19 Aug 2007
14 Aug 2007
The timber frame fires
Building carries a disturbing report of yet another fire in a half-built multi-storey timber frame apartment block. This one took place in Hatfield on Saturday (11/8/07) and Phil Clark has uncovered a short video showing the event. It follows hard on the heels of similar fires in Newcastle (April 07), Willenhall (Mar 07) and Colindale in North London (July 06). YouTube carries video clips of Colindale, Newcastle and now Hatfield.
I don’t know how many timber frame apartment blocks are under construction at any one time in this country, but it’s still a building technique that is in its infancy so I would be surprised if there are more than a few hundred on the go. The superstructure is often only left exposed for a few days — this is one of the rationales behind using timber frame — yet we’ve just had four burn to the ground in a similar manner. And amazingly, no one has yet been hurt, let alone killed.
Yes, it’s deeply worrying. But it’s also beginning to look a little suspicious.
I don’t know how many timber frame apartment blocks are under construction at any one time in this country, but it’s still a building technique that is in its infancy so I would be surprised if there are more than a few hundred on the go. The superstructure is often only left exposed for a few days — this is one of the rationales behind using timber frame — yet we’ve just had four burn to the ground in a similar manner. And amazingly, no one has yet been hurt, let alone killed.
Yes, it’s deeply worrying. But it’s also beginning to look a little suspicious.
11 Aug 2007
I am being plagiarised
On July 24th, I posted a piece called The Housing Green Paper: an idiot’s guide. It was, I am happy to admit, a very lazy piece of journalism, which basically consisted of me resorting to downloading the said Green Paper, opening it up as a pdf, and then carrying out a series of word searches in order to gauge the content. Hell, there is no point summarising my findings – you can read the original in full technicolour here. Yes, I know I should have read all 130 pages and reported back with my critique, but I cheated. In my defence, I have been open about it and it is at least an original approach that isn’t entirely without merit. But I didn’t expect it to catch on
So imagine my surprise this morning when I get my emailed copy of Sp!ked and find an essay by James Woodhuysen, ostensibly a response to the very same Green Paper, using my pdf word-weighing technique. Here is James’s version:
• Potential: 58 times
• Incentives: 24
• Identify: “scores of times”
• Carbon emissions: 69
• Square metres: 0
• Overcrowding: “a few”
• Hectares: 0
• Housing quality: 81
• Design: “more than a hundred”
• Empty properties: 24
My first thought was: “the cheeky bugger, I wonder where he got that idea from.” I don’t know whether to be peeved or flattered. Maybe a bit of both.
What would have been nice is to have received an acknowledgement. Not for the idea of counting word entries in a Green Paper (maybe it will catch on after all – it saves hours of boring reading), but for the points I have been making over the past few months, namely that there are a lot of very tricky issues surrounding the housing debate. And James, in common with the bulk of the media, isn’t really interested in any of them.
• Whilst it’s true that there is plenty of land in Britain, and much of it has been set aside, it doesn’t follow that this will continue to be the case indefinitely. The debate about using land for biofuels is focussing attention on just how little land there is if we want to grow our own fuel.
• The housing demand figures, which are used to justify an increase in the rate of housebuilding, are flakey. Whilst house prices are rising, rents are not. If there was a genuine housing shortage, you would expect to see rents rising as fast as house prices. It follows that the demand for housing is being confused with the demand for home ownership. And home ownership is itself being used as a form of saving. What we have is a pensions and savings crisis manifesting itself as a housing crisis.
• Immigration? The elephant in the room no one will talk about. The future of immigration is intimately linked to future housing supply. Not just who builds these new homes, but who lives in them. But politicians and journalists would rather not even address these issues for fear of being labelled racist.
• Housebuilding booms don’t necessarily make houses cheap. Just have a look at what has happened in Ireland of the past ten years. If we cannot build our way out of this problem, are there any other solutions available? Maybe.
• New housing, however eco-friendly, is basically no greener than new roads or new runways. The only green approach to housing is to repair or replace the existing stock.
Meanwhile, if you come across anyone else using my patented pdf word search to pad out an article facility, let me know and I’ll have another whinge.
So imagine my surprise this morning when I get my emailed copy of Sp!ked and find an essay by James Woodhuysen, ostensibly a response to the very same Green Paper, using my pdf word-weighing technique. Here is James’s version:
• Potential: 58 times
• Incentives: 24
• Identify: “scores of times”
• Carbon emissions: 69
• Square metres: 0
• Overcrowding: “a few”
• Hectares: 0
• Housing quality: 81
• Design: “more than a hundred”
• Empty properties: 24
My first thought was: “the cheeky bugger, I wonder where he got that idea from.” I don’t know whether to be peeved or flattered. Maybe a bit of both.
What would have been nice is to have received an acknowledgement. Not for the idea of counting word entries in a Green Paper (maybe it will catch on after all – it saves hours of boring reading), but for the points I have been making over the past few months, namely that there are a lot of very tricky issues surrounding the housing debate. And James, in common with the bulk of the media, isn’t really interested in any of them.
• Whilst it’s true that there is plenty of land in Britain, and much of it has been set aside, it doesn’t follow that this will continue to be the case indefinitely. The debate about using land for biofuels is focussing attention on just how little land there is if we want to grow our own fuel.
