Couple of weeks ago Grand Designs

[David Hearn]

Was it Grand Designs 2 weeks ago (before the Lake District one) where they had an old terraced house that they gutted and rebuilt? It could have been another programme as we've been watching various old recordings of Grand Designs, Other People's Houses and Property Ladder over the days.

Did anyone find it worrying to see how the place had originally been built? No foundations, piers which were crumbling, walls not joined together....

However, seeing how long its been standing, makes you wonder whether some of the current Building Regulations are a bit OTT.

D

[Toby]

I think it's a rule with any old house, the more you strip back, the more you discover needs rebuilding. It's not just Barrat that built down to a price.

[Harvey Van Sickle]

On Thu, 02 Oct 2003 13:06:48 GMT, Toby wrote

This is surely linked to the rule -- which usually applies, but not always -- that you shouldn't start stripping back an old house to the structure unless you're prepared to rebuild.

Structural intervention often causes failures that otherwise wouldn't have occurred: with an old, poorly-built, but *stable* house, it's often the act of unnecessary stripping-back that breaks things, rather than the poor initial work itself (which over time can find a sort of equilibrium).

[The Natural Philosopher]

When my (probably 17th/18th) century cottage was demolished, we found no foundations beyond a brick plinth laid in very wet clay, and heaps of dross inside the chimneys where you wouldn't see it.

It would still have been sound if lack of mauntenance hadn't caused the main timber to rot beyond economic repair.

New one went in with similar structure, but 2.8m deep concrete underneath...old lime mortar and timber just moves around to soak up subsidence and rot :-) Thers a place in Lavenham, suffolk, where you can learly see one wall has slipped down about 3 fet - windows are now rhomboid, and its just been fixed up that way. Its listed now :-) .

[Rick Dipper]

I have a building stood on the top (very edge) of a cliff, made of rubble 150+ years ago, zero foundation, just a layer of big stones. The survayor said, its been there 150 year why worry ? Building regs to alter is - nightmare !!!

But its like lots of stuff, it goes wrong once, and a do gooder runs a campain to get the law changed, and it costs us all lots of money.

Rick

[Hugo Nebula]

On Thu, 2 Oct 2003 10:38:31 +0100, a particular chimpanzee named "David Hearn" randomly hit the keyboard and produced:

The houses you see now are the ones that survived. There were plenty of Jerry-built houses in the 18th & 19th century which collapsed soon after they were built. If you ever go to Bath, look at Camden Crescent. The crescent should have extended to the east, but it was built on unstable ground and slipped down the hill (now Hedgemead Park).

There are aspects to 'traditional' construction (solid walls, weak mortar, draughty windows, etc) that helped the buildings to survive the poor construction, that are not acceptable to owners now. Higher standards of insulation, structural stability, fire safety, etc, demand different construction techniques and materials.