The document outlines the Home Quality Mark, which aims to assess and improve the quality and sustainability of homes in the UK, with key indicators for home performance including costs, health impacts, and environmental footprint. It emphasizes consultation with stakeholders, robust training for assessors, and the development of guidelines that enhance design efficiency, communication, and homeowner support. The mark will feature a rating system based on a five-star scale to facilitate comparison among homes and highlight their overall performance.

1. Your Home Quality Mark –
How do we assess it?
An overview of what makes
the Home Quality Mark.

2. This publication provides an overview of
the proposed technical direction of what
makes the Home Quality Mark as of March
2015. This will be developed through detailed
consultation with industry, householders and
other organisations.
The detailed requirements will be influenced
by a range of pilot studies on real housing
projects around the country over the next
few months. A training programme for
Home Quality Mark assessors will begin
soon afterwards.
“We believe that the
Home Quality Mark
will empower new
home buyers and
renters, enable housing
developers to differentiate
their home from those
of competitors, and drive
quality and sustainability
in the UK’s homes.”
Our Mark – the rating
With an overall rating based on a scale
of up to 5 stars it will be easy to compare
different homes quickly and easily in terms
of their overall performance.
To provide greater clarity on how the
home performs, indicators based on key
priority areas focusing on the interests
of key parties such as home occupants,
developers and planners will also be
rated. At the launch indicators from
a householder perspective will be;
–– Householder Costs.
–– Positive impact on Health
and Wellbeing,
–– Environmental Footprint.
The indicators will be presented to clearly
draw out the value of a property to each
of these stakeholders. Overtime, further
indicators will be developed from different
perspectives including; Developer, financial
institutions, landlords and local authorities
and we encourage industry partners to
become involved in their development.
What is measured?
The Home Quality Mark will have three
sections; Knowledge Sharing, Our
Surroundings and My Home. These will
each allow for a degree of pre-approval
to maximise the cost effectiveness of the
assessment process whilst taking account
of issues that are site specific in the final
assessment of the development. This
will encourage good design but reduce
repetition of data collection and entry.
The following sections provide a detailed
outline of the direction of travel and we
invite views on this scope and simple
efficient means of evaluating the issues
covered through our ongoing engagement
with industry and other users.

3. Knowledge
sharing
Good knowledge and
understanding is only effective
when it is able to influence the
decisions and behaviour of those
who occupy and manage the
home. This section rewards good
processes and solutions which
reduce the gap between the
designer, constructor, client and
householder.
This ensures that the so-called
performance gap is minimised
and the home is truly capable of
“doing what it says on the tin”.
Key communication and
verification
The delivery of high quality homes requires
efficient and effective communications between
those involved in its procurement to ensure that
your home is built and performs as designed.
We will recognise building contractors that:
–– Undertake effective project management
from the start of the process.
–– Verify key stages/activities such as product
commissioning
–– Facilitate engagement between the design
team and building constructors.
Skills and training
To ensure our homes are built to the highest
quality, it is important that building constructors
and their workforce have an good understanding
of the design decisions and measures we want to
see in each and every home. They also need to
understand the risks that can occur through site
errors and changes
To support building constructors the Home
Quality Mark will encourage:
–– Training provision for all site operatives.
–– Regular progress and milestone throughout
the construction process.
Construction processes
To improve the efficiency of constructing homes
it is important to consider the energy and waste
associated with the building process. Improving
this will allow us to build more homes,
more cheaply and to a higher standard.
The Home Quality Mark will encourage measures
and practices that help improve efficiency such as:
–– Monitoring and reducing the energy and
water usage in the construction process.
–– Effectively managing and reusing waste
materials.
Commissioning
We all expect any new home to be fully
functional and to meet our quality expectations
from the moment we move in. An important
part of ensuring that this is the case is the robust
checking and commissioning of all systems within
your home.
To ensure appropriate commissioning is
undertaken the Home Quality Mark will
recognise where:
–– A commissioning strategy is in place to ensure
all systems are fully operational ahead of
completion.
–– Testing is undertaken to ensure all services
and controls are capable of functioning fully
throughout the year, particularly in winter
and summer time conditions.
Homeowner support
It is important that any homeowner is familiar
with how their home works, what its capabilities
are and has an understanding of the surrounding
community. Any new home builder should provide
the necessary support to meet these expectations
from the moment you move in and for the longer
term.
To support you in your new home the Home
Quality Mark will outline means of sharing
relevant information, including:
–– Intuitive ways to provide information on
how your home operates.
–– Supporting services from the developer,
promoting an interactive service that gives
you a practical understanding and support
in the operation of your home.
Monitoring, sensors
and controls
The ability to understand how your home
is performing is a valuable tool to empower
homeowners in keeping down costs and
maximising comfort. Providing accessible tools
can help to reduce operational and maintenance
costs in your home
The Home Quality Mark will outline measures and
systems for your home, including:
–– Accessible monitoring and control systems
that provide you with information on the
performance of systems in your home.
–– Detection systems that outline short term
and long term maintenance requirements.
Concept and detailed
design, construction
Handover and close out

