It’s been a sort of unwritten principle of planning that replacement dwellings were not very contentious, at least in principle. Planners would set limits on any increase in size, which caused angst for lots of people wanting to replace a clapped out 1930s bungalow with a six-bedroom, four-storey gin palace, but the principle that you could knock down your home and replace it with something more to your choosing was never in doubt.
No more. Various local authorities are now taking a view that if your plot is of sufficient size, then you will have to replace your home with more than one – usually three, as this also triggers an additional requirement for at least one to be affordable.
This new state of affairs came to light when some old friends asked my advice about buying a 1930s bungalow with a view to replacing it. They didn’t even want to increase the footprint – they were perfectly happy with the size of the existing bungalow – but they wanted a building that wasn’t mostly asbestos, and one that was properly insulated. They even quite liked the design of the existing house and were perfectly happy to build something like a replica. What they really coveted was the large garden.
Yet their initial contact with the local planners suggested that they wouldn’t be able to do this because the garden was sufficiently large to trigger the affordable housing quota, and that if they wanted to rebuild, they would have to build two private homes plus an affordable one. Which, of course, they don’t want to do.
What a strange state of affairs? They are free to buy the house as is, and to enjoy the garden. They can improve it, extend it even, but they can’t rebuild it without losing the garden.
Has anybody else come across this policy? Any suggestions on how to counter it?
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Decide in haste — repent at leisure
Blimey. I am ever so slightly flabbergasted by the response to my last blog post on mechanical ventilation with heat recovery. I thought it was rather obscure and just a little boring, but thus far I’ve had ten responses and just about everybody disagrees with me. And what’s more, they all seem so anguished. Can it be that this is actually a very critical topic, and that what we are confronting here is a crucial issue? And why do commentators feel so threatened when I question the Passivhaus orthodoxy?
All I am saying is that I am not yet satisfied that the airtight/MVHR build route is the “way to go” for all new homes. I’m not set against it; I’d just like it to be tested in lots of real life UK situations before we embark on it as mandatory. I don’t think it’s that time critical. A delay of three or four years is nothing compared to making a horrible mistake. If this was a drug trial, we would be spending five years and billions of pounds putting it through its paces: why should we accept any less from a critical element of our future wellbeing and future build costs?
As the last respondent put it:
We cannot afford further delays.
I think we can. I don’t think the ice caps will melt any faster if we stand back and assess for a little while, rather than charging in.
All I am saying is that I am not yet satisfied that the airtight/MVHR build route is the “way to go” for all new homes. I’m not set against it; I’d just like it to be tested in lots of real life UK situations before we embark on it as mandatory. I don’t think it’s that time critical. A delay of three or four years is nothing compared to making a horrible mistake. If this was a drug trial, we would be spending five years and billions of pounds putting it through its paces: why should we accept any less from a critical element of our future wellbeing and future build costs?
As the last respondent put it:
We cannot afford further delays.
I think we can. I don’t think the ice caps will melt any faster if we stand back and assess for a little while, rather than charging in.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Whither MVHR?
An interesting letter in last week’s Building from Tim Gough who has a CV as wide as a Passivhaus wall.
In it, he berates the Zero Carbon Hub for being no such thing. They are courting compromise in asking for the mandatory use of mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) to be ditched. They say here that is a step too far for a temperate climate like the UK. Problem is that without MVHR, you can’t really build to PassivHaus standards because it’s so airtight that you would keel over every time someone farted.
Passivhaus standard uses just 15kWh/m2 for annual space heating requirements. Zero Carbon Hub are suggesting that this is relaxed to somewhere between 30 and 45kWh/m2 – i.e. two to three times as much, which is about as low as you can go safely without MVHR. And is really not much lower than where Part L will pitch us next year.
Maybe this debate is a bit obscure, but it’s nevertheless interesting. I rather tend to side with the Zero Carbon Hub on this. I think mandatory MVHR is just possibly a step too far in the UK. If you look closely at Tim’s text, you can begin to make out just what the problems are.
This is not a question of diminishing returns – to halve or quarter heating/cooling costs by means largely of a MVHR system costing a few thousand pounds can hardly be said to be that writes Tim.
