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GBREA Green Building Readymade Elemental Assemblies

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Competent Elemental Assemblies

  • In order to design our way out of the Incompetency, Biodiversity and Climate Crisis as rapidly as possible we need robust data about:
    • the products we use,
    • the elemental assemblies we design and use them in,
    • the performance of the elements and the buildings we assemble.
  • Green Building Calculator (GBC) knows what data it needs to be able to interrogate a building design, many of the calculators are implemented, more will follow, they are linked to look-up tables
    • Materials and products performance properties
    • Materials and products costs
    • Materials and products specifications
  • GBC includes elemental assemblies to choose from, in which the user chooses each component from a long potential list, chooses from option lists of materials for each component, decides thicknesses; it then gives R and U values and indicates targets met or not
  • GBC also plans to add many readymade elemental assemblies from many sources to speed up design with many readymade solutions:
    • 892 elemental assemblies are included so far for walls, floors, roofs, landscape
    • They are of know performance, the components are all in competent order
    • Manufacturer’s accredited assemblies (tested, accredited or certified)
      • incorporating all accessories, systems: their data and performances
      • They have been tested and/or accredited for the manufacturers
    • IBO Passivhaus assemblies (New Build and Retrofit; Conventional and Green)
    • Accredited Construction Details (LABC certified)
    • Robust Details (Building Regulations Approved Document E Acoustic)
    • BRE Green Guide to Specification Assemblies (if BRE will share, unlikely, we have asked!)
    • The collection will grow as more manufacturers engage
    • A hierarchy of methods of assembly, each with GBC BEACoN Building Element Assembly Code Number and a search tool to pinpoint the one in a thousand assembly users want to adopt
  • A spreadsheet has been developed by GBC to capture this information, essentially the same as the Elemental Assemblies worksheet
    • It carries out U value calculations, indicating if target is met or not
    • it includes Bill of Quantities to engage with Green Building Price Book to provide component, element and building costs
    • It has Embodied Energy and Carbon calculator that will engage with Green Building Product Data Collection to provide component, element and building impacts
    • It has Environmental Declaration table that will engage with Green Building Product data Collection to collect materials and product data to provide Environmental Component, Element and Building Declarations (ECD, EED, EBD)
    • Other calculations will be added for Condensation check, Decrement delay check and many more later

Competent Information

  • Grenfell enquiry has highlighted ‘a culture of incompetency’ runs from top to bottom of the construction industry affecting:
    • Government, regulators, accreditors, assessors, accreditation and test houses, insurers, advisory bodies, clients, agents, designers, constructors, installers, suppliers and manufacturers;
    • from directors through to employees, marketing departments being highlighted as a problem
    • “Reputable firms” have been found wanting, placing sales opportunities above life safety
  • Current and future information sources need to be part of the new ‘Culture of Competency’ (CoC) instilled in the Code of Construction Product Information (CCPI) and handled or interrogated within Product Information Management (PIM) systems and design and decision tools like GBC.
  • Existing test evidence, certificates, accreditations or assessments need to be refreshed within the new CoC to provide confidence to the users
  • GBC, GBPB, GBPDC & GBRS will seek ‘culture of competency’ data from CCPI signatories and from new evidence as it becomes available.

Green Building Readymade Elemental Assemblies (GBREA)

  • We all need better materials and product data to get out of this mess
  • We all need to build low carbon buildings without the ‘race to the bottom’
  • We all need robust data to feed robust specifications
  • Clients need robust competent data and specifications to protect their ambitions
  • Green Building Calculator (GBC) needs better data to feed the calculations
  • Hence GBREA is planned to feed GBC and other design and decision tools in the same boat
  • 4 primary sets of information are being collected initially, to correspond to GBC development:
    • GBC V1 Properties for U or R value calculations: Density, thickness, k value
    • GBC V2 Embodied Energy, Embodied Carbon & Sequestered Carbon
    • GBC V3 Life Cycle Assessment > Environmental Product Declaration
    • GBC V2 Cost data is called for by Green Building Price Book (GBPB)
  • Initially GBC needs data in Excel worksheets
  • The GBREA worksheet is being developed between GBC V2 and GBC V3
  • GBC anticipate manufacturers, suppliers and installers providing their assembly data to help get their products and systems specified and used
  • GBC will priorities collecting data on low energy, low carbon, low plastic, low water, low chemistry materials and products and assemblies
  • Once populated GBC will merge in the worksheets so users have access to them
  • Drop down lists will be expanded to give access to new product added to worksheets
  • And a search tool will be developed to find and engage one out of a thousand assemblies

Future developments

  • GBC anticipates quickly developing online platforms to capture:
    • Green Building Product Data Collection (GBPDC)
    • Green Building Price Book (GBPB)
    • Green Building Robust Specification (GBRS)
    • They may be the same platform with two or more data entry portals
    • Green Building Readymade Elemental Assemblies (GBREA), including:
    • U value calculations
    • Embodied Energy and Carbon Calculations
    • Environmental Component, Element and Building Declarations
  • They become Look Up Tables and Drop Down Lists to feed GBC
    • May also become standalone data sources
    • All pieces of information are essential to Green Building Calculator
  • As GBC versions develop more datasets will be required to interrogate products
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GBREA Green Building Readymade Elemental Assemblies C#1770 End.

© GBE GBC GBL NGS ASWS Brian Murphy aka BrianSpecMan **
28th January 2023

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