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Housing - New Build: 300,000 new homes?

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1 to 14 of 14

  1.  
    • CommentAuthortony
    • CommentTimeNov 27th 2017 edited
     
    Pigs might fly,

    It is nice to have targets but the wider infrastructure, skilled labour in particular can’t deliver this quantity of new homes.

    Then we could talk about if new homes even count if they are built in a substandard way.
    • CommentAuthorcjard
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2017
     
    What about culling the population instead?!
    • CommentAuthorDarylP
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2017
     
    ...or educating them? :devil:
  4.  
    Posted By: tonySkilled labour in particular can’t deliver this quantity of new homes.
    They should be built in a factory environment to Passive or Zero Energy Standard.
    • CommentAuthortony
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2017
     
    How many are being done that way this year?
    • CommentAuthorowlman
    • CommentTimeNov 30th 2017
     
    Pigs may fly indeed tony;
    Whenever news articles appear on TV, they are usually accompanied by shots of the typical building site with brickies doing their thing on scaffolds building cavity walls. Similarly, when the skills shortage is highlighted its off to some college for the TV cameras, where the same outdated bricks and mortar construction techniques are foisted onto a new generation of youngsters. All the while the politicians coo at these great training programmes teaching stuff that is not going to solve the problem.
    Even if it gets near to fixing it, it'll produce serried rows of poorly designed, labour intensive, houses unfit for future generations.
    The volume building trade needs a complete shake up IMO.
  7.  
    Many (most?) volume houses being built in this corner of Scotland now seem to be factory timber kits . The big volume house builders have opened factories to make the kits, eg Stewart Milne have two factories.
    Maybe just the weather here has driven this.

    I'm not involved in the industry, just what I see going past their sites.
    • CommentAuthorMarkyP
    • CommentTimeNov 30th 2017 edited
     
    in my area of Kent we have several new volume sites either recently built or in progress, but cavity brick and block is the de facto standard. they are all facing brick work, some with a bit of render thrown in to break up the mono-culture. I cant recall seeing any timber kit built property other than maybe the odd self build project. I was chatting with my BCO who was very interested in my EWI, he was lamenting what he described as the local obsession with cavity/face brick work construction. I cant believe it's consumer demand, the housing shortgage is acute down here, I very much doubt buyers would walk away from timber system homes becuase they didnt have brick walls, and in any case all the local new built brick boxes look bloody awful IMO.
    • CommentAuthorcjard
    • CommentTimeNov 30th 2017 edited
     
    I doubt it's consumer demand-the average person cannot tell you whether a house is two brick skins or a brick and timber frame. Skills shortage seems far more likely; bricklayers probably outnumber chippies 20:1.

    The first house I built was brick n block. 100sqm, got to empty shell stage for.. erm...about 9 grand (and value my time at that too, call it 18)
    The second house I built was a timber frame inside an existing brick shell (so all the hard work was done already!), 300 sqm, and about 60 grand (!) - erected by others, my labour was probably only worth 8 on that one. If the brick shell had had to be put up too, that might have been more like 80

    But it went up 4 times faster.. I'm still trying to work out if it was equivalent value for money. Could I have brick n blocked the second skin and stud walls for less than 60, on my tod? Could I have timber framed it on my tod, for less than 60? I may never know
    • CommentAuthorgravelld
    • CommentTimeNov 30th 2017
     
    I thought I saw Westleigh, not a national firm, but a medium sized one I think, building a development with TF near Melton Mowbray. At least, I'm sure I noticed some of the builds were sticks. Looking on their website it turns out they do have a separate TF factory/division, so maybe my eyes weren't deceiving me.

    Of course, just because it's TF that doesn't make it ok. Could have TBs all over the place, low ambition insulating etc etc.
  11.  
    Posted By: cjardI doubt it's consumer demand-the average person cannot tell you whether a house is two brick skins or a brick and timber frame. Skills shortage seems far more likely; bricklayers probably outnumber chippies 20:1.

    The first house I built was brick n block. 100sqm, got to empty shell stage for.. erm...about 9 grand (and value my time at that too, call it 18)
    The second house I built was a timber frame inside an existing brick shell (so all the hard work was done already!), 300 sqm, and about 60 grand (!) - erected by others, my labour was probably only worth 8 on that one. If the brick shell had had to be put up too, that might have been more like 80

    But it went up 4 times faster.. I'm still trying to work out if it was equivalent value for money. Could I have brick n blocked the second skin and stud walls for less than 60, on my tod? Could I have timber framed it on my tod, for less than 60? I may never know

    What about single skin block and EWI - how would that work for a comparison. IMO easier than cavity and no risk of rot as with TF if the VCL/insulation detailing is faulty
    • CommentAuthormikael
    • CommentTimeDec 1st 2017
     
    I don't think there is anything particularly wrong with masonry construction. Timber frame construction can cost similar amounts, but is often not as solid as a masonry building. Masonry construction can provide greater thermal mass and there is no particular reason why it cannot be well insulated.
    • CommentAuthorCWatters
    • CommentTimeDec 2nd 2017
     
    Is it really 300,000 new homes or an increase from the current level to 300,000 a year by some date in the future?
  14.  
    It is a target for 300k new homes per year:

    "And to create the financial incentives necessary to deliver 300,000 net additional homes a year on average by the mid-2020s."

    I.e. A further increase of just under 40% from last year's 217k.

    I think that will be deliverable unless something catastrophic happens. New initiatives will not deliver much in 5 years, so it must be based mainly on current programmes. The keys seem to me to be releasing publicly ownned unused land currently scheduled but slow going through, increasing social sector new provision, and whether Mayor Sadiq can maintain the delivery of new homes in London. Personally I would turn Thamesmead into something with greater than Barbican density.

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