"We are nine months away from one of the most significant changes to affect the construction industry in decades and we have had no awareness campaign or information campaign from the government or from the Department of Environment, " says Gerry McCaughey, chief executive of timber frame company Kingspan Century Homes.

Under an EU directive, from 2007 all new homes being built will carry an energy rating certificate, in a similar way to a fridge or a car.

As yet, the rating system has to be finalised but it is likely that a "passive house" or one that uses little or no electricity, oil or gas for heat and light, will get an A rating, and that the more energy a house uses, the lower its grade While the new rating system won't be a pass or fail, buyers of new homes will know that it will cost a lot less to heat a home with an A rating than one with an F.

Kingspan Century last week launched a new campaign in which they have linked up with some of the country's biggest developers to guarantee buyers that the new homes they are currently building will carry the most competitive energy ratings on the market.

Called the "Future-proofed by Century" quality assurance guarantee, buyers will know that their homes will score a high rating under the new Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, even though it won't be introduced until January 2007.

Some of the country's leading developers, including McInerney Homes, Park Developments, Ellier and L and M Construction are joining forces with Kingspan Century and will advertise the fact that their homes, built with Kingspan Century timber frames, are highly energy efficient.

Under the new EU-led legislation, for the first time ever, new home buyers will be able to compare new houses based on their energy efficiency. The rating will give a guide as to how much the house is likely to cost to heat every year . . .

and the better the energy rating, the lower the fuel bills will be.

"When you consider the inexorable rise in the price of oil, higher gas bills and fuel uncertainty, you can see why new home buyers have become more energy conscious, " says McCaughey.

"You can also see why more builders are switching to energy efficient timber frame."

But chief executive Gerry McCaughey is highly critical of the government for not introducing new insulation standards at a much earlier date . . . and for failing to employ teams of inspectors who will test and certify all new homes He also accused the government of playing a political game by phasing in the new rating system, with second-hand homes only liable for rating in 2009.

"They failed to bring it in for second-hand homes because if they had done so it would have exposed how the 250,000 and more new homes built in the past four to five years . . . a time when the government knew it had to tighten up its insulation standards . . . were failing to meet even minimum requirements. It would have exposed how much more people who bought new homes in that period have had to pay for heating bills."

McCaughey argues that poor energy saving standards in houses built over the past five years will have an impact on their price because buyers will automatically opt for homes with high ratings rather than those with poor grades.

"If I have two identical cars, one with a petrol consumption of 100 miles per gallon and the other with five miles per gallon, which do you think I will buy? What does the dealer do with the car that guzzles petrol . . . he has to reduce the price to sell it. The same is true of a house which has heating and lighting bills.

"We have a market with buoyant demand at the moment, so the impact may not be as great as otherwise.

But when you consider that you could save as much as 20,000 over 20 years in home heating bills with a highlyrated house, compared with a home with low insulation qualities, the consumer will soon start to exercise his or her choice ."

The new system once again raises debate over the respective merits of timber frame versus hollow-block concretebuilt homes.

Today, about 27% of all homes are timber frame, including many of those built by leading developers. With the new energy efficiency ratings system, McCaughey predicts that half of all homes will use the building method by the end of the decade.

"There is no reason, " he says, "why passive houses that use solar panels for water heating, geothermal (underground) heat sources and heat recovery systems in a virtually airtight home can't be mass produced by today's developers. That has to be the way forward if we are to cut our CO2 emissions and reduce our dependence on oil."

Home truths ?

Energy consumption for heating, cooling, lighting and other services in buildings creates almost half of all Ireland's energy-related CO2 emissions and is increasing all the time. This represents one-third of Ireland's greenhouse gas emissions associated with global warming. Housing . . . between construction and heating the finished home . . . accounts for one quarter of energy-related CO2 emissions.

?The Energy Performance of Buildings directive aims to promote improvements in energy performance of all buildings across Europe, be they homes, commercial buildings or public buildings.

?The aim is to inform the buyers about how much it will cost to heat a building, so that they can take its energy ef"ciency into account when either buying or letting a building.

?The directive requires that when buildings are built, sold or rented out, an energy performance certi"cate is provided by the owner to the buyer or tenant, in much the same way as a fridge, washing machine or car's energy performance is currently rated.

?This means energy performance becomes a visible factor to be taken into account in the property market, in just the same way as design, location and build quality are considered in the "nal price.