M60
  • Materials containing Chlorine, PVC, CFC, HCFC, HFC, CPE, See Z50
  • PVC (Polyvinylchloride) See Z50
  • CCA (Copper Chrome Arsenic) Treated softwood, See Z12
  • Creosote treated timber See Z12
  • Deleterious Substances listed in European Waste Catalogue See A38 APP

Shell:

In addition to items in General above, consider use of:

  • Unfired clay products: bricks, blocks, plasters, paints, (for their breatheability and humidity control value)
  • Geopolymers, at least for low risk uses such as:
  • Internal walls, floors, ceilings, fixtures, fittings etc
  • Use paints and other coatings without hazardous chemicals;

CONSIDER

  • natural paints

External features:

  • Porous car parking, drive, path, sports surfaces, using recycled materials,
  • Purpose made pavers with drain channels and slots
  • MOT type 1 minus the fines to create interstices for water storage
  • with or without waterproof membrane below sub bases.

METHODS OF CONSTRUCTION:

Offsite prefabrication:

  • Construction Industry skills shortage encourages more factory production
  • Use of standard size components without cutting, to minimise offcuts and waste,
  • Balance with avoiding transporting large volumes of air,
  • Panelisation in preference to volumetric, unless fully equipped and heavy,
  • Making assemblies multiples of units, minimising waste, using left over pieces until all gone

On-site temporary factory production,

  • aiming for factory conditions and better quality work and less waste. benefits: less vehicles to deliver materials.
  • Set up on-site factory production under weatherproof enclosure on solid base and thermally comfortable conditions, insulated to avoid wasting heat.

Airtightness layer, Breathing wall, hygroscopicity, moisture uptake and release

  • As opposed to vapour resistant barrier, punctured by services, vapour transfer, susceptible insulation, water held against timber sections and breather membrane
  • Breathing Walls and Roof construction acknowledged and confirmed by BRE
  • Layering of building and services to avoid complexity and puncturing of DPC, DPM, GPM, VB, BM, ATL, etc

TRANSPORT ISSUES

Transport movements

  • 23rd Mar 2005 Working Time Directive requires new working practices which will mean that overnight the UK will be 112,000 HGV drivers short of requirements
  • (Aggregate Industries MasterBlock Logistics information)
  • A good incentive to start taking rail freight and canals more seriously.
  • Use local materials, manufacturers, suppliers and sub-contractors where possible, to reduce travel.
  • Contractor’s staff and Sub-contractors travel daily from base unless using local accommodation, potentially a bigger impact than materials transport travelling once.
  • France’s Minitel has been used by lorry drivers to ensure they rarely travel empty
  • The internet has the potential to address this issue in the UK.
  • Minimise transport movements – consider use of logistics software, GIS/GPS, car-share, lift-share Websites, car-pools

Alternatives to the car:

  • Pedestrians and cyclists; busses, trams, trains, 
  • but only if public services are well connected and well used
  • Transport vehicles – consider staff bus,
  • fuel used in bus, for non-local items delivery by rail?

Alternative cars

  • renewable electricity charged: 
  • Photovoltaic charged, 
  • multi-fuel, 
  • LPG, 
  • Bio-fuel,
  • hydrogen cell

Internet shopping anytime delivery,

  • secure storage provision and electronic logging
  • Local and on-site food to avoid transport miles and packaging
  • Just in time to prevent double handling and controls for avoiding over-ordering
  • Refrigerated vehicles: Photovoltaic roof to cool contents

© GBE NGS ASWS Brian Murphy aka BrianSpecMan *
2nd February 2013 – 7th September 2019

GBE Other issues Checklist
See Also:

GBE Matrix

© GBE NGS ASWS Brian Murphy aka BrianSpecMan *
15th July 2014 – 7th September 2019
Links Checked 7th September 2019

Tags:

Next Post

Leave a Reply

Close Menu