The Home Performance Index (HPI), developed by the Irish Green Building Council, is a certification system that measures the quality and sustainability of new homes across different categories. This not only guides property developers’ sustainability strategies but also serves as a powerful tool for bringing homes to market.
In our previous article on HPI, we explored how daylight and sunlight assessments can support residential developments working towards certification, under the Health and Wellbeing category.
Since then, the publication of HPI Technical Manual v3.1 has introduced several important updates, which we reviewed closely, including through direct engagement with the Irish Green Building Council to clarify a number of queries.
In this article, we look at the updates that matter most for daylight and sunlight, and what they mean for teams working towards HPI certification.
One of the most significant changes in HPI v3.1 is the introduction of project-wide certification. This means a development can still achieve certification even where a small number of units achieve lower scores, provided the overall scheme performs strongly, and the number of homes falling below minimum requirements remains limited.
The v3.1 manual states that the average score across all units must meet the required certification threshold, no more than 5% of units can fail to meet minimum requirements, and project-wide certification will only be considered where all units in the scheme are submitted for certification.
For residential projects, this creates a more balanced way of assessing performance across a development. It also reinforces the value of identifying weaker-performing units early, helping project teams address any issues that may affect overall HPI performance, including those related to daylight and sunlight, before submission.
While the updated HPI v3.1 manual states that the Health and Wellbeing category has undergone substantial modifications, including the treatment of sunlight as a standalone indicator, our review suggests that the core sunlight criteria remain largely unchanged from the previous version. If you would like to revisit the sunlight criteria in more detail, our previous HPI blog post remains a useful guide.
What has changed is the wider context in which those assessments sit. With the introduction of project-wide certification, daylight and sunlight performance now take on even greater importance as part of the overall route towards certification.
For developers and design teams, these updates bring added clarity to how daylight and sunlight sit within the wider HPI process. While these assessments are only one part of the overall certification picture, they can play a valuable role in helping schemes work towards credits under the Health and Wellbeing category.
For us, it means continuing to deliver daylight and sunlight assessments that are clear, thorough, and aligned with the latest HPI requirements, giving clients reliable technical input to support their certification journey.
If you are currently working towards HPI certification or need expert advice in relation to daylight and sunlight assessments, feel free to get in touch. You can visit our contact page to speak with the team.
To learn more about the Home Performance Index and access technical documentation, visit homeperformanceindex.ie.
Lucas Imbimbo
Digital Marketing Specialist
at 3D Design Bureau
lucas@3ddesighbureau.com
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