Except that it ignores the cost of running the fans which drive MVHR system. OK, they are low. We now have fans operating at under 100w, but multiply that by the 8760 hours in a year and you have consumed enough power to heat and cool 58m2 of Passivhaus. The actual energy saving achieved by MVHR is therefore pretty minimal. Some commentators have even suggested that it’s not a net energy saver at all. They certainly aren’t if residents are so bold as to open their windows.
MVHR systems do not, contrary to what is claimed, adversely affect indoor air quality – even if the filters are not cleaned.
That is true. The reason Passivhaus insists on them is because of air quality, not energy saving. The problem is that they don’t always work as planned; they break down; people turn them off (ironically sometimes to save energy). That is where the problems may lie.
Housebuilders worry about reliability, but this is a proven technology that is no more complex than an extract fan.
And extract fans never break down?
What, I wonder, is the real agenda of the promotion of these poor standards?
In a word, caution. What ought to happen is that several hundred new homes should be built to PassivHaus standard, complete with MVHR systems installed, and then lived in by ordinary folk for something like five years. That would be a sensible test of whether the system is workable. If the MVHR systems proved to be reliable and popular and people learned to live in the houses the Passiv way (i.e. not opening windows), then MVHR could be safely rolled out as a mandatory building regulation requirement in new airtight homes. But until that’s done and dusted, making MVHR mandatory would be pretty rash. Stupid even.
In it, he berates the Zero Carbon Hub for being no such thing. They are courting compromise in asking for the mandatory use of mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) to be ditched. They say here that is a step too far for a temperate climate like the UK. Problem is that without MVHR, you can’t really build to PassivHaus standards because it’s so airtight that you would keel over every time someone farted.
Passivhaus standard uses just 15kWh/m2 for annual space heating requirements. Zero Carbon Hub are suggesting that this is relaxed to somewhere between 30 and 45kWh/m2 – i.e. two to three times as much, which is about as low as you can go safely without MVHR. And is really not much lower than where Part L will pitch us next year.
Maybe this debate is a bit obscure, but it’s nevertheless interesting. I rather tend to side with the Zero Carbon Hub on this. I think mandatory MVHR is just possibly a step too far in the UK. If you look closely at Tim’s text, you can begin to make out just what the problems are.
This is not a question of diminishing returns – to halve or quarter heating/cooling costs by means largely of a MVHR system costing a few thousand pounds can hardly be said to be that writes Tim.
Except that it ignores the cost of running the fans which drive MVHR system. OK, they are low. We now have fans operating at under 100w, but multiply that by the 8760 hours in a year and you have consumed enough power to heat and cool 58m2 of Passivhaus. The actual energy saving achieved by MVHR is therefore pretty minimal. Some commentators have even suggested that it’s not a net energy saver at all. They certainly aren’t if residents are so bold as to open their windows.
MVHR systems do not, contrary to what is claimed, adversely affect indoor air quality – even if the filters are not cleaned.
That is true. The reason Passivhaus insists on them is because of air quality, not energy saving. The problem is that they don’t always work as planned; they break down; people turn them off (ironically sometimes to save energy). That is where the problems may lie.
Housebuilders worry about reliability, but this is a proven technology that is no more complex than an extract fan.
And extract fans never break down?
What, I wonder, is the real agenda of the promotion of these poor standards?
In a word, caution. What ought to happen is that several hundred new homes should be built to PassivHaus standard, complete with MVHR systems installed, and then lived in by ordinary folk for something like five years. That would be a sensible test of whether the system is workable. If the MVHR systems proved to be reliable and popular and people learned to live in the houses the Passiv way (i.e. not opening windows), then MVHR could be safely rolled out as a mandatory building regulation requirement in new airtight homes. But until that’s done and dusted, making MVHR mandatory would be pretty rash. Stupid even.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Why building plots are hard to find
This is cool. Although I no longer share Audacity’s build at all costs line of thinking, and I seem to have dropped off Ian Abley’s Xmas card list, I like the way they have put this together, and I love the way it shows up just how silly the planning system has become. It proves that if you give a bureaucracy enough rope, it will eventually strangle itself, whilst merely drowning the rest of us under the weight of good intentions.
