Skills needed for newbuild compared to refurbishing old?

[dontbelieveawordofit]

What sort of "timber frame" ? True post and beam construction or timber slab construction ?

True post and beam framed houses have lasted hundreds of years, timber slabs have failed in less than ten years.

fair point. I was being a bit general.
although i’m sure there were many post and beams that failed prematurely and many timber slabs that will far outlast expectation.
generally though I was referring to timber slab.

 

[RonnyRaygun]

i’m yet to work in a timber frame and not think ‘worra load of sh!t’
i’m yet to work in a 50’s to 80’s social housing development and not think ‘this ain’t going anywhere’
i’m yet to work in a stone edwardian or victorian and not be in awe at the quality of the materials and skill and knowledge that went in to them given the tools and materials available.
the building standards ,materials and workmanship provided and expected of modern houses is getting progressively worse.
true trades and apprenticeships are largely non existent and frankly pointless when Jakub from poland can do everything for minimum wage.

If you read my post above though you have to agree that Victorian houses have their own issues that modern properties do not.

You can't blame eastern Europeans for the skills shortage in this country. Most trade jobs are advertised on £200 a day (or thereabouts) regardless of who is applying.

The problem is that school leavers in this country are told from an early age that they must go to university and get a degree, regardless of the subject or quality of the degree, or whether it leads to a career at the end of it. There is still a view among many that you've only "made it" when you're sat in an office. School leavers see the choice between an apprenticeship that leads to a trade, working in difficult conditions, outside, all weathers, and spending three years at university getting wasted, to eventually get that office job that they've been told will give them a better life (when actually a skilled tradesman earns more than many graduates). You hardly see any kids in this country who want to learn a skill and do a trade, and the eastern Europeans are here to plug the huge gap, not exploit it.

I don't see what "Jakub from Poland" gains from coming here to earn below poverty line wages, considering the much higher cost of living than living in Poland.

 

[mrrusty]

Personally, living in a 1902 (built by OH's great grandfather - her Dad was born in the house and it's never been out the family) house that has had a back-to-bare brick, roof off, floors out refurb/rebuild (2/3 of the work done by me) and read reams of guidance, forums etc to try and guide what we did, I think one of the biggest challenges out there is how to satisfactorily convert an old house (> 100 years) to match modern living. When the houses were built they had open fires, leaky windows, no central heating, prob no indoor bathroom, prob an open-fire cooking range. Now we want double glazing, no draughts, nice kitchens and bathrooms etc etc. We live completely differently to how people lived when the old housing stock was created.

You only have to look on this forum at all the posts regarding damp, condensation, insulation etc. etc. and no-one has the definitive solution. There is a huge amount of contradictory information out there mixed in with sales puff for stuff people are trying to sell. In an ideal world someone would take a row of identical houses lived in by identical people and modify the houses in different ways to see what the long-term success of different ideas and treatments actually is.

I made my choices for the solutions I chose, and am living with them. Sometimes I pass on my own experience. I doubt very much every choice I made was either the only choice or necessarily the best choice. I certainly agree that not everything in an old house was built to superior quality - it was built how it was built - some things are arguably better than they are now, many are not.

I don't think there is a magic bullet solution for the problems that living in an old house can throw up, but IMHO I agree with the vast majority of what is written on https://www.heritage-house.org/ because what is advised there seems to bear out my own experience, albeit I haven't slavishly followed every recommendation on that site.

 

[teaboyjim]

What sort of "timber frame" ? True post and beam construction or timber slab construction ? True post and beam framed houses have lasted hundreds of years, timber slabs have failed in less than ten years.

Would timber framed buildings have been built in the UK much before the 2000's?

 

[bernardgreen]

Quoting from https://www.heritage-house.org/

"" an 'old house' is a structure built with solid walls (stone, brick, timber frame) using breathable materials. ""

Breathable being the important word, yes breathable walls may increase the cost of heating by a little bit but it reduces, even eliminates damp and related problems such as mould.

So would timber framed buildings have been built in the UK much before the 2000's?

Many were built long before the 2000's long before the 1500's

 

[mrrusty]

an 'old house' is a structure built with solid walls (stone, brick, timber frame) using breathable materials

...which was one of the reasons I didn't slavishly follow all the guidance on the site - our house has a (well ventilated) 2" cavity on all external walls but was otherwise built from the materials of the time, so whilst it has many of the challenges of a typical Victorian/Edwardian house, the early cavity wall structure makes it atypical to some extent.

For interest - here's the original architects GF drawing. (we're on the L)

This last week we've just been digging up and replacing the (red) sewer which now forms part of mains drainage. We had a rat problem digging out the sewer and found the remains of the branch at the very top of this drawing was still there, disconnected, just before it now enters a shared sewer.

 

[teaboyjim]

We had a rat problem digging out the sewer and found the remains of the branch at the very top of this drawing was still there, disconnected, just before it now enters a shared sewer. View attachment 214223

Do you see them as you were digging out the sewer?

 

[mrrusty]

When you were digging out the sewer what happened? Did you see them as you were digging and how many of them do you reckon were there?

When we finally moved in after spending 2 years refurbing, we still had one (old) chicken, so it came with us, and the new run was directly over that junction. We started finding holes in the ground within the run, and then found a dead-un. Rats love hen food! I tried blocking the holes, even dug down, put lime down them and then paving slabs over, but they kept digging through so I thought I would have a go at drowning them (silly idea), so pushed a hose down the hole, and that's when I found the rat hole directly connected to the sewer because I could hear it running in the manhole. We had to have some new gullies installed anyway, for a new garage, so this last week had a guy with a digger in and we dug the lot up and installed new plastic replacing all the old clay. Which was when we found the disconnected branch.

