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With the aim of making buildings safer and more habitable, the Council for Sustainability, Innovation and Building Quality (CSICE) is created.
On March 17, 2006, the Council of Ministers approved the new Technical Building Code (CTE). It is a regulatory framework that establishes the basic requirements of quality, safety and habitability of buildings and their facilities. The purpose is that the construction sector adapts to the strategy of economic, energy and environmental sustainability with a guarantee of safer, more habitable, more sustainable and higher quality buildings. The College of Industrial Technical Engineers of Tarragona will soon offer a conference to detail all the new documents that we are now moving on to the following information.
This new regulation regulates the construction of all new buildings and the rehabilitation of existing ones, whether it be those for residential, commercial, educational, sports, industrial or sociocultural healthcare. As such, it introduces innovative elements on building materials and techniques to achieve buildings that are safer and more efficient from the energy point of view and establishes requirements that include functionality and safety factors. With its entry into force, Spain is among the most innovative nations in the field of building in compliance with the European directives
The structure of the code has been ordered around two parts: the first one defines the content, object and scope of application of the project, and the second is composed of a series of "Basic Documents" that reflect the requirements that they must meet the buildings. In this way, the basic requirements for structural safety, for fire safety, for safety of use, for hygiene, health and protection of the environment and for energy saving are regulated.
Main innovations
The new regulation of the buildings structures will be a reinforcement for the decennial insurance system of damages and implies an important advance in the process of convergence with European regulations. This basic document establishes issues related to the bases of calculation, the construction, the foundations and the structures of steel. In addition, the existing regulatory vacuum in relation to wooden structures is eliminated, which was an obstacle to the use of this material, which in any case must have a sustainable wood certificate.
The document also establishes measures to prevent the spread of a fire, both inside and outside the building; the evacuation of occupants of the building in safe conditions is facilitated and the installation of detection, control and extinction systems is planned. The intervention of the firemen is also improved and the fire resistance of the structure is regulated. In addition, the conditions of reaction and resistance to fire that the constructive elements have to fulfill.
With regard to the use of the building and the greater protection to people, the new regulation focuses on prevention. The most frequent risks are regulated, such as falls due to slipping, accidents resulting from inadequate lighting or accidents resulting from the presence of moving vehicles. Rather than imposing new limitations on design, we want to change certain design guidelines that have been translated into ever greater risks for users of buildings, such as inadequate or non-existent railings, excessively slippery floors or stairs with a design that increases the risk of falls.
With regard to health, hygiene and protection of the environment, it is tried to face several problems of the construction in Spain and it is intended to reduce the number of problems of pathology due to humidity due to poor design and maintenance of soil, walls buried, facades and covers. Measures are established that will favor the saving of water in buildings by updating the pre-existing regulations dating from 1975. This new health document also includes indoor air quality with smoke and gas outputs of combustion for the roofs of the buildings. In this way, ventilators or water vacuum cleaners must be installed in buildings for their ventilation and carbon dioxide detectors must be installed in garages of more than 30 meters2. Finally, it also deals with the health and environmental problems caused by poor management and lack of recycling of ordinary waste, facilitating door-to-door collection through more sustainable systems.
One of the most important documents is the Basic Energy Saving Document as an instrument of the Government's new energy and environmental policies. Its objective is to achieve a rational use of energy, reducing its energy consumption and using renewable sources of energy for it. Thus, the regulations establish the obligation to incorporate criteria of energy efficiency and the use of solar, thermal or photovoltaic energy in new buildings or those that are going to be rehabilitated. For this, it contains four basic energy requirements: limiting the energy demand with limit values for the enclosures of buildings (facades, glass, roofs, etc.); Energy efficiency of lighting installations, where they are set for the first time in the Spanish regulations, requirements to be met by these facilities, especially for buildings in the tertiary sector; the requirement regarding the minimum solar hot water contribution with the requirement that the production of hot water is carried out with a mandatory contribution of solar thermal energy that will vary between 30% and 70% depending on Estimated daily demand for hot water; and the minimum photovoltaic contribution of electrical energy. For example, in the case of offices, over 4,000 m², a part of the electrical needs must be covered by solar energy generated by a photovoltaic installation.
According to estimates from the Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE), the implementation of the energy requirements introduced in the new Code will mean, for each building, savings of 30-40% and a reduction of CO2 emissions for energy consumption of 40-55%.
The Council of Ministers also approved the creation and constitution of the Council for the Sustainability, Innovation and Quality of the Building (CSICE), where all the Public Administrations will be represented plus the agents of the construction and citizen associations. This board will monitor and evaluate its application as well as its periodic update according to the evolution of the technique and demand of the company. Also, the General Register of the Technical Building Code (CTE), attached to the General Directorate of Architecture and Housing Policy, will be created, which will be public and informative and in which the Recognized Documents will be registered and made public. in the aforementioned Code.
The CTE entered into force on March 29, 2006, on the day after its publication in the BOE. A period of voluntary application of twelve months is established, except when it refers to energy saving and fire safety, which will be applied after six months.
