NHBC welcomes Etopia and Istidama to NHBC Accepts – successfully building confidence in innovative construction

NHBC welcomes Etopia and Istidama to NHBC Accepts – successfully building confidence in innovative construction 

NHBC, the UK’s leading warranty and insurance provider for new homes, is delighted to welcome Etopia & Istidama to NHBC Accepts with its 4wall panel. NHBC Accepts – endorsed by the Government’s Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) Champion, Mark Farmer and recognised by Homes England and UK Finance – enables quicker assessment of a home for warranty and reduces the risk to the builder of delays in their project. Any system with the NHBC Accepts logo will have been rigorously assessed to ensure it can meet NHBC’s robust standards, giving confidence to developers, investors, lenders and homeowners.

Etopia, a leading provider of Modern Methods of Construction solutions, and SIP manufacturer Istidama are proud to announce that they have been awarded the NHBC Accepts accreditation for the 4wall patented hyper Structural Insulated Panels. Etopia’s commitment is to innovate, design, manufacture, deliver and install a high-performance building system for residential and light commercial construction.  Etopia has been revolutionising offsite construction solutions since its inception in 2018.

The flexibility of the system allows any house-type to be designed using ‘stock’ small or large panel formats. The system provides high structural strength, airtightness, and low U-values of 0.144 W/m²K creating incredibly energy efficient houses and buildings.

Projects using the system will have a high pre-manufactured value (PMV) due to full elevations, internal walls, intermediate floors and roof trusses manufactured offsite; more than 55% can be achieved when combined with other PMV products.

Etopia is part of several procurement frameworks, including the Oxford City Housing Ltd (OCHL) Sustainable Development Framework via Equans, the Southwest Procurement Alliance (SWPA) and Building Better – which is backed by the National Housing Federation. Etopia is also partnered with the Wates Innovation Network, to provide access, advice, and delivery of its system to UKs leading government frameworks.

Etopia work in partnership with leading financial institutions to offer the latest in green financing –  and have chosen global technology company Samsung to incorporate energy efficient technologies into their offerings including Samsung air-source heat-pumps.

“We are very pleased this year to add NHBC Accepts to our list of accreditations alongside Etopia’s BOPAS, our KIWA BDA Agrément certification and triple ISO accreditations. The 4wall panel system is now one of the most widely accredited systems using modern methods of construction in the UK.”

Nicholas Edwards, Managing Director of Istidama

“We are delighted to welcome Etopia & Istidama to NHBC Accepts. We know from feedback that once a product or system is given the NHBC Accepts green light that this creates confidence in quality, long-term durability and traceability. We actively assess construction quality both on-site and off-site to verify that each system is suitable and acceptable to meet the standards set to obtain our ten-year NHBC Buildmark warranty. With the demands on the industry to increase the volume of new homes and the simultaneous challenges around materials and skills, we are at a critical stage in the development of MMC. We are proud to be using our scale, expertise and knowledge of traditional house building to work with manufacturers to provide the confidence that innovative products and systems can meet and sometimes exceed the same high standards of quality and durability as traditionally-built homes.”

Chris Hall, NHBC Senior Technical Services Manager

“The Etopia system is allowing us to roll out a low-carbon solution to housebuilding regardless of a site’s size or constraints and commit to building to the Future Homes Standard now. Looking ahead, we will work closely with Etopia to demonstrate that SME developers are capable of tackling the UK’s climate and housing crisis by taking innovative approaches to delivery.”

David Sheinman, Director at Rippon Homes 

“We’re trying to back real-world commercial solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges, and what Etopia brings is environmentally friendly housing, designed for the modern world and modern technology, and it’s delivering a system that the market is desperate to see.”

Alisdair Gayne, Head of UK Investment Banking, Barclays. UK and Europe Unreasonable Impact Sponsor 

“We’ve been working closely with Etopia for several years and it has been a meeting of minds to support such a forward-thinking, disruptive player in the housing market. We’re excited to continue to explore new, more sustainable possibilities for their developments as our partnership grows with their business to help create more sustainable and smarter living environments for consumers.”

Murtaza Bukhari, GM – Strategic Partnerships UK & Europe, Samsung

Summaries of Etopia, Istidama, and 4wall

Etopia is a UK-based company which designs, manufactures, delivers, and installs the 4wall build system. It enables developers, housing associations, and local authorities to rapidly build low-carbon, sustainable housing that exceeds the Interim Part L and The Future Home Standard for 2025.

Istidama are volume manufacturers and stockists of the unique 4wall offsite construction system from their UK factory in Ellesmere Port.

4wall is a patented hybrid offsite building system, that encapsulates modern method of construction principles, to provide a composite structural panelling system, that has been designed with fabric-first principles by industry-leading experts, with decades of offsite experience and a wealth of industry-based knowledge.