Your Home Quality Mark – How do we assess it? An overview of what makes the Home Quality Mark.

This publication provides an overview of the proposed technical direction of what makes the Home Quality Mark as of March 2015. This will be developed through detailed consultation with industry, householders and other organisations. The detailed requirements will be influenced by a range of pilot studies on real housing projects around the country over the next few months. A training programme for Home Quality Mark assessors will begin soon afterwards.

“ We believe that the Home Quality Mark will empower new home buyers and renters, enable housing developers to differentiate their home from those of competitors, and drive quality and sustainability in the UK’s homes.”

Our Mark – the rating With an overall rating based on a scale of up to 5 stars it will be easy to compare different homes quickly and easily in terms of their overall performance.

To provide greater clarity on how the home performs, indicators based on key priority areas focusing on the interests of key parties such as home occupants, developers and planners will also be rated. At the launch indicators from a householder perspective will be;

– Householder Costs.

– Positive impact on Health and Wellbeing,

– Environmental Footprint.

The indicators will be presented to clearly draw out the value of a property to each of these stakeholders. Overtime, further indicators will be developed from different perspectives including; Developer, financial institutions, landlords and local authorities and we encourage industry partners to become involved in their development.

What is measured? The Home Quality Mark will have three sections; Knowledge Sharing, Our Surroundings and My Home. These will each allow for a degree of pre-approval to maximise the cost effectiveness of the assessment process whilst taking account of issues that are site specific in the final assessment of the development. This will encourage good design but reduce repetition of data collection and entry.

The following sections provide a detailed outline of the direction of travel and we invite views on this scope and simple efficient means of evaluating the issues covered through our ongoing engagement with industry and other users.

Knowledge sharing

Good knowledge and understanding is only effective when it is able to influence the decisions and behaviour of those who occupy and manage the home. This section rewards good processes and solutions which reduce the gap between the designer, constructor, client and householder.

This ensures that the so-called performance gap is minimised and the home is truly capable of “doing what it says on the tin”.

Key communication and verificationThe delivery of high quality homes requires efficient and effective communications between those involved in its procurement to ensure that your home is built and performs as designed.

We will recognise building contractors that:

– Undertake effective project management from the start of the process.

– Verify key stages/activities such as product commissioning

– Facilitate engagement between the design team and building constructors.

Skills and trainingTo ensure our homes are built to the highest quality, it is important that building constructors and their workforce have an good understanding of the design decisions and measures we want to see in each and every home. They also need to understand the risks that can occur through site errors and changes

To support building constructors the Home Quality Mark will encourage:

– Training provision for all site operatives.

– Regular progress and milestone throughout the construction process.

Construction processesTo improve the efficiency of constructing homes it is important to consider the energy and waste associated with the building process. Improving this will allow us to build more homes, more cheaply and to a higher standard.

The Home Quality Mark will encourage measures and practices that help improve efficiency such as:

– Monitoring and reducing the energy and water usage in the construction process.

– Effectively managing and reusing waste materials.

CommissioningWe all expect any new home to be fully functional and to meet our quality expectations from the moment we move in. An important part of ensuring that this is the case is the robust checking and commissioning of all systems within your home.

To ensure appropriate commissioning is undertaken the Home Quality Mark will recognise where:

– A commissioning strategy is in place to ensure all systems are fully operational ahead of completion.

– Testing is undertaken to ensure all services and controls are capable of functioning fully throughout the year, particularly in winter and summer time conditions.

Homeowner supportIt is important that any homeowner is familiar with how their home works, what its capabilities are and has an understanding of the surrounding community. Any new home builder should provide the necessary support to meet these expectations from the moment you move in and for the longer term.

To support you in your new home the Home Quality Mark will outline means of sharing relevant information, including:

– Intuitive ways to provide information on how your home operates.

– Supporting services from the developer, promoting an interactive service that gives you a practical understanding and support in the operation of your home.

