If the Brickie is from Kosovo, then matters are different. If someone sis killed the brickie can face charges.
That is why Prescott is ramming them for more prefabbed techniques to raise quality levels and speed. The average brick and block UK house is far too labour intensive to erect. Far better methods are out there, but we still put tanks in lofts in this country, so what is chance of major change in building techniques and attitude.
I expect that the answer to that lies to some extent in your comment, "Prescott is ramming them". People don't like to be rammed.
"Used to send his mother flahs and that...."
Prefabs in the UK have always been about price, not quality. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but builders then sell them for same price as a conventionally constructed house which has a design life of 200 years, rather than their more typical 50 year life which should price them much less, similar to a leasehold with 50 years left to run plus the land. So buyers get ripped off.
Not now it isn't. BTW, the original prefabs, that were made in Canada, were very good quality. They even had a fitted kitchen with a fitted gas fridge and instant gas water heater. Unheard of in those days. They were also insulated, also unheard of in those days. People always commented on how cosy they were and how cheap to run. A few are still around. many were clad in brick and had pitched roofs fitted.
New technology has come about: SIP panels for instance. In the USA you look at a catalogue of SIPs and pick what you like in making up your house. Some have doors left or right hand in the panel, windows of various standard sizes, etc. You have specify a custom panel, but usually more expensive. So, from standard panels you make up a house which has the walls made of structural insulation. Most don't need heating systems. Just crane them in and the shell is up in a few days including roof. Some come with finished walls and pipes fitted if you want. Concrete panels are available too.
The point is that a factory can come up with superior quality in ideal conditions using the latest computer aided design and manufacturing techniques. Have most of that built in a factory and crane most of it in, and the speed and quality rises exponentially.
The fact is that building a house as they were built 1000 years ago, as that is how we still do it, is totally crazy in this day and age. Also we just don't have the quantity and quality of skills around to build houses as Noah did. Things have moved on for the better.
They will have to be rammed, as they will not change. The government has no option. The UK construction industry is a joke, and other countries laugh at us.
This assumes the need for change.
The government always has an option. Keeping out of people's affairs would be a good one.
Documented evidence?
You are naive.
Keeping out of housing and land and allowing the free market to rule, with no more Draconian planning laws allowing people to build in open countryside and have land not in the hands of a few mainly aristocratic people. In that I agree with you. Get that right and the government will be involved in housing far less.
You really don't know do you?
I read recently that one-quarter of all workers in the construction industry[1] in London/the SE are *illegal* immigrants; they aren't in much position to complain. And they may be being paid only 30p an hour in any case.
Owain
[1] And in hotel/catering, too.
Of course actually not; as a building regs application will be in for the house there's no requirement to use qualified staff.
Perhaps that's why there's no wall-ties - the sparkies pinched them all to save money on fuses.
A perspective on Mr Prescott I had not previously considered.
Owain
The Germans have built a Lidl down the road from me in less than two weeks**.
It isn't steel framed and wasn't prefab.
I haven't seen anyone in the UK build quite so fast.
Barratts started a show home a week earlier and still haven't got a roof on.
** It will probably take another four weeks to fit it out though.
So if they don't want to be "rammed" by Prescott (the mind boggles :-) I would have thought there would be good brickies available for non-developer jobs. But there aren't. Any idea where they've gone ?
Wouldn't surprise me. But I still would have thought it good practice to throw a packet of wall ties to them with the cement and blocks.
You have my deepest sympathy.
You didn't think that he was capable of independent thought, did you?
Potential brickies have probably all gone off to fluck a Media Studies degree at their local poly-come-uni.
^^^^^ flunk
The bricky I know moved away to East Anglia and spent several years leasurely building his own house with his wife. Actually, he had spent many years before that teaching brickworking (and his own brickwork is very impressive I have to say), but stopped when the college made lots of their teaching staff redundant, so presumably there aren't many trained brickies coming into the trade?
On 19 Jun 2005 17:46:31 GMT,it is alleged that snipped-for-privacy@cucumber.demon.co.uk (Andrew Gabriel) spake thusly in uk.d-i-y:
I was wondering which of the 2 possibilities that was a typo for ;-)
Both probably fit equally well...
Most pick it up and it shows.
I guess you are asking how to build a brick wall, a cavity wall, is just 2 walls, with a gap between. and some ties joining them together. The two walls do not need to be of the same material, mine, for example are stone & block.
The ties give extra strength for "wind loading", the BCO made me cut all the ties out where the wall was not gonna get any wind (cause it was below ground).
Rick
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