When they put the house on main drains, they obviously used sections of the old clay pipe, and just disconnected what wasn't used.

 

[teaboyjim]

So there might have just the one in the old sewer pipe

 

[mrrusty]

So there might have just been the one next living in the old sewer pipe which presumably was dry acting like a nice middleclass suburban house for a family of rats

No, the old sewer pipe was the sewer in service, only the open branch was unused. Within 3 feet of the branch is a deep manhole where we T into the 6" shared sewer across the back of the row of houses, and that only 30m from the street sewer. I reckon there were/are plenty of rats in the sewer that happened to find a place to dig out to a banquet of hen food. Hopefully they can no longer get out in our garden/house!

 

[dontbelieveawordofit]

If you read my post above though you have to agree that Victorian houses have their own issues that modern properties do not.

You can't blame eastern Europeans for the skills shortage in this country. Most trade jobs are advertised on £200 a day (or thereabouts) regardless of who is applying.

The problem is that school leavers in this country are told from an early age that they must go to university and get a degree, regardless of the subject or quality of the degree, or whether it leads to a career at the end of it. There is still a view among many that you've only "made it" when you're sat in an office. School leavers see the choice between an apprenticeship that leads to a trade, working in difficult conditions, outside, all weathers, and spending three years at university getting wasted, to eventually get that office job that they've been told will give them a better life (when actually a skilled tradesman earns more than many graduates). You hardly see any kids in this country who want to learn a skill and do a trade, and the eastern Europeans are here to plug the huge gap, not exploit it.

I don't see what "Jakub from Poland" gains from coming here to earn below poverty line wages, considering the much higher cost of living than living in Poland.

I don’t have to agree actually . most problems suffered in victorian properties are caused and/or exacerbated by modern day attitudes and ignorance of people maintaining , renovating and living in them.
Also I didn’t say the shortage of skilled labour was due to east european immigration. I said ‘real’ apprenticeships have died out or become farcical.
I’ve had several apprentices from college who are only educated and groomed to pass exams. faced with realities on site they have no clue and little interest.
My sons have both had the opportunity to go to uni and both refused. both are successful web designers , so again I don’t tend to agree that school leavers are advised or necessarily actually believe the debt of uni outweighs any future benefit.
I said minimum wage , which technically is above ‘poverty line’ . I know plenty of polish and Romanian ‘skilled’ who are working for minimum wage and seemingly happy to do so.

 

[RonnyRaygun]

I don’t have to agree actually . most problems suffered in victorian properties are caused and/or exacerbated by modern day attitudes and ignorance of people maintaining , renovating and living in them.

Not the ones I mentioned.

I said minimum wage , which technically is above ‘poverty line’ .

No, it's not. Even taking the "over 25" minimum of £8.72 an hour and assuming a 40 hour week, it's only 58% of the median income in this country, 60% being the cut off for poverty.

I know plenty of polish and Romanian ‘skilled’ who are working for minimum wage and seemingly happy to do so.

Hmmm, I've heard these anecdotes many times that building sites are full of Romanians working way below the market rate. But I've never seen any actual empirical evidence. The one Romanian in my office is in the same pay band as everyone else at his level, and would not accept less. That's anecdotal evidence too.

But anyway, this is a discussion about the relative benefits and detriments of modern and older building types and methods, so let's leave discussions on the curse of foreign immigration for the general discussion forum

 

[johnny2007]

In my days to become a bricklayer you had to study, then become an apprentice for a few years, then gain experience and if you were good, you would become a bricklayer 10 years later.
Nowadays I can pass myself as a bricklayer having built a few porches, walls and repaired some brickwork when carpentry work was not available.
And don't get me started on carpenters...

 

[RonnyRaygun]

In my days to become a bricklayer you had to study, then become an apprentice for a few years, then gain experience and if you were good, you would become a bricklayer 10 years later.
Nowadays I can pass myself as a bricklayer having built a few porches, walls and repaired some brickwork when carpentry work was not available.
And don't get me started on carpenters...

I don't see the problem; anyone can be a carpenter...but it takes real skill to do joints such as the one below

 

[StephenOak]

I don't see what "Jakub from Poland" gains from coming here to earn below poverty line wages, considering the much higher cost of living than living in Poland.

No personal experience but I have heard a number of time about blokes from Eastern Europe coming here to work just for a few years. During that time they live in a very shared house, at least two blokes per bedroom. So housing costs are spread over more people, making that more affordable. Not the most pleasant situation, away from home in a shared house, but people make sacrifices for their family. I know British people who have worked away from home (rigs, ships, just a job elsewhere in the UK).

Whilst we were in the EU (and AFAIUI during this transitional year) we cannot treat EU nationals differently that UK nationals. So someone working here can claim child benefit for their children Eastern Europe who may well never have been in this country. That benefit is paid at a level many times the equivalent in their home country.

One thing I actually heard was a piece of vox pop in the 2010 GE. A Scottish woman was being asked about resentment of EU nationals coming here and 'taking our jobs'. She was a lot smarter and nuanced than the interviewer (and the people saying all such attitudes were racist). She said she had met a load of the chaps and they were lovely lads, polite, friendly, etc and she had no dislike of them per se. She said the problem was her man was a skilled chippy getting (something like) £15/hr but some of these lads were as good as her husband but were willing to work for minimum wage, so her husband was not getting as much work as before and they were beginning to feel the financial pinch.

So I don't think that "Jakub from Poland" is working for poverty wages but I do believe that he can successfully work for less than many UK workers.