EcoHomes balances environmental performance with the need for a high quality of life and a safe and healthy internal environment. The issues assessed are grouped into seven categories: energy; water; pollution; materials; transport; ecology and land use; health and well-being. Many of the issues are optional, ensuring EcoHomes is flexible enough to be tailored to a particular development or market.

For a PDF information sheet about EcoHomes click here. In addition, two guides are available from the BRE Bookshop:
• EcoHomes: the environmental rating for homes: describes the issues covered within EcoHomes and the background to the method.
• The Green Guide to Housing Specification: provides guidance to designers and specifiers on the environmental impacts of the main fabric elements commonly used in housing.

EcoHomes covers houses as well as apartment buildings and can be applied to both new and renovated homes.

Other types of accomodation, such as sheltered homes or student flats, can be assessed using a bespoke version of BREEAM.

Getting an assessment
EcoHomes assessments are carried out by independent assessors who are trained and licensed by BRE. The assessment is based on the EcoHomes Guidance and a series of sheets, the Developer Sheets, to be completed by the developer. Both the Guidance and the Developer sheets can be downloaded as PDF files.

Any development registering to be assessed after the 6th of April 2006 should use the EcoHomes 2006 version:
EcoHomes 2006 Guidance (v1.2 April 2006).
EcoHomes 2006 Developer Sheets (v1.1 August 2006)

Any development registered prior to the 6th of April 2006 will be assessed using the EcoHomes 2005 version.
EcoHomes 2005 Guidance
EcoHomes 2005 Developer Sheets

The changes between EcoHomes 2005 and 2006 are summarised in this file:
Summary of Changes from 2005 to 2006

To find out about an assessment, either contact the BREEAM Office or one of the licensed assessor organisations.

Cost of an assessment
The cost of assessment will depend upon the level of advice and assistance required from the assessor, and the complexity of the scheme. For example, each different house type on a development requires a degree of separate assessment.

For the first few EcoHomes sites a developer builds, BRE advises the maximum involvement of an assessor from the earliest design stage. The assessor's advice helps ensure that simple, cost-effective measures are adopted at the outset, and that the highest possible rating can therefore be achieved for minimum capital cost.

Leading best practice
EcoHomes is revised annually to ensure that it remains representative of current best practice and takes account of technical and legislative changes.

Pre-assessment Estimator
To help you approximate the likely rating to be achieved under EcoHomes, and to see the level of information required by an assessor, a pre-assessment checklist is available as a PDF file:
For Ecohomes 2006 (v1.2 April 06)
For Ecohomes 2005 (v1.1 April 05)

NOTE: Use with caution. BREEAM assessors require documentary evidence to support the awarding of credits in the scheme. For this reason, non-assessors are likely to overestimate their buildings' performance due to a lack of knowledge about the measurement conventions and the simplification of the weighting system used in the checklist.

Train to be an EcoHomes Assessor
Any building professional can become trained to carry out EcoHomes assessments. For further information on training click here.