Monitoring, sensors and controlsThe ability to understand how your home is performing is a valuable tool to empower homeowners in keeping down costs and maximising comfort. Providing accessible tools can help to reduce operational and maintenance costs in your home

The Home Quality Mark will outline measures and systems for your home, including:

– Accessible monitoring and control systems that provide you with information on the performance of systems in your home.

– Detection systems that outline short term and long term maintenance requirements.

Concept and detailed design, construction

Handover and close out

Site surveyIt is important that where a home is built is carefully considered, understanding the opportunities and constraints that will affect the way your home meets your needs now and in the future.

The Home Quality Mark will primarily focus on making sure there is an awareness of:

– The condition of land, including contamination, flood risk, security, privacy and nuisance.

– Infrastructure including water and electrical supplies

– Drainage and sewage arrangements.

Design and characterThe look and feel of your home is an important factor when you’re looking for a new home. A new home should also complement the existing area, taking into account local character whilst creating an attractive design that adds to the overall quality and character of the area.

The Home Quality Mark will give recognition for:

– Engaging with the community and other local bodies through consultation and discussion around design decisions.

– Rewarding homes that fit in with the local character and for larger developments create public spaces associated with your home.

Building footprint and layoutThe design and layout of your home should meet your space needs whilst efficiently using the space available. This can be achieved through the efficient use of your home’s footprint and orientation and the careful arrangement of buildings within a plot or in a community.

The Home Quality Mark will encourage this by:

– Rewarding the efficient use of a home’s footprint, maximising quality external space for occupants without compromising internal space.

Service provisionsIn order to meet the demands of modern life, your home should have sufficient access to digital infrastructure, allowing you to work from home and reduce your travel burden and provide a basis to support the changing demands of everyday life.

We want to ensure that you have:

– Access to secure and fast internet supplies.

– Access to support and enable efficient and easy maintenance of key utilities.

Transport provision It is important to be able to move around your local area safely and efficiently and the provision of a range of forms of transport is a important for any homeowner.

The balance of access to bus and rail services, alongside the provision of cycling facilities and the provision of adequate parking for your home, will ensure a range of options that are sustainable for your community and location.

The Home Quality Mark will encourage the provision of these facilities by:

– Rewarding the accessibility of good public transport connections.

– Encouraging the provision of adequate and safe cycling and pedestrian facilities.

– Encourage the provision of car parking /electric charging and or sharing facilities appropriate to the location and local community.

– Ensuring practical and up to date transport information is available to homeowners.

Local amenitiesIt is important that any homeowner is familiar with how their home works, what its capabilities are and has an understanding of the surrounding community. Any new home builder should provide the necessary support to meet these expectations from the moment you move in and for the longer term.

To support you in your new home the Home Quality Mark will outline means of sharing relevant information, including:

– Intuitive ways to provide information on how your home operates.

– Supporting services from the developer, promoting an interactive service that gives you a practical understanding and support in the operation of your home.

Site context Movement and connectivity

Our surroundings

Unlike anything else we buy or rent, our homes are not moveable. They are intrinsically related to, and influenced by, their surroundings.

This section rewards homes built to work with their surroundings and what their surrounds may be like with changing population and climate to maximise benefits and minimise impacts now and into the future.

Resilience to floodingA homes location is becoming increasingly important when considering the threat of flooding. It affects your insurance premiums and can cause devastation and long term upheaval for individuals and families if flooding does occur. The Home Quality Mark will seek to clarify these risks and ensure homeowners can fully understand the implications of their home’s location.

To do this the Home Quality Mark will set out requirements for:

– Understanding the flood risk for all homes being developed.

– Rewarding homes located in low flood risk areas

– Where homes cannot be located away from the risk of flooding, rewarding additional design measures to minimise and control the risks and potential damage and disturbance

Reducing the likelihood of flooding on othersUnfortunately the development of new homes can increase the flood risks on the land around us, our neighbours, the drainage system and our natural water courses. We need to ensure that any new home doesn’t increase risks through changing the way water drains away.

