Challenges left to solve in house construction?

[andrewhockley]

I read last week about the refusal of consent for a new house under the Paragraph 55 exemption which allows construction of isolated houses in the countryside under some exceptions, including innovation and exceptional design.

The planning inspector refused it on the grounds that the construction (Passivhaus plus with every bell and whistle known to man) was pretty well understood, so wasn't innovative.

It just got me thinking - what is there left to work out in terms of innovation in housebuilding? Its already possible (if expensive) to build a house that uses no energy and that will work in terms of design on almost any site. So whats left to innovate? About all I could think of was to do it cost effectively. Any thoughts?

 

[formbypc]

Every housebuilder should include a mounting point on a south-facing surface for a satellite dish, with pre-installed cable routing, so that the installers/butchers from Sky don't come along and haphazardly drill through the walls wherever they think is convenient.

 

[Joe]

Every housebuilder should include a mounting point on a south-facing surface for a satellite dish, with pre-installed cable routing, so that the installers/butchers from Sky don't come along and haphazardly drill through the walls wherever they think is convenient.

Friend of mine bought a house in Hilton in Derbyshire .... it's a huge green field new build estate/town. They just finished building the last houses last year. Not one house was built ready wired for fibre optics for telephone/broadband delivery.
You would think that it would have been written into the planning permissions that they were granted that the whole project should be fit for the 21st century.

 

[formbypc]

Yup, that as well. And Ethernet wiring connecting main rooms as standard?

 

[Bob McC]

I'd be just happy if they'd make sure they weren't building on flood plains, toxic sites, etc..

 

[russel]

Friend of mine bought a house in Hilton in Derbyshire .... it's a huge green field new build estate/town. They just finished building the last houses last year. Not one house was built ready wired for fibre optics for telephone/broadband delivery.
You would think that it would have been written into the planning permissions that they were granted that the whole project should be fit for the 21st century.

Trains are the future, look at HS2, it's all Britain needs to compete in the 21st century.

 

[kendo]

Trains are the future, look at HS2, it's all Britain needs to compete in the 21st century.

Ahem, when you say Britain, the HS2 map seems to end about 314 km south of this part of mainland Britain. I look forward to the trickle up effect happening.

 

[stevec67]

I'd be just happy if they'd make sure they weren't building on flood plains, toxic sites, etc..

While I would be happy if they WERE building there, with sufficient controls to get toxic sites cleaned up and flood plains organised in such a way that part of the garden may well be under water for 6 weeks a year, but the house(s) and access were unaffected. Perhaps this is part of the innovation required.

Would I live on a flood plain? In a house on stilts, with a raised roadway, certainly. I have a friend in France who lives in a house near a river, he just accepts the garden flooding. His house is at the top of the slope, he has no problems. We have less space than France, unless Brexit means the place is going to empty then we're going to need all the space we can get.

 

[Bob McC]

Good luck with that hair brained idea.

 

[Guest432]

Every housebuilder should include a mounting point on a south-facing surface for a satellite dish, with pre-installed cable routing, so that the installers/butchers from Sky don't come along and haphazardly drill through the walls wherever they think is convenient.

I bought a new build 2 years ago and it came wired up for cable with a cable/phone point in the lounge and bedrooms and the coax already run from every house to the road cabinet.

Even better nobody is allowed to mount shitellite dishes on the fronts of the houses

 

[i-s]

I think in this country we are ridiculously backward-looking when it comes to housing.

I'm not convinced that breeze-block and brick are the right materials for building modern houses out of, either in terms of level of embedded energy nor lifetime. Why do we build houses out of materials that we expect to last for hundreds and hundreds of years when it is highly unlikely that the house will continue to be fit for purpose in that time-frame?

As for innovation - I agree with comments above that it is lunacy that modern new build houses have no planning or forethought about provision of phone/fibre/data services. However, there's far more we could so easily be doing.

One simple thing is somewhere near the centre of the house install a simple riser duct, from below ground floor to loft (with air baffles to prevent energy loss). Having a simple way to route services between floors in one central location would make life far easier when changing, adding or repairing services later on in the buildings life.

All new houses should have provision for a minimum battery storage capacity (probably 15-20kWh) to help grid balancing and to massively reduce grid peaking from domestic properties (eg the FA cup half-time kettle switch on). This should then combine with obligatory solar installation. Rainwater harvesting should strongly be considered, to provide water for flushing toilets and hosepipe use.

There should be a complete ban on the use of halogen lights, due to fire risk and inefficiency. When I replaced the 14 MR16s in our kitchen I reduced power consumption from 700W to 112W whilst simultaneously increasing brightness (yes, it's VERY bright in there now), and uncovered two locations where a fire had almost occurred (and left 240V mains exposed due to burn-through of insulation). Philips CorePro 8W 50 degree beam MR16s are superior in output, beam angle and a more pleasant colour than 50W Halogens.

A consideration for LED lighting in houses with solar power and battery storage is to introduce an internal DC (probably 12V) supply so that transformers etc are not required - DC from solar panel is stored in a DC battery and fed out to DC bulbs, providing greater efficiency in energy use as well as being self-sufficient.

So, there's room for innovation - plenty more out there.

 

[sean99]

So whats left to innovate? About all I could think of was to do it cost effectively. Any thoughts?

Turning cost no object designs into mass market utility is often one of the hardest (and most overlooked and underappreciated) challenges in engineering - I would assume house building is similar.