• The housing demand figures, which are used to justify an increase in the rate of housebuilding, are flakey. Whilst house prices are rising, rents are not. If there was a genuine housing shortage, you would expect to see rents rising as fast as house prices. It follows that the demand for housing is being confused with the demand for home ownership. And home ownership is itself being used as a form of saving. What we have is a pensions and savings crisis manifesting itself as a housing crisis.
• Immigration? The elephant in the room no one will talk about. The future of immigration is intimately linked to future housing supply. Not just who builds these new homes, but who lives in them. But politicians and journalists would rather not even address these issues for fear of being labelled racist.
• Housebuilding booms don’t necessarily make houses cheap. Just have a look at what has happened in Ireland of the past ten years. If we cannot build our way out of this problem, are there any other solutions available? Maybe.
• New housing, however eco-friendly, is basically no greener than new roads or new runways. The only green approach to housing is to repair or replace the existing stock.
Meanwhile, if you come across anyone else using my patented pdf word search to pad out an article facility, let me know and I’ll have another whinge.
7 Aug 2007
What is it with architects?
This piece in the Times today caught my attention. It was hung on the announcement of the Stirling Prize shortlist.
“In Britain no one wants to take any risks,” thundered David Chipperfield, the aforementioned shortlisted architect. Richard Rogers agreed: “There should be more exciting buildings in this country.”
But it was the president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Jack Pringle, who hit the nail on the head: “[In Britain] it’s all about making the business case... Everything has to be justified in a terribly Presbyterian way.”
Hang on a minute? Maybe I am turning into a Puritan — actually I think I am — but isn’t this just a bit rich? Can you imagine any other profession complaining that their customers are boring and value-obsessed? Criminals? They are just not what they used to be, we have no fun defending them anymore. The sick? Why don’t they catch some really interesting diseases, ones that we could really test our mettle against.
What is it with signature architects that makes them act out like a bunch of spoiled brats?
“In Britain no one wants to take any risks,” thundered David Chipperfield, the aforementioned shortlisted architect. Richard Rogers agreed: “There should be more exciting buildings in this country.”
But it was the president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Jack Pringle, who hit the nail on the head: “[In Britain] it’s all about making the business case... Everything has to be justified in a terribly Presbyterian way.”
Hang on a minute? Maybe I am turning into a Puritan — actually I think I am — but isn’t this just a bit rich? Can you imagine any other profession complaining that their customers are boring and value-obsessed? Criminals? They are just not what they used to be, we have no fun defending them anymore. The sick? Why don’t they catch some really interesting diseases, ones that we could really test our mettle against.
What is it with signature architects that makes them act out like a bunch of spoiled brats?
6 Aug 2007
Multifoils and Private Building Control
It’s now nearly a year since the two most important building control bodies in the UK moved to stop the use of multifoils, at least as a substitute for conventional insulation materials. Under pressure from government, the LABC (Local Authority Building Control) and the NHBC (National Housebuilders Council) simultaneously stated that in future they would only accept insulation that met the standards laid out in BR443, which translates as using the U value figures derived from the guarded hot box test.
Multifoil insulation performs very poorly in guarded hot box testing. The manufacturers claim that it’s the guarded hot box test which is at fault. Their case rests on them performing well in comparison tests against conventional insulation, usually 200mm or 250mm of mineral wool. Such tests have been carried out several times by the multifoil manufacturers, to the satisfaction of some independent accreditation providers, but they have yet to win a European Technical Approval for their testing methods and they remain highly controversial.
I don’t want to dig too deeply down into the multifoil debate here — it has been covered several times on this blog already — but what is worth mentioning at this point in time is that there are still a number of private building control bodies out there who are more than happy to accept multifoil roof insulation. I was talking to a director of MLM last week and he remains an enthusiastic supporter of multifoils and is more than happy to sign off building works that use multifoil insulation. And I came away with the impression that MLM are far from unique in this respect, and that private building control saw this as a positive way of differentiating their services from the strictures of both local authority building control and the NHBC.
Multifoil insulation performs very poorly in guarded hot box testing. The manufacturers claim that it’s the guarded hot box test which is at fault. Their case rests on them performing well in comparison tests against conventional insulation, usually 200mm or 250mm of mineral wool. Such tests have been carried out several times by the multifoil manufacturers, to the satisfaction of some independent accreditation providers, but they have yet to win a European Technical Approval for their testing methods and they remain highly controversial.
I don’t want to dig too deeply down into the multifoil debate here — it has been covered several times on this blog already — but what is worth mentioning at this point in time is that there are still a number of private building control bodies out there who are more than happy to accept multifoil roof insulation. I was talking to a director of MLM last week and he remains an enthusiastic supporter of multifoils and is more than happy to sign off building works that use multifoil insulation. And I came away with the impression that MLM are far from unique in this respect, and that private building control saw this as a positive way of differentiating their services from the strictures of both local authority building control and the NHBC.
2 Aug 2007
Jeff Howell shows EPCs are useless
I have argued that Energy Performance Certificates will not be quite the powerful tool for the good that Yvette Cooper et al are hoping for. Now Jeff Howell, who writes for the Daily Telegraph, has gone one better and shown just how useless they are by having two surveys carried out on his refurbished house in Suffolk, and analysing the results.
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