There are many dimensions to the housing crisis, but one that is sometimes under-reported (outside the consumer pages) is the dire quality of many new-build houses.... linked to some extent to skill shortages in building, but also to corner cutting & b...
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There are many dimensions to the housing crisis, but one that is sometimes under-reported (outside the consumer pages) is the dire quality of many new-build houses.... linked to some extent to skill shortages in building, but also to corner cutting & bad process design in the building projects....
Here's one example of quite how wrong it can go....
#housing #profiteering #workers
Owners catalogue snagging on Bellway homes in Cambridgeshire
Residents complain of three years of "chaos" including a collapsing staircase.
BBC News (www.bbc.co.uk)
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John🎬replied to Emeritus Prof Christopher May last edited by
@ChrisMayLA6 I used to follow this surveyor on Instagram who signed off new builds. The quality of work is quite frankly shocking! Before you get inside, even the outside walls were well out of tolerance!
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The developer isn't always to blame. It's the guy that agreed the price for the land. The developer just gets the sale price, less land and Construction cost. The land banking company charged the earth. The developer then has to cut costs to make money or break even. Probably subbed it out.
Housing supply can only be fixed by local authority direct build for sale or rent. The private housing market is rigged by land banking companies. The land has no value until they have planning permission. We give them.planning permission and land investors take the profit. It is a stupid system that doesn't work.
Only municipal housing can solve the housing crisis.
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Emeritus Prof Christopher Mayreplied to ImmigrationIsNotACrime last edited by
Yes, I'd agree, although the large house-builders are not particularly tousled by low margins.... the ket issue is the market for building land with planning in place
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ImmigrationIsNotACrimereplied to Emeritus Prof Christopher May last edited by
I had to Google tousled.
The competitive tendering process is risky wherever it is used. There is always a temptation to cut quality to win the bid.
In terms of housing development, you can see how the architecture of née housing is designed for minimum cost and maximum number of units. Small gardens, 3 floors, minimal greenspace or parking etc. Even to the point where the designers plan thinner walls. Because across 50 houses having walls 5cm thinner gets you an extra house.
In my view, this mechanism will very often lead to bad housing. Possible stronger regulation and standards such as the passive house standards. However, higher standards tend to eat into developers' margins.
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ImmigrationIsNotACrimereplied to ImmigrationIsNotACrime last edited by
There is another fun point to this I have just remembered.
Imagine if the last Labour government had chosen passive house standards as minimum for the UK. Very roughly 1,000,000 houses have been built by then. They could all have zero heating costs.
They could have had solar panels and electric charging points as standard so they would.be pumping energy into the grid and we would have much higher EV uptake.
All for no extra cost because all the construction consortium's would have altered their spreadsheets to take the extra cost from the offer for the land. Land banking companies would have lost 20-30k from each house.
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Quixoticgeekreplied to ImmigrationIsNotACrime last edited by
@iinac @ChrisMayLA6 @UKFilmNerd Scotland already made passive house the design standard for new homes. Very quietly, and with no fanfare.
Quixoticgeek (@[email protected])
I don't think this is getting the coverage it needs. Scottish government to require passivhaus standard for all new build homes. This is big. Really big. Growing out of lessons from the 70's oil crisis. Passivhaus buildings use very little energy to heat, or to cool. We've known how to do this for decades. It's gross negligence from all western governments that the same is not true of all new builds in the developed world. https://www.thenational.scot/news/23197204.government-announces-passivhaus-standards-adopted-scotland/
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