and we think our housing stock is bad

[Dave Plowman (News]

Jesus wept. Absolutely no surprise a Tory doesn't understand the difference between 'decent standards' and standards.

[Dave Plowman (News]

True. Last Victorian terraced house across the road from here sold for 1.4M

[Steve Walker]

They can't force you to improve anything, but if you do, then it has to meet the current regulations unless ruled out technically or on specific financial grounds.

Yes. Any change (including improvement) of more than 25% of a thermal element (walls, insulation, render, plaster) requires the whole thing to be brought up to standard.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Ah - right. Does that explain Grenfell? Where exactly this was done?

[JNugent]

You have simply no conception of the passage of time and the rolling forward of history, do you?

Do you *really* believe that when a terrace of housing was built in the

1860s, each with a scullery equipped with a cold water tap, plus a coal-fire grate in every other room, all topped off with a slate roof, that this was in any sense "substandard"?

The whole point of the building standards of the day is that housing built subsequently would be better than housing built for the same market at earlier dates. In other words, housing was getting better because of legislation.

I bet you don't even know (and won't accept) that council housing was being built in the 1930s where the bath was in the kitchen and where the lavatory was accessed only after leaving the house?

But even after nearly a century of building regulation, that - in the

1930s - was regarded as acceptable. By (say) the 1950s, it would not have been (those council houses still exist, BTW).

The point is that building regulation has constantly moved on since it was instigated during the Victorian era (if not sooner).

Now... do I know what the building regs currently require?

Of course I don't, because my life doesn't revolve around that world, with the solitary exception of the occasion when we had an extension built and I - fleetingly - came into contact with it but on the whole, left it to the professionals.

But on any footing, building regulations today are a far cry from what they were when that house I was describing was built.

But of course, the regs probably don't specify triple-glazing, gold-plating on the taps or Carrera marble on the kitchen floor, so there are no doubt some people who will never be satisfied with them.

Ooh... no answer to that?

Let me tell you a little more: when new (as recently as 1963), it didn't have central heating or double-glazing. Does that mean it was unfit?

[JNugent]

Yes.

You wouldn't get that much in Barnsley, but I know what you mean (and agree).

[Steve Walker]

I don't know. I suspect that that was more a case of a poorly insulated building, also subject to rain damage/damp and that it was considered that external insulation, with a rain covering, would make the whole place warmer, dryer, cheaper to heat, longer lasting and better looking.

Internally insulating the one (or two) external walls of an individual flat would have been permitted, but would have taken space away and not provided any of the above benefits except (partial) insulation (with cold spots at the top, bottom and sides where the uninsulated ends of the dividing walls would be).

[The Natural Philosopher]

So do it one bit at a time :-(

[Andrew]

That and other tower blocks were badly susceptible to heat loss in winter, and just as bad, thermal gain in summer. Insulating it externally was a good idea, but badly implemented with a terrible decision to use rigid PIR on a far-from-flat surface. If they had used rockwool the rainscreen would have been insulated from the structure, when in fact because the aluminium/plastic composite panels burnt at over 1000C at which temperature the Celotex also added to the combustion (which it wouldn't internally and exposed to the temperature of a domestic fire, even after the plasterboard had been burnt through).

[Andrew]

Or in fact ANY insulation at all. Nothing, nada. Who needs insulation when you can have a blazing coal fire (possibly a parkray) to warm the whole house and with the single pipe gravity feed to the hot tank, a supply of lukewarm water. Radiators ?, what are they ?. People wore jumpers and socks inside in those days.

[Andrew]

John Prescott demolished hundreds of houses like that when he was in Government as part of his Pathfinder project

£2.2 Billion pissed up the wall and whole areas blighted for years

[JNugent]

Not in places where they would have sold for £1,400,000 each.

Maybe that much for two hundred of them.

The Pathfinder scheme did have some common sense ideas behind it. A house in which various members of my family had lived since the 1940s was one which was destined to be included, but the scheme was dropped before getting to it. There's an obvious sentimental attachment, but demolishing a row of cheaper terraced houses in order to provide rear space (for parking and extended outdoor areas) for a terrace of larger houses facing a main road isn't without its attractions.

But in the end, Prescott probably decided it would be easier just to ban all parking in the area.

[RJH]

Ah right, gotcha, thanks.

Thanks - 1000+ pages! There's the relevant section here:

(which includes useful in-text links to other parts of the document and definitions)

'Have to' improve to modern standards? Strikes me that the regulations only apply in the case of major works (regulation 23(2)), and the 'requirements' for existing buildings look vague, with 'reasonable' mentioned frequently. But within the maze of what can't and should be done, some useful detail.

More reading needed - thanks for the links/info. The reason I'm interested is not just for my home. I'm involved (on the edge) of a local retrofit initiative with everybody stumbling about and vast sums to spend.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Thanks for confirming you are of the Trump/Bojo style of discusiion. Think everyone even more stupid than they are.

No. I don't think that. Do you? They were built to the standards of the time. And standards have to move with the times.

Which in lots of cases, it hasn't.

I've no idea. But I've seen council houses of the 30s with conventional bathrooms and toilets. So is your point is that standards of the day, then and now, were ignored by many?

You don't know much history, do you? Such as regs being brought in after the great fire of London...

So now you have to ask the question you want to answer. No surprise there.

[JNugent]

And they HAVE.

But you want to pretend that they haven't.

Why is that?

A moment's reflection before you pushed "send" would have been useful.

To you, that is.

You are now claiming - by necessary and inescapable implication - that housing standards have not improved since the middle of the nineteenth century. Even you don't really believe that.

Of course you haven't.

But you didn't let that fact influence you.

Loca authorities?

That's IF they were a breach of the hous>> But even after nearly a century of building regulation, that - in the

The seventeenth century did not see legislation requiring bathrooms, proper cooking facilities and food storage. That was all about fire safety for general benefit, not improved living conditions.

But I know the effect of the regulations: far better accommodation than was the case a hundred years ago. You have been insisting that that hasn't happened.

No answer?

No answer?

[Dave Plowman (News]

Jesus wept. My point is today's standards are inadequate in many ways. Things like insulation. Safety of materials used. And so on. Let alone inspection to make sure things are even built to spec.

But after 10 years of Tory rule everything is perfect.

[JNugent]

I know you think that. Or at least, that you claim it.

There are regulations which cover insulation.

There are regulations which cover the standards and quality of building materials. And of how they are deployed.

There is a system of inspection (and approval) of building work in progress.

You are never going to be satisfied, are you?

No matter how exacting regulations are, you will always insist that they should be more strict on some misguided "principle".

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well its better than scotland after god knows how many years of labour and SNP rule.

Of course building regulations are not normally a political matter, and when they are it normally just makes things worse.

Take disability regs. Acquaintances in wheel chairs say they would far rather have a bog standard house with no disability regs and ten grand to fix it up, than a house to the 'disability regs'

And as we are discussing, no insulation is preferable to less than regulatory insulation, and regulatory insulation is what killed people at Grenfell.

He is a whining socialist. Their jackets are all cur to accomdate giant chips on each shoulder. If they ever got what they think they want they would whine that their clothes no longer fitted,

That's a socialist for you.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Principle is not really a word you Tories should use.

[JNugent]

Do you ever ask yourself why the side which consists of people who think like you manages to lose so many elections?