The innovation would be to produce 5 million of these low energy homes around south east England, located in areas that minimize the need for driving, and connected to work, school, shopping with functioning public transport.

 

[formbypc]

I bought a new build 2 years ago and it came wired up for cable with a cable/phone point in the lounge and bedrooms and the coax already run from every house to the road cabinet.

Even better nobody is allowed to mount shitellite dishes on the fronts of the houses

Only of use if the local cable co has something on the other side of the road cabinet, though...

 

[formbypc]

I'm not convinced that breeze-block and brick are the right materials for building modern houses out of, either in terms of level of embedded energy nor lifetime. Why do we build houses out of materials that we expect to last for hundreds and hundreds of years when it is highly unlikely that the house will continue to be fit for purpose in that time-frame?

What would make it unfit for purpose, if the basic building materials are still sound?

 

[awkwardbydesign]

I bought a new build 2 years ago and it came wired up for cable with a cable/phone point in the lounge and bedrooms and the coax already run from every house to the road cabinet.

Even better nobody is allowed to mount shitellite dishes on the fronts of the houses

I hope it was audiophile cabling.

 

[stevec67]

Good luck with that hair brained idea.

Yes, hare-brained, just like any notion that large chunks of East Anglia, Lincolnshire, and half of Holland can ever be reclaimed from the sea, I mean, it's idiotic. What were they thinking of when they started that ridiculous scheme in about the 17th and 18th centuries?
Do you want to tell the French that they need to evacuate people from the banks of the Loire, or shall I? While we're at it, we'd better demolish the Thames barrier as a prelude to evacuating half of the City of London, because clearly inhabiting low-lying areas is impossible and no engineering solutions have ever been developed.

 

[andrewhockley]

I think in this country we are ridiculously backward-looking when it comes to housing.

I'm not convinced that breeze-block and brick are the right materials for building modern houses out of, either in terms of level of embedded energy nor lifetime. Why do we build houses out of materials that we expect to last for hundreds and hundreds of years when it is highly unlikely that the house will continue to be fit for purpose in that time-frame?

As for innovation - I agree with comments above that it is lunacy that modern new build houses have no planning or forethought about provision of phone/fibre/data services. However, there's far more we could so easily be doing.

One simple thing is somewhere near the centre of the house install a simple riser duct, from below ground floor to loft (with air baffles to prevent energy loss). Having a simple way to route services between floors in one central location would make life far easier when changing, adding or repairing services later on in the buildings life.

All new houses should have provision for a minimum battery storage capacity (probably 15-20kWh) to help grid balancing and to massively reduce grid peaking from domestic properties (eg the FA cup half-time kettle switch on). This should then combine with obligatory solar installation. Rainwater harvesting should strongly be considered, to provide water for flushing toilets and hosepipe use.

There should be a complete ban on the use of halogen lights, due to fire risk and inefficiency. When I replaced the 14 MR16s in our kitchen I reduced power consumption from 700W to 112W whilst simultaneously increasing brightness (yes, it's VERY bright in there now), and uncovered two locations where a fire had almost occurred (and left 240V mains exposed due to burn-through of insulation). Philips CorePro 8W 50 degree beam MR16s are superior in output, beam angle and a more pleasant colour than 50W Halogens.

A consideration for LED lighting in houses with solar power and battery storage is to introduce an internal DC (probably 12V) supply so that transformers etc are not required - DC from solar panel is stored in a DC battery and fed out to DC bulbs, providing greater efficiency in energy use as well as being self-sufficient.

So, there's room for innovation - plenty more out there.

I don't think the particular planning inspector would count any of this as being innovative - its best practice for business as usual, and sure very few houses currently incorporate these features - but we know how to do it. I was scratching my head to think of the sorts of things that actually need improving that we haven't got any solution for - and I couldn't think of any really.

 

[stevec67]

I was discussing pre-fab houses with Martin of this parish the last time we met up, he made the point that they are indeed cheaper and great until someone wants to make a change. At that point bricks and mortar are far easier. Not everyone wants to live in a one-size-fits-all Portakabin, after all. It's a shame because mass production has made things like cars and TVs accessible to the point of being disposable, but only at the expense of them all being exactly the same. After all, nobody here has taken a Rolls-Royce chassis to a coachbuilder, have they?

 

[andrewhockley]

I was discussing pre-fab houses with Martin of this parish the last time we met up, he made the point that they are indeed cheaper and great until someone wants to make a change. At that point bricks and mortar are far easier. Not everyone wants to live in a one-size-fits-all Portakabin, after all. It's a shame because mass production has made things like cars and TVs accessible to the point of being disposable, but only at the expense of them all being exactly the same. After all, nobody here has taken a Rolls-Royce chassis to a coachbuilder, have they?

I'm not even sure I'd agree with Martin that pre fab houses are cheaper, or at least for a small developer like us they're not. Everytime I've got a quote for off site build the cost has been astronomical. Probably only works if you want 50 houses all the same.

I'm looking for some new fundamentals to solve.

 

[Rodrat]

My daughter has just moved into a new build flat. All the wiring for satellite and cable broadband is in the living room. However, Virgin media said they didn't know anything about the development and Sky said the dish installed was an old model and did not support SKY Q. Eventually Virgin realized they had actually laid the cables. Sky only have to put on a component on the dish but need specific permission from the developers to do so. The management company has not been appointed yet and the customers services team don't have a clue. The hassle to get this sorted is ridiculous and ongoing.