The new Approved Documents L1A, L1B, L2A and L2B are effective from 6th April 2006. They are available to view and download from the DCLG website, the following however gives a brief overview.
The new document is split into four parts:
- L1A – Work in New Dwellings
- L1B – Work in Existing Dwellings
- L2A – Work in New Buildings other than Dwellings
- L2B – Work in Existing Buildings other than Dwellings
Immediately apparent is that compliance with the Regulations is now only by an energy rating method – the Elemental and Target U-value methods have been dropped completely. This is due to the requirements of the Energy Performance in Buildings Directive effective in 2006.
These proposals offer a radical change to the methods traditionally used to show compliance with the energy conservation provisions of the Regulations. An issue that will test specifiers is the fact that little advice is actually contained in the Documents and instead reference must be made to the SAP and SBEM calculation methodology as design tools and to the second tier documents. The SAP/SBEM calculation done at the design stage must be repeated for the ‘as-built’ building to account for any changes to specifications and to reflect the actual air-tightness of the building.
We have renewed all of our technical brochures to reflect these changes - they can be viewed in the 'Choose a Product' section.
Click here for a more comprehensive overview of the Approved Documents.
