How not to do a basement extension

[The Other Mike]

At what point does it stop being a basement extension and becomes mineral extraction?

[Adam Aglionby]

Not that many architects make good project managers, people who have trained on from trades can be more aware of the games played in construction.

Couple that spring to mind , non passivated fasteners being used deeply internal to building, stockists were out of the right ones that morning and supervising architect had never seen correct item in flesh before.

Wrong blocks used in ground floor of block and beam construction flats, too lightweight, started crumbling overnight after first floor of reinforced concrete beams was lowered on. Demolish, start again

Next block was changed to timber frame, built on site, including roof trusses, wasn`t certified, had to get certified after completion.

Third block was timber frame from pre certified timber frame kit, completed by actual Project Manager , apparently running at around 15% of build cost, new P.M. was employed by new company that took over the bankrupt half done site.

Don`t get me started on "surveyors"

[spuorgelgoog]

I think you'd have to worry about concreting into the Victoria Line first :-)

Owain

[Brian Gaff]

all that sounds sensible to me. I do wonder if anyone should have seen alarm bells at the inception. some buildings are n just not meant to have basements in any case. so what now? who is sueing who? Brian

[newshound]

Me too. I was questioning whether they were competent to have terms like "management" and "investment" in their job titles!

[Dave Plowman (News)]

There tends to be a limit as to how much value you can add to a house in any particular area. This isn't South Ken, and spending too much would be silly. Although house prices are already silly. ;-)

[Capitol]

Dave Plowman (News) wrote: Although house prices are already silly. ;-)

That's what you get as a result of printing money instead of allowing the market to correct by banks failing.

[Fredxxx]

No, it's a result of ever increasing demand for housing.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You can date it all back to Thatcher. ;-)

Selling off council housing and not allowing the proceeds to be used to build more. Makes it more profitable for private sector renting thus pushing up the price of houses.

[Fredxxx]

Not sure how selling houses to sitting tenants increased demand on houses.

It is also well recognised, that houses in the private non rental market are more likely to be occupied than any other.

[Andrew Gabriel]

And, as successive governments have all failed to fix that, they've introduced other measures instead such as affordable housing and other schemes, which actually only makes the situation worse.

The only way to make housing affordable is to build enough of it, so it's not in short supply.

[Robin]

Yes of course. And no doubt it was also her fault that the rate of housing completions declined just as fast in the years before 1979 as it did afterwards, and that Blair and Brown commissioned lots of reviews of the housing market but delivered very little in practice on the supply side (but a vast increase in demand). So if you want to point fingers at the causes of house prices in London try looking also at the extra demand in the capital under NuLab.

[john james]

The US didn't get that result.

[Tim Watts]

What I would welcome is a massive boost for single developers (ideally developer-occupiers, but I'm not sure how you regulate that):

1) Relaxation in planning rules to encourage sparse developments instead of crowding everything together; 2) Tax breaks.

Developer-occupier would have two advantages:

a) Variation of design and less clusters of ticky-tacky boxes;

b) Better build quality - less of this "it looks fancy until you get under the sink and wonder why the plumbing is so s**te and why do the floors bounce like they are full of woodworm?"

[john james]

When there is a real problem with the lack of new houses.

[john james]

Doesn?t explain why most of the first world has seen the same result, when plenty of them never had council housing or anything like it.

[Andy Burns]

I hadn't heard of this until the other day, nor much idea what might come out of it ...

[tony sayer]

In article , Andrew Gabriel scribeth thus

Ere!, do some 'ave their own tube stations dawnn there ;?....

[Fredxxx]

Or massive immigration in the past decade. Take your pick.

[john james]

I'm not convinced that any country has enough individuals who can be developer-occupiers to make any real difference.

And I am one myself.