What is this standard about?
BS 7543 gives guidance on the durability, design life and predicted service life of buildings, constructed assets and their parts. It applies to both new and existing buildings. It is essential to the current government policy to reduce carbon emissions by 80 per cent, by 2050.
Who is this standard for?
It is suitable for all members of a construction project or facilities management team who provide or require information on durability, including:
- Construction clients
- Designers
- Contractors
- Specialists
- Manufacturers
- Those responsible for maintenance
- Building service engineers
- Specifiers, designers, architects and architectural students
- Funders, insurers and those undertaking due diligence assessments for investment purposes
- Construction consultants and contractors, construction materials producers
Why should you use this standard?
It provides fundamental tools to assist with decision making in terms of cost and the carbon impacts of investment in the built environment. It helps enhance the robustness of data used within models that predict life cycle costs and the whole life carbon of building components and materials. It also helps to assess the durability of materials in the construction pallet and includes fundamental data for the implementation of the ‘golden rule’ criteria of the Green Deal.
What’s changed since the last update?
- The revision provides users with a set of default values for service life data
- It ensures that COBie information (as recommended in BS 1192-4:2014) has a degree of robustness in relation to service life
- It provides guidance on assessing the criticality of durability using the failure mode, effect and criticality analysis (FMECA) technique.
NOTE: The revision of BS 7543:2015 is timely in light of the more variable and extreme weather events the UK has experienced, and also differentiates our warmer, wetter maritime climate from the rest of Europe