On Scaling Everest
I last wrote about Everest double glazing in June 07, and I was just a tad disparaging. The piece got some interesting feedback including one comment from someone who sounded suspiciously like an Everest salesman.
Last night in the gym I found an interesting article in Monday’s Telegraph, profiling Simon Jarman who is the MD of Everest. OK, I know I shouldn’t have been reading papers in the gym, I should have been listening to something bracing on my iPod, but age sometimes withers the urge for self-improvement and it’s just about then that one finds oneself reaching out for the Telegraph.
Just why would one find such a piece interesting? Well, sometime soon we have to clean up the mess that is our existing housing stock and Everest is a firm that is well versed in the black arts of home improvement. Could they become a force for the good, instead of covering the streetscapes of Britain with ugly plastic windows? Simon Jarman doesn’t exactly suggest they will but he is certainly moving the business away from its roots. Here are some of the points I picked out.
• Average age of customer is 55. 80% don’t have a mortgage. They are rich. (Cynics would say they have to be to be able to afford the prices.)
• There are over 3,000 double glazing companies in the UK. Anglian is No 1. Everest is No2, and yet Everest only has a 2.5% market share.
• The backbone of the Everest business is its 1,000 strong sales force, all of whom work as franchisees. The route to market is up to the individual, but they don’t do cold calling over the phone.
• Installation is subbed out. The only things which Everest do is a) make the stuff (at two plants in Kent and Wales) and operate an after-sales team (to sort out the cock-ups?).
• Everest started in 1965. In 1999, Brian Kennedy brought the business off Caradon. Since then he has sold stakes to both management and private equity. Last year sales were £165m, and profit £15m.
• Everest have moved into selling solar panels and are also considering getting into call-out services like plumbing and locksmithery (is there such a word?). And maybe home insurance products like boiler breakdown. Just like the AA.
• Ted Moult shot himself after appearing in an Everest TV advert.
Last night in the gym I found an interesting article in Monday’s Telegraph, profiling Simon Jarman who is the MD of Everest. OK, I know I shouldn’t have been reading papers in the gym, I should have been listening to something bracing on my iPod, but age sometimes withers the urge for self-improvement and it’s just about then that one finds oneself reaching out for the Telegraph.
Just why would one find such a piece interesting? Well, sometime soon we have to clean up the mess that is our existing housing stock and Everest is a firm that is well versed in the black arts of home improvement. Could they become a force for the good, instead of covering the streetscapes of Britain with ugly plastic windows? Simon Jarman doesn’t exactly suggest they will but he is certainly moving the business away from its roots. Here are some of the points I picked out.
• Average age of customer is 55. 80% don’t have a mortgage. They are rich. (Cynics would say they have to be to be able to afford the prices.)
• There are over 3,000 double glazing companies in the UK. Anglian is No 1. Everest is No2, and yet Everest only has a 2.5% market share.
• The backbone of the Everest business is its 1,000 strong sales force, all of whom work as franchisees. The route to market is up to the individual, but they don’t do cold calling over the phone.
• Installation is subbed out. The only things which Everest do is a) make the stuff (at two plants in Kent and Wales) and operate an after-sales team (to sort out the cock-ups?).
• Everest started in 1965. In 1999, Brian Kennedy brought the business off Caradon. Since then he has sold stakes to both management and private equity. Last year sales were £165m, and profit £15m.
• Everest have moved into selling solar panels and are also considering getting into call-out services like plumbing and locksmithery (is there such a word?). And maybe home insurance products like boiler breakdown. Just like the AA.
• Ted Moult shot himself after appearing in an Everest TV advert.
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Monbiot loses plot
I can’t be alone in thinking that Dear George has been eating one too many psilocybin mushrooms, gathered from his Welsh hillside rambles. He writes with vigour and great expertise about a wide range of environmental topics, and usually his perceptions are spot on. But every now and then, he blows it big time and throws up a horror show of prejudice and ignorance. It’s a bit like discovering a favourite uncle is actually a paedophile.
