Last month the government finally announced the introduction of the new Future Homes Standard (FHS). In the midst of the unfolding war in the Middle East, the announcement was not met with much interest by most media outlets and my conversations over the past few weeks suggest that few people outside of the housing industry are aware of the forthcoming changes. But the fact is that these changes represent a seismic change to housebuilding in the UK and future home buyers will find themselves impacted by them whether they like it or not.
The headline aim is stark: FHS will require all homes built from 2028 onwards to produce at least 75% less greenhouse gas emissions than those built in accordance with the existing regulations. This is a hugely ambitious target and in order to achieve it renewable energy generation will become mandatory in all new homes. This will typically involve solar photovoltaic (PV) panels being fitted over at least 40% of the roof area. There will also be improved fabric standards, with stricter standards for the insultation and air tightness of new homes. So far, so uncontroversial – a growing number of houses already have PV panels on the roof and who is going to complain about the reduction in draughts in their home?
But other changes are likely to have a significant impact on new-home occupants. It is not possible for existing fossil-fuel heating systems to meet the new standards and so the FHS effectively outlaws the use of gas-fired central heating systems which are standard in most houses currently. Given where we are with current technology this effectively mandates the use of heat pumps or heat networks in all new homes.
Heat pump technology has proved somewhat controversial. It is a relatively new technology and so is still very expensive to install compared to the price of gas central heating. The effectiveness and operability of the technology has been the subject of much dispute – some people who have fitted them have loved them but others have been deeply disappointed.
Over and above all of this, because of the increased airtightness of homes, new homes will also require mechanical ventilation systems to be installed in order to ensure that they don’t overheat during the various heatwaves. (Many of us will have had experience of such systems at our workplaces – and also have had experience of the various ‘thermometer wars’ that play out across an office where some people complain about being too hot and others complain that ‘It’s freezing!’) Mechanical ventilation systems essentially automate something that we used to do manually – by opening or closing a window. They therefore require people to engage with technology in order to do something quite basic which previously didn’t require any technological intervention.
The point is that people currently have had a choice. Some have chosen to install a heat pump and/or a mechanical ventilation system. As with any new technology, ‘Innovators’ and ‘Early Adopters’ are generally keen to make the technology work. If you’ve spent £14,000 on a heat pump it is in your interests to make sure it is fitted properly, that the operation of it is explained to you adequately, and that the contractor you’ve employed provides a good after-sales service. The contractors too are motivated because they know that currently people have a choice regarding their heating system and installing a heat pump is not necessarily the most obvious one to make.
Once the FHS becomes mandatory however, the situation will change radically. People will not have a choice and so all the stages of technology adoption that typically happen over a longer period will need to happen at once.
To put this in context, Everett Rogers’ Technology Adoption Life Cycle observed that generally 16% of people are either Innovators or Early Adopters. But a massive 50% of people are either Late Majority adopters or Laggards. (Rogers classed the remaining 34% as Early Majority adopters). These people will only voluntarily adopt a new technology when it has become mainstream and proved its worth (and in the case of Laggards, sometimes not even then). These people are not motivated to make new technology work, indeed they might be highly sceptical of it and even resistant to it. And they frequently have their resistance catered to by media outlets that are only too happy to print alarmist stories about the natural advance of technology signalling the end of humanity as we know.
It is imperative therefore that any new technology that wishes to become widely adopted is reliable and easily understood. It must be affordable, but most of all it be intuitive to use. For technology that is being made mandatory these requirements are doubly important. If technology is not to be discredited it mustn’t be forced on people before it is ready because, according to Everett, 68% of people (Early and Late Majority adopters) will have no interest in making the technology work, and an additional 16% of people (the Laggards) will be actively willing it to fail.
Unfortunately, it has become increasingly clear to me as I’ve sought to incorporate the FHS into developments that these basic tests are not yet met. Essentially we are facing four significant problems:
- Introducing FHS is going to increase the upfront cost of buying a new house significantly
- Much of the technology we are about to make mandatory is not yet intuitive enough for people to use it confidently
- ‘Real world’ performance of FHS technology differs – often very substantially – from the manufacturers’ claimed performance.
- There is a dearth of people in the construction industry who understand it well enough to install it properly and ensure that it is being used optimally.
Focussing on the first two of these issues, I recently attended run by my CNM colleague Mike Leonard looking at the implementation of FHS so far. On a recent social housing scheme in Birmingham that had been analysed exhaustively by independent academic researchers it was reported that the initial cost of constructing the units was 25% more on average than units built to current standards. This is a lot more than the £4,350 the government estimates. And yet, because of the ways red book valuations are conducted, the FHS houses were valued no higher and therefore the rents that could be charged were no higher. This might be great news for tenants, but it certainly isn’t for their landlords.
Of course, the claim is often made that the increase in capital costs will be more than offset by the savings to occupants of living in an FHS home. However, what has become clear is that the technology itself is still not easily understood and its performance can easily be undermined by users behaving in the way that they have been taught to behave rather than in the new which the technology requires. Put simply people want to turn off their heating when they leave their house, they want to be able to tun it up when it’s cold and wet outside, and they want to be able to open a window when it gets too hot and stuffy. And yet all of these intuitive behaviours actually undermine system performance and potentially increase rather than reduce tenants’ bills. A colleague of mine was invited to inspect a new ‘Net Zero’ building to prove that the technology did indeed work. Yet when he arrived, he found that the building’s occupants had turned off the heat pump and plugged in electric heaters because it was the only way get the heat up to a comfortable temperature. The environmental and financial cost of that kind of pragmatic decision being multiplied across the country would be huge.
As the CNM’s recent response the government’s announcement says, “Current approaches often assume levels of engagement and behavioural adaptation that cannot be relied upon in practice, particularly in social housing. Most occupants want homes that are warm, comfortable, and easy to control, without needing to understand complex systems or significantly change established behaviours. Where technologies are not intuitive or fail to meet these expectations, occupants may disengage, override systems, or adopt less efficient alternatives—undermining performance and eroding trust. Designing around real human behaviour, rather than expecting users to adapt, is therefore essential.”
This is particularly acute in the affordable and social rented sectors, where occupants have less choice over their home, less disposable income to absorb the consequences of underperformance, and (in many cases) pre-existing vulnerabilities that make cold, damp or poorly ventilated homes a direct risk to health and well-being. Too often tenants are blamed for system underperformance, and their landlords lack the knowledge to challenge poor installation, or poor manufacturer’s instructions. Unless we put the occupants of housing at the centre of that transition then we run the risk that the FHS will fail the very households it should most protect.
The Future Homes Standard has laudable ambitions and it is certainly the case that the construction industry needs to move much more quickly than it currently is towards producing carbon neutral homes as a matter of course. Legislation undoubtedly has a role to play in speeding up the transition from where we are to where we want to be. But the technology we’re looking to implement should be expected to serve people, not the other way round.
This is a personal blog post. Any opinions, findings, and conclusion or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Centre for the New Midlands or any of our associated organisations/individuals.
ABOUT OUR AUTHOR:
Alan Fraser is an independent social housing developer working for the Church Development Agency. He is writing in a personal capacity. Alan worked for nearly thirty years in the fields of social housing and homelessness, all of it in the West Midlands. He has worked for a charity, a large housing association, a local authority, and a stock transfer housing association before becoming a chief executive within the YMCA federation. He now works as an independent housing consultant.
