General quality of new houses?

[Michael Mcneil]

Breeze block and plasterboard are sjidt but warm. So you pays your money and you takes your choices.

Todays housing has to meet certain insulation standards. They also meet engineering and safety standards that just did not exist in the good old days.

They are also built in areas our ancestors avoided for good reasons.

The main problem is the availability of qualified workers. And paying them sufficiently for them to do a good job. On a poorly run site the quality control can make a difference in the pay packets of concientious workers and the careless of one or two hundred pounds a week.

[John Smith]

Hi,

How do new houses generally compare in build quality to old houses say those built around the 1900s? When I look at new houses being built they look as if they are made of very cheap looking materials - the wood, for example, looks very thin and nasty?

Just curious,

John.

[Grunff]

Our 1930s house was built very poorly. Very little in the way of foundations, no dpm under the downstairs concrete floor (2" concrete over mud subfloor), under-sized joists for the span, poor roof structure, internal walls made of 2" thick bock (yes, really). The wiring was put in later, in the '50s, and was the most appalling wiring job I've ever seen. I could go on, but I'll spare you.

By comparison, modern houses are /extremely/ well built. But you do get a whole range - some old houses were built a lot better than ours. I think the overall standard today is much better.

[G&M]

The house we are restoring has original sections from 1600s and then add-on is round about 1750, 1810, 1890 and 1980. The 1890 bit is by far the best built part but I have to say the 1810 bit is better than the 1980 bit. The

1600 bit is at best of historic interest only and we have leave it uninhabited due to excessive damp.

[IMM]

Breeze blocks? that is Victorian. They burnt rubbish, and used the ashes to make blocks. Who said re-cycling was new? Now we have high insulation factor concrete blocks. What is "sidt"?

[Andy Hall]

It was 'sjidt'. Just try to pronounce it and you will get the idea.

Are you sure that you had a letter published in a broadsheet newspaper?

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[IMM]

Sounds good.

I think you mean TJI joists. Brilliant.

Sounds good, steel is strong. The walls are filled with sound insulation.

Looks good.

That is what punters want, silly I know.

They are premature as SIP panels will be the norm.

Generally timber framed homes are superior to brick and block: the rooms are square and straight and the hollow in the wall can be packed with insulation keeping the heating bills rights down and the house cools in summer too. The bad publicity was by a cheap unobjective World in Action programme.

[Peter Parry]

Generally they are very much better. They have foundations and are built to reasonably consistent standards.

Don't forget that those houses you now see from the 1900's tend to be the best, the others having been demolished years ago.

[IMM]

"Space4 provide a supply and fix service for houses and apartments. The standard package includes:

External wall panels including insulation Load bearing internal wall panels including party walls Floor cassettes Windows External entrance doors Sole plate (if required) Roof (if required)"

[The Natural Philosopher]

Used to be thin and nasty then. Pine mostly. Now its MDF. Not much to choose, except MDF doesn't warp and hasn't got knots that need sealing befire painting.

One of the reasons the tinmber is now smaller is that mass production of e.g. roof trusses is possible, and wood has got more expensive proportionately than labour on an automatic machine, so the cheapest way to do it is small heavily braced trusses.

Building regs if adhered to will ensure structural integrity and reasonable life span, and all the problems of victorian house - damp, cold and draughty, and full of disgusting cheap pine oozing resin under lead paintwork - will be absent.

You pays yer money...

[Hywel]

[Willard the Rat]

Westbury Homes are using 'Space4' building system - timber-framed, brick-clad just for decoration, fibreboard 'joists', steel H-section frames hold up thin plasterboard walls, dormer windows made entirely of plastic but painted to look like tiles/boarding, chimney stacks are false just for show. Their slogan is 'one day all homes will be beuilt like this' - god help us. I thought Wimpey & Barratts gave up timber-frame houses after loads of bad publicity in early 1980s? Don't think I want to buy a Westbury house.....

Will.

[Steve Firth]

I'd say that modern house are absolute shit compared to anything that I have owned, that covers houses built in 1720, 1830, 1845, 1910 and 1930. The problem as usual being a combination of barking mad regulation combined with cowboy builders.

My current place (1720) is, according to modern regulations a poorly insulated, energy inefficient death trap. It's the most comfortable place I have ever lived and cheaper to heat than my daughter's modern house despite being about 4x the size. There is no thermal mass in current housing designs nor (IMO) is there adequate ventilation. I find the houses stinky, too cold/too hot and far too noisy.

Heck knows what I'll do if I have to move, it's getting difficult and extremely expensive to find decent houses nowadays.

[IMM]

You are having a laugh or making this up.

[IMM]

Not using that word.

[N. Thornton]

Yes, that is one key point. IIUC there was only one building reg in the 1890s: the foundation must be 2 feet deep. Other than that, nothing. So Vic houses cover the full range, from houses that were so dangerous they were never lived in, to lots of fine and beautiful buildings, most still with us today.

When you buy Vic you get something that has stood for 100 years. Beyond that, could be anything. Consequently most surviving Vic houses were built to last. The ones that werent didnt.

Todays houses meet numerous safety and reliability criteria. They have various maintenance issues waiting to occur downline, such as pushfit plumbing, galvanised steel in mortar, etc. But Vic houses require far more maintenance on the whole.

The main downsides with new houses are:

- lack of structural proof - ie ones with serious structural faults that will take a bit of time to show up

- dreadful taste

- inadequate and unhealthy ventilation

- problem locations such as flood plains, toxic waste sites etc

- other hidden problems waiting for the unknowing buyer, which in 100 year old houses have almost always been sorted out long ago.

Regards, NT

[IMM]

10 years is generally enough time.

Subjective. Some are very tasteful.

Not so. Ventilation is madatory: trickle vents, etc.

That is not a problem to new houses in themselves.

And with being 100 years old will bring futher very expensive problems.

New homes are also genrally better designed inside, with en-suite bathrooms, etc.

[<Barbara]

"IMM" wrote

A benefit I appreciate is generally the sensible layout of space in the kitchen. For example, gaps fit the sizes of appliances.

Barbara

[Mike Mitchell]

And yet there is *no* rogue's gallery of shoddy houses/builders to avoid! I wrote recently to What House mag to ask them when they would do an article about poor quality domestic construction as highlighted in a recent TV programme which depicted some absolutely nightmarish faults in brand-new houses. But they totally rejected any idea of shoddy workmanship, believing it to be a very isolated occurrence.

I'm actually now looking at a large 1930s house. It appears to be as solid as if it had been carved out of rock! My ex-council house is also built like a brick outhouse, with solid walls inside, not stud walls. I can actually drill a hole and use an ordinary Rawlplug for fixing shelves! Who can say that with a modern house? That said, with a brand-new house, everything - heating, wiring, plumbing - is, well, new! Maybe ten or fifteen years of peace of mind.

MM

[Mike Mitchell]

No, it doesn't. It sounds like crap.

Cheap and nasty. A proper joist is far more satisfactory. But probably more expensive, which is the only reason for not choosing it.

Bricks and mortar are also strong. And don't rust.

Looks tacky and naff.

Oh, so you concede "silly"!!

No, they won't.

Timber-framed as they do in some parts of the world, fine. These are constructed with thick, solid beams and posts. I wouldn't mind one of those houses. But the kind you're talking about are just thrown up at the cheapest possible price to realise the maximum possible profit. I call them Hollywood Houses, because to my mind they resemble the plywood facades on a film set. Utter and complete rubbish - and only in Britain, of course. Can you imagine the Germans or the Scandinavians accepting the kind of "quality" we put up with?

MM