4. Site survey
It is important that where a home is built
is carefully considered, understanding the
opportunities and constraints that will affect
the way your home meets your needs now
and in the future.
The Home Quality Mark will primarily focus
on making sure there is an awareness of:
–– The condition of land, including
contamination, flood risk, security,
privacy and nuisance.
–– Infrastructure including water
and electrical supplies
–– Drainage and sewage arrangements.
Design and character
The look and feel of your home is an important
factor when you’re looking for a new home.
A new home should also complement the existing
area, taking into account local character whilst
creating an attractive design that adds to the
overall quality and character of the area.
The Home Quality Mark will give recognition for:
–– Engaging with the community and other
local bodies through consultation and
discussion around design decisions.
–– Rewarding homes that fit in with the local
character and for larger developments create
public spaces associated with your home.
Building footprint and layout
The design and layout of your home should
meet your space needs whilst efficiently using
the space available. This can be achieved through
the efficient use of your home’s footprint and
orientation and the careful arrangement of
buildings within a plot or in a community.
The Home Quality Mark will encourage this by:
–– Rewarding the efficient use of a home’s
footprint, maximising quality external
space for occupants without compromising
internal space.
Service provisions
In order to meet the demands of modern life,
your home should have sufficient access to digital
infrastructure, allowing you to work from home
and reduce your travel burden and provide a basis
to support the changing demands of everyday life.
We want to ensure that you have:
–– Access to secure and fast internet supplies.
–– Access to support and enable efficient
and easy maintenance of key utilities.
Transport provision
It is important to be able to move around your
local area safely and efficiently and the provision
of a range of forms of transport is a important
for any homeowner.
The balance of access to bus and rail services,
alongside the provision of cycling facilities and
the provision of adequate parking for your home,
will ensure a range of options that are sustainable
for your community and location.
The Home Quality Mark will encourage
the provision of these facilities by:
–– Rewarding the accessibility of good
public transport connections.
–– Encouraging the provision of adequate
and safe cycling and pedestrian facilities.
–– Encourage the provision of car parking /electric
charging and or sharing facilities appropriate
to the location and local community.
–– Ensuring practical and up to date transport
information is available to homeowners.
Local amenities
It is important that any homeowner is familiar
with how their home works, what its capabilities
are and has an understanding of the surrounding
community. Any new home builder should provide
the necessary support to meet these expectations
from the moment you move in and for the
longer term.
To support you in your new home the Home
Quality Mark will outline means of sharing
relevant information, including:
–– Intuitive ways to provide information
on how your home operates.
–– Supporting services from the developer,
promoting an interactive service that gives
you a practical understanding and support
in the operation of your home.
Site context Movement and
connectivity
Our
surroundings
Unlike anything else we buy
or rent, our homes are not
moveable. They are intrinsically
related to, and influenced
by, their surroundings.
This section rewards homes built
to work with their surroundings
and what their surrounds may
be like with changing population
and climate to maximise benefits
and minimise impacts now and
into the future.

