<blockquote><cite>Posted By: tony</cite>What design features should be avoided in new builds.

"Georgiana", "Victoriana", or any other "iana"; Design for the present. Its the apeing of old architectural periods that often create many constructional problems.

Would you count the use of chipboard in bathrooms and kitchens as a 'design feature'? Ban that!

In principle, I agree with internal garages, but even worse are garages that are located immediately in front of the new house.

Posted By: Chris P BaconRoof lights

Chimneys/Flues

Care to explain?

light is nice though.....

Posted By: jfblight is nice though.....

True but if is just daylight you need then bring it in with fibre optics instead.

Posted By: owlmanIts the apeing of old architectural periods that often create many constructional problems.

Totally agree.

Go to continental European cities and they/their planning authorities don't have the British hang-up about houses looking 'traditional' or just like the one next door.

Central heating.

I'll second baths and add draining boards.

For same U value, any element that 'faces' the sky (as opposed to 'facing' solid/liquid objects like scenery) will lose a lot more heat, all of the extra by radiation, when the sky is clear. When it's cloudy, no difference - clouds are liquid.

A clear sky is gas, and gas doesn't 'do' balanced radiation exchange because gas emits radiation only in small, discrete wavelength bands. Gas returns far less than it absorbs; the surplus that a clear(gas) sky fails to return to earth eventually gets radiated away into space.

That's why the earth doesn't get hotter and hotter from its core fires. And that's why you get dews and ground frosts - the ground, facing up to a clear night sky, gets cooled well below air temp, so acts as a condensing surface. You don't get dew or ground frost on a cloudy night.

And that's why caravans start to rot from day 1 - not by leakage but because their roofs' underside are a superb condensing surface, and the condensate can never dry out thro their vinyl wallpaper. If you set out to design a worst-case roof sandwich, it would be typical caravan construction.

So rooflights need to have very low U value, with coatings particularly to block radiation, to not be a worse heat loser than the windows. Nothing (or not much) to do with heat rising internally.

For same light transmission, fibre optics will give exactly same result as far as the radiant component is concerned - prob worse because fire optics can't be selective-coated. Of course fibre optics practically eliminate the conductive component, due to their large 'thickness' (i.e. fibre length), which far out-weighs their high conductivity - provided the fibre bundle is highly insulated around so heat can't conduct sideways out of it.

Posted by Rhamdu;
Totally agree.

Go to continental European cities and they/their planning authorities don't have the British hang-up about houses looking 'traditional' or just like the one next door.&amp;amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;amp;gt;

It seems a peculiar British hang up, that is wanting to keep turning the clock back. I often see it on interiors for instance with the inability to design a stylish contemporary interior, as for exteriors;

Small pane windows
Parapet gable walls
Ostentatious and often pointless Porticoed entrances
external soil pipes

and with the whole copying thing also comes,
Sliding sash windows
brick and block cavity walls
excessive amounts of lead flashing and/or mortar flaunching
Inadequately designed doors and windows

Volume developers are the worst, and put them together with planners who wouldn't know Art Deco, from Art Nouveau, Victorian from Georgian, and you have a recipe for inertia.

Posted By: owlmanPosted by Rhamdu;
Totally agree.

Go to continental European cities and they/their planning authorities don't have the British hang-up about houses looking 'traditional' or just like the one next door.&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;

It seems a peculiar British hang up, that is wanting to keep turning the clock back. I often see it on interiors for instance with the inability to design a stylish contemporary interior, as for exteriors;

Small pane windows
Parapet gable walls
Ostentatious and often pointless Porticoed entrances
external soil pipes

and with the whole copying thing also comes,
Sliding sash windows
brick and block cavity walls
excessive amounts of lead flashing and/or mortar flaunching
Inadequately designed doors and windows

Volume developers are the worst, and put them together with planners who wouldn't know Art Deco, from Art Nouveau, Victorian from Georgian, and you have a recipe for inertia.

I think a big part of the problem is that for the average home buyer it is their largest purchase, but also one they know least about. This leads to extreme conservatism because people naturally in the absence of knowledge tend to want the 'safe' option, which is what everyone else has. Basically everyone wants a brick box because they think it's what a house should be because everyone else has one. It's like a dead weight that stifles innovation in efficiency, building methods, style etc and causes inefficient, bland, fake, fussy or boring homes. The big home builders of course are happy to pander to it.

Posted By: markocosicYou've got somewhere to charge your battery powered lawnmower.

Don't talk about my EV like that

Much bigger problems with general air tightness, internal cold spaces introduce virtually unsolvable thermal bridges and continuity of insulation problems.

So we have these, anyone fancy prioritising them?

Small pane windows
Parapet gable walls
Ostentatious and often pointless Porticoed entrances
external soil pipes

and with the whole copying thing also comes,
Sliding sash windows
brick and block cavity walls
excessive amounts of lead flashing and/or mortar flaunching
Inadequately designed doors and windows

Baths

Gutter and sewerage downpipes that are not a colour match

Roof lights

Chimneys/Flues

internal soil pipes

Dot and dab
Dormer windows
Shower trays without upstands

You forgot your favourite Tony! Flat roofs.