9 out of 10 of the new builds/ extensions we do up here in Scotland are timber frame.
very rarely do we build traditional.
9 out of 10 of the new builds/ extensions we do up here in Scotland are timber frame.
very rarely do we build traditional.
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The rats problem was the last straw for him.
He spent months and lots of money trying to get rid of them.
His insurance attended 3 times and then the exterminator made a damning report pointing out the design fault.
All the row of buildings built at the same time (early 2000) was infested and rats would come into the property at night.
In the few years he was there he had to battle terrible condensation because the building was totally sealed with lots of insulation to achieve a good energy rating, but he had windows open all year round but that wasn't enough.
Infinite water problems, no hot water due to wrong design, leaks making floors collapse, electric all over the place.
He sold it to get rid of the problem.
He moved a bit further out in Staines and bought a small 2 bedroom house for the same money.
Solid property built in the 50s, dry and made of bricks.
T
teaboyjim
I expect a lot of people would be surprised to know that a £300,000 building could be this bad.
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No, he had his own system, but with a maze of pipes which made no sense to me and pumps failing one after another.
T
teaboyjim
So that's the timber frame. What are the solid sheets that are directly behind the brick skin?
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T
teaboyjim
I can see why your friend would be happy he finally sold it
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Don't know about houses.
A friend of a friend bought a new built semi and he's happy with it, no problems.
My friend had his flat on the market for a long time and couldn't shift it, until someone came along and offered him £25k less than the flat was worth: he took the money and ran.
Feel sorry for the poor people who bought that dump.
I once read that a modern house is designed with a life expectancy of 60 years - when millions are living in 100+ year old houses. Things like those floor joists that are essentially made from sawdust and wood shavings glued together!
I'm not sure older buildings are necessarily of a better quality than newer ones. I think in some ways older buildings were better, but in others new builds have the edge.
Sorry, gone on a bit there
- Foundations: On old buildings they are often no more than a few hundred millimetres deep. While older buildings built with more flexible mortar and thicker walls may be less prone to cracking, I am regularly called out to survey buildings where there has been foundation movement to such an extent that large cracks have opened up. This is often due to nearby trees and dry summers.
If you look down the roofline of almost any victorian terrace there will be considerable evidence of movement. The same goes for the brickwork, where coursing that began its life level, is now out, sometimes by several centimetres.
Modern buildings are either constructed on trench-fill foundations deep enough to mitigate the risk of foundation movement, or they are piled. The risk of finding significant structural cracks in a new building is much lower, and it should remain that way for the life of the building.
- Superstructure walls: Traditional solid masonry walls feel solid. They are less prone to cracking due to expansion of the brickwork, so movement joints are generally not required. Modern buildings with a masonry outer skin need movement joists to prevent unsightly cracks (when panels are more than 6m in block and 12m in brick).
Timber framed walls are more difficult to fix things to, and prior consideration has to be given to the locations of radiators, kitchen units etc, with the provision of noggins, or ply or osb backing. Dot and dab never feels good to the touch and has similar issues with fixing heavy items to the walls.
But, modern buildings are many times more thermal efficient. Insulation of any description is quite a recent phenomenon in most houses. Even today, it's a big job to insulate any part of an older building other than the loft space. Walls have to be insulated internally, so you lose space in the house, or externally, changing the look of the house completely. Floors, if timber, can be insulated by lifting all the floorboards, but if ground bearing the only practical option is to break out the slab, dig down, and make room for the insulation.
- Roof: Traditional roofs are usually cut roofs, with purlins, and maybe one or two heavy duty trusses supporting the purlins. Roofs are often of a steeper pitch in pre-war properties, meaning there is a large, open loft space that can usually be converted into a bedroom quite easily. Newer houses tend to have lightweight trusses supporting the roof. It makes the attic a more awkward place for storage and for conversion. Houses from the 1960s to 80s tend to have lower pitch roofs that often don't have the headroom for conversion. Newer houses have gone back to a slightly steeper pitch, I assume, for aesthetics more than anything.
- Workmanship: I've seen some appalling workmanship on new-builds. However, I don't believe that every Victorian house was built ultra carefully; I would imagine that most northern inner city Victorian terraced houses were built as quickly and cheaply as possible by tradesmen being pushed by the mill owners to get the workers' accommodation built as quickly as possible. The regulations certainly wouldn't have been as stringent then. It's not possible to know how much snagging there was on houses from the past, but my feeling is that even then there probably would have been many issues.
- Plots & Amenity: Well, newer houses are crammed onto sites as tightly as possible, garden space is at a premium, roads are narrow, and if you have visitors they will probably have to park outside the estate. This isn't just the fault of the developers. Obviously they want to maximise their profit, but also they have to meet the requirements of the planners. Land is at a premium in this country and it is legislated that a minimum number of properties must be built on a parcel of land. However, Victorian inner city terraces were packed tightly onto the available land too. Front door straight onto the pavement, and a back yard of a few square metres with a bit of hard-standing and an out-house. The inter-war period was a period where what we now consider to be a desirable property was built - the typical 1930s semi with bay window, possibly a garage, decent sized front garden, and 100ft back garden, built on nice wide roads, often with trees planted in the grass verge on both sides. Even these properties have their issues though, such as the ones mentioned above, and the fact that the third bedroom is often no more than a box room.
- Other Stuff: There has been a shift in recent years where councils no longer adopt new-build housing estates. This means that, when you buy a new-build on a new estate, you will owe a service charge to the management company, who will maintain the estate (roads, verges, hedgerows etc.
Throughout history houses have almost invariably been freehold. You buy the house, you buy the plot. It's yours. You are responsible for it, and you owe nothing to anyone, other than mortgage payments. There has been a shift in recent years and developers have been selling houses as leasehold. Leasehold makes sense for flats; it's a shared building, with many properties occupying the same plot of land. But for houses, it doesn't. The scam is such that the ground rent (the charge levied for occupying land owned by the developer) increases at such a rate that it can cost thousands of pounds a year if you stay in the house long enough. The only way out is to buy the lease, which can cost a small fortune.
Sorry, gone on a bit there
The "design life" and the length of time a building will actually stand for are two very different things. Generally, yes, houses and flats have a design life of 50 or 60 years. This doesn't mean they will be uninhabitable after this time. It will mean that issues may have arisen that will need to be dealt with. I worked on the refurbishment of a high-rise that was around sixty years old at the time. The structure was surveyed, issues noted, and a plan put in place to carry out any required structural repairs during the refurbishment. It should be good for another sixty years, no problem. Nothing will stand for hundred of years without serious maintenance. You've only got to look at buildings that are left to fall into disrepair.
The solid sheet is usually OSB, and is part of the structural strength of the panel. In my 1995 house, from inside, you had...
Plasterboard
Vapour barrier (stop vapour from inside rotting the frame)
6"x2" Frame filled with 6" of rockwool insulation (Not the norm back then, usually 4")
OSB Panel
Breather paper (the green stuff)
Then the exterior finish was wall tied to that.
D
dontbelieveawordofit
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.
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.
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.
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