5. Resilience to flooding
A homes location is becoming increasingly
important when considering the threat of
flooding. It affects your insurance premiums
and can cause devastation and long term
upheaval for individuals and families if flooding
does occur. The Home Quality Mark will seek
to clarify these risks and ensure homeowners
can fully understand the implications of their
home’s location.
To do this the Home Quality Mark will set out
requirements for:
–– Understanding the flood risk for all
homes being developed.
–– Rewarding homes located in low flood
risk areas
–– Where homes cannot be located away from
the risk of flooding, rewarding additional
design measures to minimise and control the
risks and potential damage and disturbance
Reducing the likelihood
of flooding on others
Unfortunately the development of new homes
can increase the flood risks on the land around
us, our neighbours, the drainage system and our
natural water courses. We need to ensure that
any new home doesn’t increase risks through
changing the way water drains away.
To do this the Home Quality Mark will encourage
design choices and systems that:
–– Reduce the amount/rate of rainwater running
from our home or site that could cause local
flooding.
–– Use the natural environment to deal with
rainfall wherever possible and integrate
this into the landscape to create an
attractive environment.
–– Avoid the danger of creating possible pollution
through water runoff from development areas.
Recreation space
Any homeowner values the ability to access
outdoor space; it can complement the security
and comfort of your home. Providing adequate
space for recreation or other activities that
encourage outdoor activity including exercise,
relaxation and even the growing of food helps
to promote more sustainable, active and
healthier lifestyle.
Recreation is encouraged by rewarding:
–– The availability of recreation space for
all in a communal or private setting.
–– The utilisation of suitable public space locally.
–– The provision of appropriate spaces
for growing food.
Maintaining and enhancing
ecological value
In order to create an attractive environment it is
important to maintain existing local ecological
character and enhance this wherever possible.
This will help to preserve the character and
value of the local landscape and will potentially
contribute to the value and appeal of the area
and community.
In order to capitalise on this the Home Quality
Mark will recognise where:
–– Existing ecological and landscape value
and risks are understood.
–– The experience of experts is utilised where
appropriate to determine existing value and
opportunities for enhancement on the site
and local area.
–– Key existing natural features are protected
both during construction and into the future.
–– Maintenance arrangements are put in place
to protect these features.
Safety and resilience Outdoors
Safety and security
We all expect to feel safe and secure,
when you’re inside your home, in the garden
or in the neighbourhood. It’s an important
factor in determining the quality of your street
or the community.
The Home Quality Mark will promote the design
of safe and secure homes and communities by:
–– Taking into account the relationship of your
home to your street and other open areas.
–– Providing adequate internal and external
lighting that does not create hiding places.
–– Making sure public spaces and footpaths
are overlooked and are designed to reduce
insecure and unusable space.

6. My
home
Better designed and better
built homes can last many
generations. This section rewards
homes that are built to ensure
they provide spaces that are
healthy to live in but also don’t
cost the earth.
This section sets specific
performance outcomes for
your home whilst allowing a
degree of flexibility in the
means of determining this.
Wherever possible commonly
used assessment methodologies
will be used based on simple
calculations to avoid additional
costs.
These will include the use of
an extended Building Regulations
calculation, Passivhaus
certification and more detailed
dynamic performance modelling
as appropriate to calculate
a number of performance
characteristics relating to energy,
comfort and overheating.
Air quality
The quality of the air in your home is perhaps
not something many people think about, but
the reality is that is this is not managed
appropriately this can impact your health.
The incidence of asthma and other breathing
complaints is on the increase and it is widely
accepted that the indoor environment can
exacerbate and bring on such problems in many
people whether or not they have suffered in the
past. Ventilation strategies and systems need to
provide clean air circulation in your home.
To ensure that air quality is factored in to the
design of your home the Home Quality Mark will
encourage:
–– Adequate ventilation that doesn’t compromise
the cost of heating of your home or your
comfort.
Lighting
High quality lighting design is an important
and desirable feature that supports how you feel
and use your home. Providing adequate access to
and control of lighting within your home is a basic
function that contributes to our comfort and health.
The Home Quality Mark will promote the
design of homes that provide this through
the provision of:
–– Access to natural light and controllable
artificial lighting where you need it.
–– Suitably located controls that are
accessible and easy to use.
Noise
An important underlying quality of any home
is the management of sound so allowing for
comfort and privacy within your home. It is
critical to consider the specific needs of spaces
within your home and the potential impact of
the surrounding area on your home.
The Home Quality Mark will recognise where
your home contains:
–– Insulation and treatment that creates
the right acoustic environment.
–– Considering internal sound insulation.
–– Designing the layout and construction of
your home to minimise the impacts of
noise from the local area.
Cost
The everyday cost of your running your home is
a critical factor that affects your freedom in your
day to day life. Manageable costs allow you to
maintain temperature, run hot water and use
your personal devices, as well as giving you more
financial freedom outside of your home. Whilst
behaviour impacts on costs it is important that
your home plays its part in reducing costs.
The Home Quality Mark will encourage homes
that minimise these pressures by ensuring that:
–– Cost efficiency is central to the design of
your home.
–– You have access to the relevant information
and controls to understand how to optimise
the efficiency of your home and how your
behaviour influences this.
Energy footprint
Alongside the reduction of costs, we also have a
responsibility to reduce our dependency on energy
sources that negatively impact our environment,
changing our climate and impacting our health.
The Home Quality Mark will promote measures
that help to reduce these impacts, focusing on:
–– Reducing the use of energy that produces
C02 emissions and other pollutants through
reduced energy demand in your home.
–– Rewarding the use of appropriate and
cost effective renewable energy sources.
–– Encouraging systems that reduce local
pollutants.
Temperature
A basic expectation for our homes is that they
provide comfortable conditions in which to go
about our daily lives. To avoid overheating and
ensure affordability, any new home needs to offer
a stable and warm environment that is easier to
heat at a lower cost in winter but is capable of
providing ‘cool air’ and ventilation in summer.
To meet this challenge the Home Quality Mark
will recognise steps taken to:
–– Avoid the risk of overheating whilst
ensuring well insulated new homes.
–– Provide adequate and controllable ventilation
capable of meeting the varying demands of
the seasons.
Home comfort Predicted in use energy

