New build layout, is this typical?

[diy_fun_uk]

I'm bored so perusing some of the new builds online around my area.

4 bed detached house, ground floor layout as below:

If I'm looking at this correctly, the WC is essentially in the kitchen/diner, albeit with its door in a sort of recessed area.

Is this fairly typical? I wouldn't have thought it's ideal having a WC in the same space as where you cook and eat. I appreciate the designers have to fit x rooms into the given overall footprint, but nevertheless, not great.

 

[Brigadier]

 

[blup]

The old two door rule went as it was realised it didn’t serve a hygiene purpose. Not that long ago, an old boy neighbour insisted on the en suite in his extension having a separate wc. Old habits die hard. It all went to pot when the toilets were brought inside.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

I'd want to move that kitchen/hall door to the other side of the toilet.

But regulations don't require this any more.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

...but then the door would protrude into the kitchen.

The real problem is that there's too much stuff in not enough space.

 

[Murdochcat]

Buy a 1970’s house

 

[aveatry]

What always gets me is that for example a 4 bed detached and yet fitted with a poxy little single oven and 4 little rings. Its like a toy. Maybe ok in a 2 bed semi but not 4 or 5 bed detached.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

The three storey houses are a joke. 4 double bedrooms, two per floor upstairs so enough for a decent sized household, but the downstairs is also the size of two double bedrooms.

Most newbuilds feel like caravans to me.

Anything from 1950-1990 will be much better. You get the cavity walls, DPC and proper solid plaster rather than dry-lined plasterboard. Most importantly of all, the rooms should be big enough for actual human beings.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

Buy a 1970’s house

They built some crap in the 1970s. Especially those things where they only have end walls just enough brickwork to hold the roof up and hopefully slow a fire down, the front and back are a timber frame with plasterboard on the inside and tiles nailed onto the outside.

They don't seem to be worth any less than a properly built house with bricks all round, so you should just avoid. If they were half-price for half a house then they'd be OK, but they never are.

 

[MNW67]

It was probably OK even into the mid 90s. I think it was Prescott who started cramming more and more houses on the same size plot.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

The old two door rule went as it was realised it didn’t serve a hygiene purpose.

No, the Building Regs changed allowing a toilet to be accessed directly from a kitchen provided it had it's own basin.

 

[Murdochcat]

They built some crap in the 1970s. Especially those things where they only have end walls just enough brickwork to hold the roof up and hopefully slow a fire down, the front and back are a timber frame with plasterboard on the inside and tiles nailed onto the outside.

They don't seem to be worth any less than a properly built house with bricks all round, so you should just avoid. If they were half-price for half a house then they'd be OK, but they never are.

But a lot are well built and have drive ways and decent sized gardens. Often with potential to extend too

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I'd want to move that kitchen/hall door to the other side of the toilet.

But regulations don't require this any more.

Haven't they added a regulation, where it needs to have an extract fan? That, would cause a negative air pressure in the room, removing the 'fumes'.

 

[Murdochcat]

Haven't they added a regulation, where it needs to have an extract fan? That, would cause a negative air pressure in the room, removing the 'fumes'.

Yes, kitchens, utilities, bathrooms, shower rooms and cloakrooms

 

[diy_fun_uk]

My place (bungalow) was built mid 80s, it's fine but is only stud partition internal walls so you tend to hear things no matter where you are in the property.