He’s just done it again in this piece published in last week’s Guardian. In it he lays into the super rich for tonking around the Mediterranean in gas guzzling yachts: that’s OK, he hates the super rich. Whatever turns you off. But this is really just posturing.
His real target are the esteemed worthies of the Optiumum Population Trust: characters like Sir David Attenborough, Jane “chimpanzee” Goodall, Jonathan Porrit, James Lovelock and Sir Crispin Tickell. “It's no coincidence” he writes “that most of those who are obsessed with population growth are post-reproductive wealthy white men: it's about the only environmental issue for which they can't be blamed.”
Now the logic employed by George in his attack on the Optimum Population Trust is somewhat flakey. In fact, it’s completely flakey. As far as I can understand, he seems to be saying that poor sub-Saharan Africans may breed a lot, but they have a minimal carbon footprint and therefore don’t cause global warming. Whereas rich Westerners don’t breed nearly so much but have huge carbon footprints. QED A Rich birth will cause lots of carbon to be released whilst a poor one doesn’t, therefore rich births are bad news and poor ones don’t matter.
But the Optimum Population Trust isn’t demanding that only the poor should stop breeding. They want everyone to breed less. It is making out that there are just too many of us in all parts of the World and this will inevitably put a strain on resources and cause environmental mayhem in the long run. It’s basically saying we are headed for an enormous tragedy of the commons scenario. Added to which, the poor nations don’t intend to stay poor for ever: as their wealth increases, so will their demand for carbon intensive goods and services.
George rightly identifies the correlation between wealth and carbon intensity, but if you follow his line of reasoning to its conclusion, it seems to suggest that mass poverty is the answer.
George concludes: “Consumption can be expected to rise with economic growth until the biosphere hits the buffers. Anyone who understands this and still considers that population, not consumption, is the big issue is, hiding from the truth.”
Well, actually, no. It’s not an either/or. It’s both. The two factors are intimately connected. One isn’t more important than the other. The world could probably handle having 1 billion rich consumers living on it, but it is very doubtful that it could handle 10 billion. At the moment, we’ve got about 1 billion rich and 5 billion poor who would very much like to be rich. And the projections are that the population will grow to 10 billion sometime in the next 50 years. And the brake on population growth is projected to be widespread economic growth (for which you can read higher carbon intensity). That doesn’t seem like a recipe for a sustainable future.
As David Mackay keeps saying, do the maths. The solutions have to add up. And you can’t do the maths if you ignore the demand side of the equation.
He’s just done it again in this piece published in last week’s Guardian. In it he lays into the super rich for tonking around the Mediterranean in gas guzzling yachts: that’s OK, he hates the super rich. Whatever turns you off. But this is really just posturing.
His real target are the esteemed worthies of the Optiumum Population Trust: characters like Sir David Attenborough, Jane “chimpanzee” Goodall, Jonathan Porrit, James Lovelock and Sir Crispin Tickell. “It's no coincidence” he writes “that most of those who are obsessed with population growth are post-reproductive wealthy white men: it's about the only environmental issue for which they can't be blamed.”
Now the logic employed by George in his attack on the Optimum Population Trust is somewhat flakey. In fact, it’s completely flakey. As far as I can understand, he seems to be saying that poor sub-Saharan Africans may breed a lot, but they have a minimal carbon footprint and therefore don’t cause global warming. Whereas rich Westerners don’t breed nearly so much but have huge carbon footprints. QED A Rich birth will cause lots of carbon to be released whilst a poor one doesn’t, therefore rich births are bad news and poor ones don’t matter.
But the Optimum Population Trust isn’t demanding that only the poor should stop breeding. They want everyone to breed less. It is making out that there are just too many of us in all parts of the World and this will inevitably put a strain on resources and cause environmental mayhem in the long run. It’s basically saying we are headed for an enormous tragedy of the commons scenario. Added to which, the poor nations don’t intend to stay poor for ever: as their wealth increases, so will their demand for carbon intensive goods and services.
George rightly identifies the correlation between wealth and carbon intensity, but if you follow his line of reasoning to its conclusion, it seems to suggest that mass poverty is the answer.
