E-newsletter November 2020
Dear Colleague
Please take a look at this month's CIBSE Certification Newsletter.
Renewals 2020/2021
Thank you to everyone that has renewed their registration this year. We have now passed the deadline for registration renewals this year and will be suspending registrants from the register next week. As is customary, we delay this as long as possible due to the work involved in suspending and subsequently re-instating registrations.
You can pay your renewal fee now
Please note that even if you have paid your registration fee we will only be sending certificates and ID cards if your registration meets the compliance requirements, so you may still be suspended.
If you have any questions about your renewal please contact the Certification team on +44 (0)20 8772 3649 or email epc@cibsecertification.org.
CPD records
A quick reminder about keeping your 2020 CPD record up to date as we will be conducting our annual audit of CPD records early in the New Year.
View the full CIBSE Certification CPD requirements and update your record
Lodgements in the new MHCLG EPB Register and the use of UPRNs
We have been monitoring our lodgement activity in the Lodgement Portal since the switch from Landmark to the new MHCLG EPB Register and we are happy to say that there have been no major issues preventing assessors lodging their certificates and reports, which is always a concern after a major change such as this one.
However, we have noted that on several occasions, when assessors lodge a certificate/report for a building that does not exist on the new register as an entry, they tend to use arbitrary UPRNs in the software and their xml files. This is not the preferred process and can result in lodgements being linked for buildings that have no connection between them.
The latest version of the software you use for your EPCs, DECs or ACIs allows users either to select an option to issue the xml file without UPRN simply leaving the UPRN field blank and generating the xml file with no UPRN. This is the approach to use when lodging a certificate/report for a building case that does not exist as an entry in the new MHCLG EPB Register.
EPCs in Scotland
A revised version of iSBEM (5.6b) was introduced on 20 September for demonstrating compliance with Building Regulations and for the production of EPCs in England and Wales.
We have now had information from the Building Standards Division on the use of this version in Scotland.
The changes included in v5.6b were primarily triggered by the new national EPC register in England and Wales. No changes were made to the core functionalities relating to building regulation compliance, EPC generation or section 63 Action Plans. For Scotland’s purposes, the only change in v5.6b relates to removal of the transmission of owner information to the Scottish EPC register.
Accordingly:
- For Building regulations compliance - v5.6b tools can be used as soon as they are implemented by software providers. Applicants for building warrants will retain the option to use tools implementing v5.3a for building warrants applied for before 6 April 2018 as a consequence of v5.6b retaining the changes to the methodology that occurred in v5.4a. The changes that occurred in 5.4a resulted in small changes of calculated building performance.
- Lodgement of EPCs and Action Plans should move to the use of v5.6b tools as soon as assessors’ chosen software tool has implemented iSBEM v5.6b.
Please note that the change to v5.6b does not require any updates to the Scottish EPC register.
COVID 19 guidance update
We have received an update from MHCLG, but please check local requirements as we are now seeing a lot of variation across the UK. As always you can check the PEPA website for up to date guidance in one place.
Please see the latest revision to the guidance on producing EPCs during the COVID 19 pandemic.
Find out more
November webinar
I have no webinars to announce for November, which means that I am looking for more volunteers to share their experience/interests with everyone on our registers. If you are interested in getting involved, please email me at epc@cibsecertification.org.
However, I am presenting a webinar in the CIBSE Grow Your Knowledge Series at 11.00 (BST) on Thursday 5 November:
Can ventilation help to make buildings COVID safer?
This is drawing on work that I did before joining CIBSE Certification 9 years ago and may be of interest to air conditioning inspectors and those of you with broader Building Services Engineering interests than those bringing you to our registers. I hope to see some of you there.
Register now
Kind regards,
Professor Andrew Geens
BEng (Hons) PhD CEng FCIBSE
Head of CIBSE Certification Ltd.