7. Responsible and ethical
materials selection
The materials that make up our home have
an impact on the environment and societies
involved in their extraction, processing,
manufacture and transportation.
For us to build more sustainably we need to
account for these impacts, considering how
they can be reduced through careful consideration
of their life cycle impacts and the nature of their
procurement through ‘responsible sourcing’.
Understanding material and product lifecycles
can also help to inform maintenance and
operational costs of your home long term.
To ensure that these impacts are fully
understood and considered the Home Quality
Mark will promote the specification of materials:
–– With low environmental impacts.
–– That are sourced sustainably in line with
recognised responsible sourcing standards.
–– Fully considering the life cycle costs
of products and materials.
Durability and resilience
For any home to meet the demands of everyday
life, the materials used ranging from the fixtures
and fittings through to the structural and finishing
materials used have to be durable to ensure that
the function and performance of your home isn’t
reduced, or the cost of maintenance become
unaffordable, over time.
Durable materials need to meet the demands
of everyday life and be able to endure the
environment around them.
The Home Quality Mark sets out measures
to promote the use of more durable materials
in your home including:
–– Specifying materials with durable properties
where possible.
–– Encouraging design decisions that will make
your home more resilient to environmental
damage, flood and wear and tear.
Water efficiency
The availability of water is a basic expectation
for any home and the water supply available
to any homeowner and consumption levels has to
provide a balance that meets their demands.
To ensure that water supplies don’t become
strained, we need to use it efficiently within
our homes and reduce the impact of any
system failures or leaks that may cause avoidable
damage. This can help to reduce the cost of water
across the UK and prevent excessive extraction at
times of shortfall which harms our environment
and wildlife.
To support this we have outlined measures
that your home should embody:
–– The provision of fittings and systems
to improve water efficiency.
–– Appropriate encouragement for collection,
reuse and recycling arrangements.
–– Monitoring and detection systems that
provide you information on the performance
on water systems in your home.
Dwelling space
Space is a key factor when you’re looking for
a new home. Rooms need to be well designed
and sized appropriately to meet your everyday
and future needs recognising the impacts that
this can have on property and heating costs. The
demands that we place on our homes changes
over time and as a result of changes to our
circumstances and health.
To accommodate this, our homes need to be
designed to make them easier to access and
adapt to meet differing needs and requirements.
Whether you’re a young couple in your first
home, a young family or an elderly person keen
to remain in your own home, it is important that
your home can adapt to provide the comfort,
affordability and security that you need.
To encourage the provision of space within
your home that meets your changing needs the
Home Quality Mark will recognise where space
provided is:
–– Adequately sized for living and storage.
–– Efficiently designed with accessibility and
adaptability for all homeowners in mind.
–– Functional and adaptable to continue
to meet the demands of modern life.
Materials Water Space

8. To find out more visit
homequalitymark.com
Tel +44(0) 333 321 8811
Email hqm@bre.co.uk
Web homequalitymark.com
BRE
Bucknalls Lane
Watford
UK
WD25 9XX
About BRE
BRE is a world leading building science
centre that generates new knowledge
through research. This is used to create
products, tools and standards that drive
positive change across the built environment.
BRE helps its government and private sector
clients meet the significant environmental,
social and economic challenges they face
in delivering homes, buildings and
communities.
BRE is owned by the BRE Trust, a registered
charity. The Trust uses the profits made by
the BRE companies to fund research and
education that advances knowledge of the
built environment.