A partnership built on shared ground: Build Energy and Ecologic SIPs
Good buildings are usually the product of good relationships. The people who design them, the people who build them, and the people who test and certify them all need to be working from the same set of assumptions — and ideally pulling in the same direction. When that happens, the building performs. When it doesn’t, the gaps show up in the air tightness test, in the SAP calculation, or, more painfully, in the occupied building a year later.
That is the simplest way to explain why our working relationship with Ecologic SIPs matters to us. Over the last few years we have worked alongside them on a range of new homes — they supplying the structural insulated panels and the SIPs design expertise, us providing SAP calculations, air tightness testing and broader Part L compliance support. We have no direct business or financial link, but we share many of the same clients and, more importantly, many of the same values: empowering people to create high quality, low impact, low carbon buildings that work as well in use as they do on paper.
Where it started
Like a lot of good working relationships, this one started one project at a time. A self-builder or developer would appoint Ecologic for the SIPs package and us for the SAP, Part O and air tightness work, and the project would tick along. The handover detailing of a SIPs build matters enormously for both energy modelling and on-site air leakage — the panels themselves are a strong fabric choice, but the result on test day depends on how the junctions, service penetrations and openings have been handled. The more we worked alongside the Ecologic team, the more we found ourselves talking to people who understood that, and who wanted to get it right rather than just get it signed off.
Last year, Ecologic commissioned us to produce a full set of accredited Psi value calculations for their standard junction details. That work is now used across all of their projects to support Part L compliance, replacing the default penalty figures that SAP applies when no calculated values are available. It is a small piece of work with a disproportionate effect on the calculation — a well-detailed SIPs build, properly evidenced, performs significantly better in SAP than the defaults suggest.
Alongside that, we have spent days at the Ecologic yard, walking through their manufacturing process, and we have run CPD sessions with their team on the Future Homes Standard and the latest changes to the building regulations. They know how the panels go together. We know how the calculations and tests respond. Putting both sets of knowledge in the same room consistently produces better outcomes than either of us would manage on our own.
What is changing
Until now, clients who wanted a SIPs build with full compliance support have generally appointed Ecologic and Build Energy separately. That works, but it can feel like an extra step — particularly for self-builders, who are often coordinating multiple consultants for the first time and trying to keep the procurement clean.
From now on, that step disappears. Ecologic clients can take a combined SIPs, SAP, overheating and air tightness package directly through Ecologic. We will be their exclusive provider for those services. For the client, it means a single conversation about the compliance picture rather than two. For the design team, it means the people calculating the building’s performance are working with the same details, drawings and assumptions as the people manufacturing the panels.
Why this matters — particularly for self-builders and architects
If you are an architect designing a SIPs home, the most useful thing about this arrangement is the joined-up technical input from day one. Knowing that the SAP assessor and the SIPs designer are already coordinated removes a layer of uncertainty at concept and technical design stages, where the cost of getting it wrong is highest.
If you are a self-builder, the practical benefit is simpler still. Building a new home is, for most people, a once-in-a-lifetime project, and the volume of paperwork around energy compliance can feel disproportionate to the building itself. Going to Ecologic for both the panels and the compliance package means one team to brief, one set of details that everyone is working from, and a clear route through SAP, EPC and the air tightness test at completion. You do not need to become an expert in any of that — you just need to know it is being handled by people who do it every day.
A local partnership for low-carbon buildings
We are genuinely pleased about this. Ecologic is the kind of local company we like working with: technically serious, properly invested in the buildings they help create, and focused on the long-term performance rather than the short-term sign-off. The Future Homes Standard, when it lands in full, is going to push every part of the housing supply chain to perform better, document better, and stand behind the numbers. The teams that are already working that way — because they want to, not because they have to — will have a much easier time of it.
If you want to talk through how this might work for a specific project, get in touch with either of us — we will make sure you end up speaking to the right person.
BE has enjoyed working with Ecologic and their clients on the following services:
- PSI Value calculations
- SAP energy assessments
- SBEM energy assessment
- Part O Overheating
- CPD sessions
