Timber framed 1980s houses: resale prospects

[Owain]

"Mike Mitchell" wrote | Because I believe that council houses represent a very valuable | part of Britain's heritage, since many designs have proved their | worth over more than fifty years. These houses, whilst aesthetically | not looking all that fantastic from the outside, fulfilled a purpose | and were far better than the "emergency" prefabs. ... | The book would contain many photos and computer simulations, | details of finishes used, details of floor coverings, garden | sizes, roof structure, insulation (!), heating, foundations, and a | lot more besides. Even in Foyles, Charing Cross Road, I found | nothing remotely like this. Mostly I could only find brief | paragraphs that mentioned council house building, but really | only from a political/social viewpoint, not from the construction | angle.

I have a copy of "Specification - the standard reference book for architects, surveyors and municipal engineers" 1947 (The Architectural Press) which covers a lot of what you are interested in, although from the perspective of new post-war building generally.

Incidentally, it has a whole chapter on "Insulated construction" including refrigeration ("when designing a large block of flats, consideration shoudl be given to a central refrigeration system, in which individual small cold stores in each flat are supplied by pipes from a large plant housed in the basement"), sound and vibration insulation.

Some of the adverts are interesting - Kent & Sussex Contractors Ltd were proud of building the first Dartford Corporation houses.

Probably the RIBA library archives would be the place to start looking.

Owain

[IMM]

Not much better. They were far too small for the families who occupied them. The only decent council houses were the immediate post war houses built according to Bevan. He wanted quality in design and construction, but this was time consuming. The Tory McMillan reversed all this to get the numbers up, with dire consequences in many instances. In Hemel Hempstead they refer to older council house as Beven houses, which go for good prices, and McMillan houses, which do not.

Many of the cheap and nasty council homes of the Tory administrations ended up horrendously expensive as they created appalling social conditions. In hindsight they would have been better off continuing what Bevan was doing. High quality. Faster and cheaper techniques could have been used as long as the design in homes and suburbs was kept up. This they never did, as all aspects were done on the cheap. The homes were cheap and nasty and the urban planning equally appalling. We are still paying the price for this contempt of the working classes. The jealous middle classes in their small box semi's would cry "they have bathrooms, what more do they want?" Or derogatory comments as "they will put coal in the bath". What curtailed good council house and suburb design and building, was good old British petty snobbery.

[IMM]

And that it is.

[Mary Fisher]

I lived in a council house and never came across these attitudes.

I should think that nowadays most people would want more than bathrooms - central heating, for instance.

We had a coal house to put the coal in, but did know what a bth was for. It saved us going to the public baths as we had done for all my life before then. And loved it - those enormous ceramic bths were pure luxury.

My friends were pretty wealthy, from professional families (my dad was a labourer) and lived in large houses, not box semis. They never made any derogatory comments about where I lived.

Perhaps you felt the way you describe ...

Mary

[IMM]

MacMiIlan.

Labour Wison in charge.

Tory Thatcher ended it. Thank you.

13C? Freezing. 18C? Try sitting in that for a long time. Council house residents were always regarded as second to third class citizens.

[Tony Bryer]

Really? ...

"The Parker Morris Committee drew up the influential 1961 [who was PM in

1961 IMM?] report on public housing in the United Kingdom entitled Homes for today and tomorrow. The report concluded that the quality of social housing needed to be improved to match the rise in living standards, and made a number of recommendations.

Out of the report came the Parker Morris Standards. In 1967 these became mandatory for all housing built in New Towns, extended to all council housing in 1969, although they had by then already been adopted by many councils. The mandatory nature of the standards was ended by the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980, as concerns grew over the cost of housing and public spending generally.

Among the standards are that: In one, two and three bedroom dwellings, one WC is required, and it may be in the bathroom. A semi-detached or end-of-terrace house for 4 people should have a net floor area of 72 square metres. A dwelling for three or more people should have enclosed storage space for the kitchen of 2.3 cubic metres. Dwellings should be fitted with heating systems that maintain the kitchen and circulation space at 13°C, and the living and dining spaces at 18° celsius, when the external temperature is -1°C."

[Mary Fisher]

13 degrees above freezing.

Our ch thermostat is set to 10 C year round.

Mary

[The Natural Philosopher]

IMM gets his clarss conshesnuss out of the bumper book of inverted snobbery Mary. None of it is real.

[IMM]

You have missed the point. The level of council housing was deliberately dropped by the Tory party. Many of their petty snob middle class voters were quite jealous of the standards in council homes compared to what they had.

Many in narrow minded Little England thought you put coal in your bath.

They were too far up the wealth table. The lower middle clasees were the evil ones living in town around the south of London and awful places like Aberdeen.

No. I just detested it when I came across it, which was all too often. I always suggested they put their names down on the council list if they aspired to the council house standards.

[IMM]

bathrooms -

Spoken like a true snot.

[Mary Fisher]

No, you have missed the poin t.

Don't be silly.

bathrooms -

That was a joke. Nobody really thought that.

Or perhaps you know someone who did?

So much for your friends.

Oh get real!

And?

[Mary Fisher]

That just about sums you up.

[IMM]

deliberately

Mary, I am the one making the point. I know point I am making.

That is what I used to say to them.

You what?

Never did, but they knew, of course.

Not my friends, Mary.

Taking about real, that was the reality.

They might have and never told anyone.

[IMM]

Mary, quite. A true realist who know about life.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Crikey. I doubt my heating would ever come on if mine was set to that in London. ;-)

[Mary Fisher]

Would that I had the time left ...

Well ...

Indeed.

As I said, would that the circumstances were different I'd be very keen to collaborate. Unfortunately they're not.

But I wish you every success in your endeavour. It needs to be done.

Mary

[Andy Hall]

So you would let them get away with it?

I don't believe it......

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[IMM]

There is a difference bewteen grumpy old men and proper people.

[Andy Hall]

I guess that you would be fully aware of that....

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[Mike Mitchell]

Well, many thanks for all the positive responses from one and almost all. IMM must try harder to get a pewter star, though.

MM