George concludes: “Consumption can be expected to rise with economic growth until the biosphere hits the buffers. Anyone who understands this and still considers that population, not consumption, is the big issue is, hiding from the truth.”
Well, actually, no. It’s not an either/or. It’s both. The two factors are intimately connected. One isn’t more important than the other. The world could probably handle having 1 billion rich consumers living on it, but it is very doubtful that it could handle 10 billion. At the moment, we’ve got about 1 billion rich and 5 billion poor who would very much like to be rich. And the projections are that the population will grow to 10 billion sometime in the next 50 years. And the brake on population growth is projected to be widespread economic growth (for which you can read higher carbon intensity). That doesn’t seem like a recipe for a sustainable future.
As David Mackay keeps saying, do the maths. The solutions have to add up. And you can’t do the maths if you ignore the demand side of the equation.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Mind The Gap - in the logic
Today sees the launch of a pro-housebuilding lobby document called Mind The Gap. It’s authors are David Pretty, once MD at Barratt, and Paul Hackett, acting head of the Smith Institute, a left leaning think tank set up in honour of John Smith.
It’s a concise 30 page review of the UK housing scene, well thought out and covering most of the topical areas for discussion. Including a paragraph promoting self build:
The Government could also offer more support (perhaps in the form of tax breaks and subsidised land) to the self-build market, which is much less developed than in earlier decades or in Northern Europe. The average loan-to-value ratio for self-builders is low and there are few defaults, which should make the sector attractive to lenders. Self-build production has steadily risen, according to unofficial estimates, to around 10% of the UK housing market, with the strongest growth in rural areas. Although the recession has reduced activity, organisations like the National Self Build Association believe that, with the right mix of incentives, production of self-build could be increased to over 40,000 homes (mostly detached).
There is also an insightful little table showing Government housing initiatives since 2008. I don’t know why I find this stuff fascinating, but it is, and it’s great to see it all in one place. There are ten initiatives here, all designed to prop up the housing market and at least six of them are specifically aimed at keeping house prices high, or at least to stop them falling through the floor.
●National Affordable Housing Programme –£8.4billion to increase the supply of all affordable homes (2008-11).
●Housing Pledge –£1.5billion to support existing programmes, including £350million to buy unsold stock and £400million brought forward for affordable housing.
●Kickstart –£1.06billion package to deliver 22,000 homes over two years, of which 8,600 will be directly supported affordable homes. 270 bids shortlisted.
●Community Infrastructure Fund –£100million for the Thames Gateway and £200million for the Growth Areas and Growth Points to support housing developments.
●HomeBuy Direct –£300million shared-equity scheme to help first-time buyers purchase their newly built properties.
●Housing Private Finance Initiative (Round 6) – £1.7billion PFI credits for ten councils to deliver 4,500 new or improved council homes as well as 1,600 new affordable rented homes.
●Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder Areas – £35million extra funding.
●Eco-towns – four new settlements to provide 10,000 new homes by 2016, of which 30% are to be affordable homes.
●Mortgage support –includes the £44million Homeowners Mortgage
Support scheme and the £280million Mortgage Rescue Scheme.
●Stamp Duty holiday –on properties costing less than £175,000 (until the end of 2009).
The Gap in question in the title is the old chestnut of rising demand versus falling supply. It’s funny how 95% of the analysis goes into the supply side and only 5% into the demand. That’s because the demand figures are so flakey that no one dare really look into them. All they really do is to project past trends into the future; because we have lots more single households forming and lots of immigration over the past twenty years, it is just assumed that this will carry on. It’s all so very Soviet: five, or in this case, 15 year plans for population growth and household formation.
Where this disconnects from reality is that we have a little problem with carbon emissions and resource depletion. Common sense tells us that one of the prime ways to solve this problem is to stop adding to it and start repairing what we already have. And to admit that we cannot go on building endless new homes until everyone lives in one on their own, or half of Eastern Europe has moved to the UK.
If we want to make houses more affordable, then it’s time we started taxing the profits people make on them. But let’s give up this pretence that the answer lies in having another building boom.