To do this the Home Quality Mark will encourage design choices and systems that:

– Reduce the amount/rate of rainwater running from our home or site that could cause local flooding.

– Use the natural environment to deal with rainfall wherever possible and integrate this into the landscape to create an attractive environment.

– Avoid the danger of creating possible pollution through water runoff from development areas.

Recreation spaceAny homeowner values the ability to access outdoor space; it can complement the security and comfort of your home. Providing adequate space for recreation or other activities that encourage outdoor activity including exercise, relaxation and even the growing of food helps to promote more sustainable, active and healthier lifestyle.

Recreation is encouraged by rewarding:

– The availability of recreation space for all in a communal or private setting.

– The utilisation of suitable public space locally.

– The provision of appropriate spaces for growing food.

Maintaining and enhancing ecological valueIn order to create an attractive environment it is important to maintain existing local ecological character and enhance this wherever possible. This will help to preserve the character and value of the local landscape and will potentially contribute to the value and appeal of the area and community.

In order to capitalise on this the Home Quality Mark will recognise where:

– Existing ecological and landscape value and risks are understood.

– The experience of experts is utilised where appropriate to determine existing value and opportunities for enhancement on the site and local area.

– Key existing natural features are protected both during construction and into the future.

– Maintenance arrangements are put in place to protect these features.

Safety and resilience Outdoors

Safety and securityWe all expect to feel safe and secure, when you’re inside your home, in the garden or in the neighbourhood. It’s an important factor in determining the quality of your street or the community.

The Home Quality Mark will promote the design of safe and secure homes and communities by:

– Taking into account the relationship of your home to your street and other open areas.

– Providing adequate internal and external lighting that does not create hiding places.

– Making sure public spaces and footpaths are overlooked and are designed to reduce insecure and unusable space.

My home

Better designed and better built homes can last many generations. This section rewards homes that are built to ensure they provide spaces that are healthy to live in but also don’t cost the earth.

This section sets specific performance outcomes for your home whilst allowing a degree of flexibility in the means of determining this. Wherever possible commonly used assessment methodologies will be used based on simple calculations to avoid additional costs.

These will include the use of an extended Building Regulations calculation, Passivhaus certification and more detailed dynamic performance modelling as appropriate to calculate a number of performance characteristics relating to energy, comfort and overheating.

Air qualityThe quality of the air in your home is perhaps not something many people think about, but the reality is that is this is not managed appropriately this can impact your health.

The incidence of asthma and other breathing complaints is on the increase and it is widely accepted that the indoor environment can exacerbate and bring on such problems in many people whether or not they have suffered in the past. Ventilation strategies and systems need to provide clean air circulation in your home.

To ensure that air quality is factored in to the design of your home the Home Quality Mark will encourage:

– Adequate ventilation that doesn’t compromise the cost of heating of your home or your comfort.

LightingHigh quality lighting design is an important and desirable feature that supports how you feel and use your home. Providing adequate access to and control of lighting within your home is a basic function that contributes to our comfort and health.

The Home Quality Mark will promote the design of homes that provide this through the provision of:

– Access to natural light and controllable artificial lighting where you need it.

– Suitably located controls that are accessible and easy to use.

NoiseAn important underlying quality of any home is the management of sound so allowing for comfort and privacy within your home. It is critical to consider the specific needs of spaces within your home and the potential impact of the surrounding area on your home.

The Home Quality Mark will recognise where your home contains:

– Insulation and treatment that creates the right acoustic environment.

– Considering internal sound insulation.

– Designing the layout and construction of your home to minimise the impacts of noise from the local area.

CostThe everyday cost of your running your home is a critical factor that affects your freedom in your day to day life. Manageable costs allow you to maintain temperature, run hot water and use your personal devices, as well as giving you more financial freedom outside of your home. Whilst behaviour impacts on costs it is important that your home plays its part in reducing costs.

