Thickness of ceiling joists in loft

[Mal]

Near where I live, there are plans to build 6500 new homes, with associated schools, hospitals, indistrial units and a science park. The homes are going on greenfield sites, the industry on brown. The floodplain area is going to be parkland. All fairly sensible.

The site is only 350 acres, so it's going to be a squeeze as usual, but I bet if the developers had twice the land, they would build twice the number of houses, not make each one bigger.

I'll say again - there needs to be some regulations covering minimum room dimensions. That is what will make a difference to the vast majority of people who can only afford one of these cookie-cutter estate houses.

[Tony Bryer]

Parker Morris in the 1960's laid down minimum floor areas for Council housing but I don't think it place of HMG to tell people how big their rooms should be - if people want to pay big money for a Barratt house or Victorian cottage with tiny rooms that is their choice. We could (in places already are) adopt the system of quoting the internal floor area so you could very quickly see whether it was spacious or poky, and such information might (or might not) change buyers perceptions

[Mal]

I'm not suggesting the room size is decided by HMG - just some *minimum* dimensions - just like you have minimum standards applied to other aspects of building. Why shouldn't room size be included as a measure of quality?

It's not the choice of most people to live in a pokey rabbit hutch. Not everyone has the luxury of enough money to have a true choice. The price of the smallest hosues will always tend to creep up to whatever the maximum the average first time buyer can afford. If the smallest houses were a bit bigger, they wouldn't necessarily be more expensive to buy, but it would mean an improvement in the quality of the country's housing stock, and in the living conditions of its population.

In fact, rather than build ever smaller starter homes, perhaps the planning authorities should encourage the building of lots of large houses instead. That would take the pressure of housing prices by reducing the demand from people with loads of cash. Eventually this would come through to more sustainable prices at the lower end.

Mal

[IMM]

I think it is. At least the minimum sizes. A 3 bed house should have minimum room sized as they generally have 5 people in them. You need a toiler downstairs, so they can give minimum room sizes, and also minimum sized plots and proximity etc.

In certain price brackets you have no choice, they are all poky.

Not about buyers, it is about minimum living space in new houses, although the squ foot is useful.

[IMM]

If minimum house room and plot sizes were in force they could not build the sort of developments we all hate. Also with a certain amount of homes mandatory open land should be there, etc, etc.

Which is the majority of people.

[PoP]

But don't forget that HMG get extra taxes by having more houses, in the form of council tax which is applied to each property, so it's not in HMG's interest to expand the footprint size of new houses - in fact the reverse is true.

If you have two houses occupying AxB footprint then I believe the council tax for those two properties will give government rather more than having a single dwelling occupying 2xAxB. Not forgetting that the latter house might well be in the topmost band so no matter what size it was increased to it would still pay the same council tax.

PoP

Sending email to my published email address isn't guaranteed to reach me.

[Mike Mitchell]

No!!

Detached houses that are detached only by a foot or two look utterly stupid and give one no privacy whatsoever! Do NOT recommend this suggestion at all, sorry!

MM

[Mike Mitchell]

But I would never contemplate buying one of those. I can get garden sheds at B & Q.

MM

[Mike Mitchell]

Language! What does TJI mean?

MM

[Mike Mitchell]

Basically, the lofts in these modern houses don't sound to me anything like as sturdy as in my ex-council house! Maybe I should buy TWO ex-LA semis where I want to move to (Lincs) and make a single home out of them. Or live in one half and rent out the other half.

By the way, does the quality of council house building vary across the country? Where were the best ones built?

MM

[IMM]

Trus Joist McMillan I beams

[IMM]

A pneumonia getting old council house.

[Huge]

Not as bad as "link detached" (which are joined by the garage) and are, in my book, called "terraced".

One of the requirements when we started looking for detached houses was that you should be able to walk all the way round them.

[Mike Mitchell]

No way! Actually, some detached houses that are so close as to be practically touching each other, are *worse* than link detached. Because all the link detached properties I have seen are linked by the garages, the main house shell being further away from its neighbour by a greater distance than other so-called detached houses where the gap between is barely wide enough to walk down.

MM

[Mike Mitchell]

You must have only experienced badly built or maintained ones, then! This house is as dry as a bone and is solid enough to last another fifty years at least - with minimal maintenace. I know, because I have just spent a week working in the loft and am continually amazed at the huge timbers they used. Can you say that about a lot of the jerry building that has gone on in Britain over the past two decades?

MM

[IMM]

You are obviously impressed with over engineering. Some very sold new home are being built. If you want one like that find who makes them.

[N. Thornton]

Of course. I've seen ones built from a steel frame with plasterboard walls and PVC exterior cladding. Ugly.

Regards, NT

[Mike Mitchell]

Building a house (or anything) to last is not over-engineering, but plain old common sense. Why design anything that has a limited lifespan? This is where Britain continually goes wrong with our short-termist attitude to most endeavours.

MM

[Mike Mitchell]

And yet the majority were not built like that.

MM

[IMM]

Poorly designed houses that cost a fortune to heat and collectively contribute vast amounts of CO2 to global warming should be demolished. The current new houses should get 100 years. But if far superior newer, no heating houses are common in 30, 40, 50 years, it is easy to dispose of the current crop.

Making poor technology to last is silly.