The foreword of the report states: Few would now argue that the prospect of a large and growing shortfall in housing supply can be ignored any longer. To look away is not a realistic option. The evidence of a widening gap between housing production and demand is undeniable.
Well, I hereby nail my colours to the mast and say I am one of the few. I think that what has happened to the housing market in the past two years makes a mockery of these statements. If there really was a large and growing shortfall in housing supply, then it would be impossible for house prices to drop. Yet drop they have. I would say that this is evidence that demand for housing has very little to do with production levels, and an awful lot to do with possible investment returns.
It’s a concise 30 page review of the UK housing scene, well thought out and covering most of the topical areas for discussion. Including a paragraph promoting self build:
The Government could also offer more support (perhaps in the form of tax breaks and subsidised land) to the self-build market, which is much less developed than in earlier decades or in Northern Europe. The average loan-to-value ratio for self-builders is low and there are few defaults, which should make the sector attractive to lenders. Self-build production has steadily risen, according to unofficial estimates, to around 10% of the UK housing market, with the strongest growth in rural areas. Although the recession has reduced activity, organisations like the National Self Build Association believe that, with the right mix of incentives, production of self-build could be increased to over 40,000 homes (mostly detached).
There is also an insightful little table showing Government housing initiatives since 2008. I don’t know why I find this stuff fascinating, but it is, and it’s great to see it all in one place. There are ten initiatives here, all designed to prop up the housing market and at least six of them are specifically aimed at keeping house prices high, or at least to stop them falling through the floor.
●National Affordable Housing Programme –£8.4billion to increase the supply of all affordable homes (2008-11).
●Housing Pledge –£1.5billion to support existing programmes, including £350million to buy unsold stock and £400million brought forward for affordable housing.
●Kickstart –£1.06billion package to deliver 22,000 homes over two years, of which 8,600 will be directly supported affordable homes. 270 bids shortlisted.
●Community Infrastructure Fund –£100million for the Thames Gateway and £200million for the Growth Areas and Growth Points to support housing developments.
●HomeBuy Direct –£300million shared-equity scheme to help first-time buyers purchase their newly built properties.
●Housing Private Finance Initiative (Round 6) – £1.7billion PFI credits for ten councils to deliver 4,500 new or improved council homes as well as 1,600 new affordable rented homes.
●Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder Areas – £35million extra funding.
●Eco-towns – four new settlements to provide 10,000 new homes by 2016, of which 30% are to be affordable homes.
●Mortgage support –includes the £44million Homeowners Mortgage
Support scheme and the £280million Mortgage Rescue Scheme.
●Stamp Duty holiday –on properties costing less than £175,000 (until the end of 2009).
The Gap in question in the title is the old chestnut of rising demand versus falling supply. It’s funny how 95% of the analysis goes into the supply side and only 5% into the demand. That’s because the demand figures are so flakey that no one dare really look into them. All they really do is to project past trends into the future; because we have lots more single households forming and lots of immigration over the past twenty years, it is just assumed that this will carry on. It’s all so very Soviet: five, or in this case, 15 year plans for population growth and household formation.
Where this disconnects from reality is that we have a little problem with carbon emissions and resource depletion. Common sense tells us that one of the prime ways to solve this problem is to stop adding to it and start repairing what we already have. And to admit that we cannot go on building endless new homes until everyone lives in one on their own, or half of Eastern Europe has moved to the UK.
If we want to make houses more affordable, then it’s time we started taxing the profits people make on them. But let’s give up this pretence that the answer lies in having another building boom.
The foreword of the report states: Few would now argue that the prospect of a large and growing shortfall in housing supply can be ignored any longer. To look away is not a realistic option. The evidence of a widening gap between housing production and demand is undeniable.
Well, I hereby nail my colours to the mast and say I am one of the few. I think that what has happened to the housing market in the past two years makes a mockery of these statements. If there really was a large and growing shortfall in housing supply, then it would be impossible for house prices to drop. Yet drop they have. I would say that this is evidence that demand for housing has very little to do with production levels, and an awful lot to do with possible investment returns.
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