The Home Quality Mark will encourage homes that minimise these pressures by ensuring that:

– Cost efficiency is central to the design of your home.

– You have access to the relevant information and controls to understand how to optimise the efficiency of your home and how your behaviour influences this.

Energy footprintAlongside the reduction of costs, we also have a responsibility to reduce our dependency on energy sources that negatively impact our environment, changing our climate and impacting our health.

The Home Quality Mark will promote measures that help to reduce these impacts, focusing on:

– Reducing the use of energy that produces C02 emissions and other pollutants through reduced energy demand in your home.

– Rewarding the use of appropriate and cost effective renewable energy sources.

– Encouraging systems that reduce local pollutants.

TemperatureA basic expectation for our homes is that they provide comfortable conditions in which to go about our daily lives. To avoid overheating and ensure affordability, any new home needs to offer a stable and warm environment that is easier to heat at a lower cost in winter but is capable of providing ‘cool air’ and ventilation in summer.

To meet this challenge the Home Quality Mark will recognise steps taken to:

– Avoid the risk of overheating whilst ensuring well insulated new homes.

– Provide adequate and controllable ventilation capable of meeting the varying demands of the seasons.

Home comfort Predicted in use energy

Responsible and ethical materials selectionThe materials that make up our home have an impact on the environment and societies involved in their extraction, processing, manufacture and transportation.

For us to build more sustainably we need to account for these impacts, considering how they can be reduced through careful consideration of their life cycle impacts and the nature of their procurement through ‘responsible sourcing’. Understanding material and product lifecycles can also help to inform maintenance and operational costs of your home long term.

To ensure that these impacts are fully understood and considered the Home Quality Mark will promote the specification of materials:

– With low environmental impacts.

– That are sourced sustainably in line with recognised responsible sourcing standards.

– Fully considering the life cycle costs of products and materials.

Durability and resilienceFor any home to meet the demands of everyday life, the materials used ranging from the fixtures and fittings through to the structural and finishing materials used have to be durable to ensure that the function and performance of your home isn’t reduced, or the cost of maintenance become unaffordable, over time.

Durable materials need to meet the demands of everyday life and be able to endure the environment around them.

The Home Quality Mark sets out measures to promote the use of more durable materials in your home including:

– Specifying materials with durable properties where possible.

– Encouraging design decisions that will make your home more resilient to environmental damage, flood and wear and tear.

Water efficiencyThe availability of water is a basic expectation for any home and the water supply available to any homeowner and consumption levels has to provide a balance that meets their demands.

To ensure that water supplies don’t become strained, we need to use it efficiently within our homes and reduce the impact of any system failures or leaks that may cause avoidable damage. This can help to reduce the cost of water across the UK and prevent excessive extraction at times of shortfall which harms our environment and wildlife.

To support this we have outlined measures that your home should embody:

– The provision of fittings and systems to improve water efficiency.

– Appropriate encouragement for collection, reuse and recycling arrangements.

– Monitoring and detection systems that provide you information on the performance on water systems in your home.

Dwelling spaceSpace is a key factor when you’re looking for a new home. Rooms need to be well designed and sized appropriately to meet your everyday and future needs recognising the impacts that this can have on property and heating costs. The demands that we place on our homes changes over time and as a result of changes to our circumstances and health.

To accommodate this, our homes need to be designed to make them easier to access and adapt to meet differing needs and requirements. Whether you’re a young couple in your first home, a young family or an elderly person keen to remain in your own home, it is important that your home can adapt to provide the comfort, affordability and security that you need.

To encourage the provision of space within your home that meets your changing needs the Home Quality Mark will recognise where space provided is:

– Adequately sized for living and storage.

– Efficiently designed with accessibility and adaptability for all homeowners in mind.

– Functional and adaptable to continue to meet the demands of modern life.

Materials Water Space

To find out more visit homequalitymark.com

Tel +44(0) 333 321 8811Email hqm@bre.co.ukWeb homequalitymark.com

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