How exactly 'are' new houses signed off?

[Bod ...]

Par for the course in rip off Britain these days. Many new builds are thrown up by semi-skilled house bashers, for which the house builders want top dollar. Crammed together on tiny plots, nowhere to park, dolls' house dimension rooms, miniscule gardens, grim and depressing estates and low quality materials and workmanship.

They've recently turned the runway at Filton, Bristol where Brian Trubshaw took Concorde's maiden flight, into a housing estate. Already the houses look tatty and the external paintwork on walls looks stained for some reason. All narrow terrace houses squeezed in with small footprint - built up to two floors to squueze as much in as possible. Built in depression comes as standard.

The 80s were the end of good workmanship when many new houses on a new estate on outskirts of Bristol had to be rebuilt because the mortar in the walls was wrong and walls were crumbling. In older builds, when they didn't have the materials and equipment available today, you could see the real skill of craftsmen that went into every aspect. Now it's all push-fit plastic plumbing and cardboard internal walls. Wouldn't consider anything built after the 70s.

I see the French have made their version of the Sweeney.

 

[crystal ball]

They also use very small salespeople to show you around the show house.

I think they got this the wrong way round

 

[diy_fun_uk]

I went to look at these new built with several friends and customers.
Not once I missed to state my comment: "Walk away".
The salespeople first try to distract you, then, when they realised you're actually looking for faults they become aggressive.
On 2 occasions we were told we couldn't see the houses because I was carrying a spirit level.
They're built to last no longer than 50 years at best.

It's interesting you mention 50 years. I recall reading an article about 'new build' houses a few years back and it stated many of the houses being built now would require relatively significant works to keep them habitable ~50 years post construction.

It can't be any surprise that more than a few of these houses end up for sale within a year or so of the estate being built. I reckon it's a combo of folk realising 'too small' and/or 'too many faults.'

Sorry to repeat myself but it beggars belief that yet again, 'progress' allows the building of houses that are not of robust construction and, unless you have mega bucks to spend, are too small.

 

[crystal ball]

No. I wouldn't buy anything later than 1960s.

Having said that, our house (c1960) has a roof that is slowly spreading and one wall the rafters are sitting on is leaning out.... big cracks through the blockwork in the front wall. Those are the two main issues. The surveyor thinks the purlins are undersized (although the whole estate was built the same) and he thinks the support above the downstairs window (huge picture window) is inadequate.

I know from seeing many houses over the decades that often PVCu windows are put in in place of timber where the timber frame was calculated to support the brickwork. The tops of these plastic windows are smiling!

My house is 1970 and well built, I purposely waited until one of this type was on the market, having worked on quite a few of these I knew the ins & outs, some others on the estate, not so good but reflected in the price.

 

[Bod ...]

Sorry to repeat myself but it beggars belief that yet again, 'progress' allows the building of houses that are not of robust construction and, unless you have mega bucks to spend, are too small.

Even the mega money houses are built by semiskilled workers using inferior products.

As Nosey said they are insulated well, but that's about all they have going for them

 

[Vinty]

Slums of the future? Crammed in for sure. Narrow claustrophobic streets too.

Trust me on this, there are plenty of crap site houses throughout the last century. At least the modern ones have some fight against heat loss.

Don't understand why some people are so nostalgic for the old days when houses had no damp courses, no roof insulation, no central heating, no hot water, single glazing and outside bogs were commonplace.

 

[diy_fun_uk]

Even the mega money houses are built by semiskilled workers using inferior products.

As Nosey said they are insulated well, but that's about all they have going for them

Don't necessarily disagree, was referring more to space though.

 

[Brigadier]

When you watch some of these videos you wonder if the house has been checked at all. Considering it's usually the most expensive purchase people make, it's shocking (to use the video guys phrase!)

How exactly 'are' new houses signed off?​

By a blind man on a galloping horse

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Trust me on this, there are plenty of crap site houses throughout the last century. At least the modern ones have some fight against heat loss.

True, my home's entire footprint much be 30/40 times the footprint of the home I was born into.

 

[Bod ...]

Trust me on this, there are plenty of crap site houses throughout the last century. At least the modern ones have some fight against heat loss.

So when you Buy a brand new van and you get endless faults from day one.

Would you except from the salesman who sold you the van.

"There's plenty of old vans out there that have problems. At least your modern van uses less fuel.

 

[diy_fun_uk]

So when you Buy a brand new van and you get endless faults from day one.

Would you except from the salesman who sold you the van.

"There's plenty of old vans out there that have problems. At least your modern van uses less fuel.

Thinking of vehicle manufacture, although you're right (they can come off the production line with faults) they'll surely have various quality checks as they work their way along the line so-to-speak. What can't be accounted for is individual components failing x days/weeks/months/years after the customer takes delivery.

Where are these checks 'along the production line' with houses? Judging by the vids and articles online, they're virtually none existent in some cases.

 

[robinbanks]

Plus a school, doctors surgery, dentist and shops and green spaces.

Nice that the council managed to jam the developer up for that though; seems like far too often they get away with filling the place up with **** houses that simply load more burden on the local health, education and retail sectors

One of my local planners said that 4 volume house builders got together to fill a local site with 1000+ houses because separately their 4 individual schemes of 250 houses were smaller than the criteria where the council could insist on extra supporting infrastructure

Why they didn't get slammed for CIL and the council build the requisite stuff I don't know. Better lawyers perhaps

 

[robinbanks]

Where are these checks 'along the production line' with houses?

The developers submit detailed specs (copy pasted) of exactly how each kind of house is going to be built, to the building control department. They then have private or council building control check a percentage of the houses on site, but in reality that means there is a lot of bad work that falls through the cracks because it just ain't possible to check them all.. Most inspections of large scale works that are cookie cutter replications assume they're all built to the same standard and verifying adherence to agreed spec and sensible regulations on a sample is good enough for the whole

Pay your favorite builder in to draw up a snagging list as long as your arm and say you want it all remedying under their latent defects cover or whatever other thing they agreed in writing before you bought

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Nice that the council managed to jam the developer up for that though; seems like far too often they get away with filling the place up with **** houses that simply load more burden on the local health, education and retail sectors

Our's was a small rural village, which became a 19th C centre of coal mining, which ended at the end of that century. Since then, as things changed, it became a desirable place to live, surrounded by green fields. It grew rapidly, since the 70's, but with little improvement in some of the infrastructure to match the growth. I'm lucky, I live at a high point, the less fortunate live lower down and regularly suffer from the inadequate drains over-flowing - such that they have a flood committee.

The past three years have seen some expensive new private estates be added, but with nothing added to improve the infrastructure.

 

[Ihavenojob]

So when you Buy a brand new van and you get endless faults from day one.

Take it back and reject it.