Bye bye Starmer

[ZedLeg]

The only benefit of a new build is the ability to run through walls to recreate Juggernaut

Dave!

Glad I’m not the only one who judges buildings on whether the walls are strong enough to withstand a charge

[dinny_g]

walls about 4 inch out of plumb

My brother spent a summer working as a painter and decorator in the States and when he came home, he and his mate thought it be a good idea to do some part time work at home for drinking / college money.

They quickly realised that the perfectly laser plumb houses they had decorated in the US were NOT what we had in Ireland and quit after the first wallpapering gig...

[Mito Man]

Some of the new builds here no longer have roof tiles. They use agricultural metal roofing. Also carports replacing garages now.
4 bed house with space for 1 car on the drive and 1 car in the carport. Setting the residents up nicely for fistfights over having them park over each others pavements.

[dinny_g]

The carpark to house ratios now are crazy.

there is an estate of new builds near me - all 5 and 6 bedroom homes - but each with 1 allocated space each and 1 guest space per 3 homes

All to push people into Public Transport that doesn't exist

[Mito Man]

Yes countryside with no amenities and a bus that stops once per hour if you’re lucky from 8am to 6pm. Living the 15 minute town dream.

[GG.]

I wonder if any generation before them has dealt with such an ideologically driven avalanche of mindlessness as we are seeing over the last 25/30 years.

I guess probably the 1960s in the other direction with London Ringways proposing to knock down swathes of inner London and general throwing up of cement monstrosities everywhere.

[Swervin_Mervin]

The carpark to house ratios now are crazy.

there is an estate of new builds near me - all 5 and 6 bedroom homes - but each with 1 allocated space each and 1 guest space per 3 homes

All to push people into Public Transport that doesn't exist

Old policy, was scrapped when the coalition Govt came into power in 2010. However, it takes time for approved developments to come to fruition so there'll be plenty of recently finished developments that adhere to that old policy.

Regarding houses - we simply shouldn't still be building them out of bricks and mortar. It's old hat and it makes construction slow and more liable to poor workmanship. What Rayner should have done is facilitate growth of the modern pre-fab industry, which is there and of a high quality, but simply doesn't have the capacity to deliver the targets Labour are aiming for.

[jamcg]

Regarding houses - we simply shouldn't still be building them out of bricks and mortar.

Anything not bricks and mortar is classed as non-standard construction and could be difficult to get mortgage on.

Agree on a shift away from it- cement production is stupidly bad when it comes to the push for net zero- the co2 in the production process is going down but it’s still high

[Swervin_Mervin]

Regarding houses - we simply shouldn't still be building them out of bricks and mortar.

Anything not bricks and mortar is classed as non-standard construction and could be difficult to get mortgage on.

Agree on a shift away from it- cement production is stupidly bad when it comes to the push for net zero- the co2 in the production process is going down but it’s still high

Which is why a top down shift is required. Bloody stupid that anything other than bricks and mortar is considered non-standard in this day and age.

[Barry]

My parents built a wooden frame house thirty years ago, with brick outer, no mortgage issues that I recall on that style at least.

Prefab inner panels too, the panels all turned up on a lorry and basic layout was up in a few days.

[jamcg]

My parents built a wooden frame house thirty years ago, with brick outer, no mortgage issues that I recall on that style at least.

Prefab inner panels too, the panels all turned up on a lorry and basic layout was up in a few days.

Timber frame internal with a brick outer wall is classed as standard, happens a lot these days as it’s easy to put a metric fucktonne of insulation in, but if you try to do it like the yanks with timber external with waterproof ‘siding’ as they call it you can’t have that sir

[Swervin_Mervin]

There's a chap on PH that works for one of the few UK prefabs, having worked for a number of housebuilders previously. It's quite interesting to read what he has to say on the matter - essentially there's pent-up demand but because several of the big housebuilders tried out a lower quality competitor a few years ago and couldn't get the economics to stack up, they've all stuck with the traditional brick route.

Would be a different story if we embraced innovation a bit more in this country

[integrale_evo]

The unions won’t like it

[Mito Man]

Might as well add another hate of some new homes - many are clad in timber siding - I suppose it’s all part of the green push but no one seems to maintain them. So 5 years later and it’s all warped and grey and looks shit.
Works on an old barn. Doesn’t work when it’s on a modern house.

[Simon]

Yes and no. Our estate is over 30 years old and many of the designs on it have timber outers on the upper part of the exterior wall. Just about all of them look absolutely fine. Probably because they used good quality timber in the first place, with decent preservatives. I suspect it's a money thing rather than an inherent design issue.

[Swervin_Mervin]

The unions won’t like it

Biggest impact would be on bricklayers, but then I'm sure the majority of the best won't be working for the big housebuilders anyway - they'll be getting paid far better contracting for smaller outfits doing low volume builds and extensions etc..

Everyone else can just reskill and switch to factory working, with some limited onsite work hooking up services

[Mito Man]

Don’t want to drag up the Brexit thread but I just noticed my French butter and cheese both say “not for EU” on them. What are they tainting the non EU version with?

[Simon]

Whale spunk.

[Beany]

Nah, whale spunk is expensive.

They're just spitting in it. Like, a lot.

[IanF]

Hok Tuah baby!