The Blame Game

[Dork Lard]

You stated the tenant profits by having a place to live and the landlord makes money from the tenancy.
I'm saying your premise that profits are equally shared in this transaction is at fault.
The Free Market is biased towards privilege. Those who have goods and can charge what they wish against those who pay. Is it a coincidence that whenever regulations governing these transactions are relaxed that markets become unstable due to individual greed and corporate monopoly?

Where have I ever said that profits are equally shared?

Why are you still thinking that profits have to be £monetary?

Private landlords are in the business to make £money. Stop confusing them/us with social landlords.

Experience has taught me that being a 'beneficial' landlord is more profitable than being a 'rogue' landlord.

 

[Brigadier]

That isn't what i said and you know it.
You stated the tenant profits by having a place to live and the landlord makes money from the tenancy.
I'm saying your premise that profits are equally shared in this transaction is at fault.
The Free Market is biased towards privilege. Those who have goods and can charge what they wish against those who pay. Is it a coincidence that whenever regulations governing these transactions are relaxed that markets become unstable due to individual greed and corporate monopoly?

Dork specifically wrote "a nice place to live at a fair price".


Not somewhere to live at any price.


The tenant puts a value on their comfort, satisfaction, enjoyment, and wellbeing, just the same as when they choose comfortable clothing, food to cook at home, or a restaurant at which to eat.

 

[Odds]

'A nice place to live at a fair price' is entirely subjective since the price is determined by the landlord, using his privilege to do so. The tenant doesn't make any money out of this transaction unless they sub-let the accomodation, and in this instance no other kind of profit can be construed unless it has a financial value in real world terms.
The tenant can be said to acquire a benefit from this transaction, namely a place to stay, but all profit is taken by the landlord, so the transaction is unbalanced and cannot be said to be a fair one, can it?

I'm not suggesting the tenant should live rent-free, that would be absurd, but i'd say further regulation would make the transaction fair. Neither am i mixing private/social landlords in the same bag but moving on from the article regarding the surprising levels of bad housing in the private sector.
His Lordness is quite right to say it makes more sense to provide secure housing rather than the squalid rooms afforded to people who have no money and few legal rights to object. Making social housing cheaply is part of this unequal system and it takes incidents like Grenfell to shine a light into this murky world of political disinterest and shady business methods.

 

[Brigadier]

A nice place to live at a fair price' is entirely subjective since the price is determined by the landlord, using his privilege to do so.

Not "entirely", unless the tenant is compelled to take the place.


You're the one who is wedded to the concept of "profit can only be monetary", as evidenced by this statement.

The tenant doesn't make any money out of this transaction unless they sub-let the accomodation,

Which then fundamentally undermines this statement

I'm not suggesting the tenant should live rent-free,

As long as you disregard any value to the tenant other than explicit monetary return, the only logical position is that you are advocating rent-free tenancy.

 

[Odds]

Not "entirely", unless the tenant is compelled to take the place.


You're the one who is wedded to the concept of "profit can only be monetary", as evidenced by this statement.



Which then fundamentally undermines this statement


As long as you disregard any value to the tenant other than explicit monetary return, the only logical position is that you are advocating rent-free tenancy.

You're using selected quotes to fit a disingenuous line of argument: have you become the de facto spokesman for the Lord of Dorks?

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

I've lost track of the arguments. Is someone trying to say that landlords aren't in it for the money? Of course they are, it's 99% of the reason people buy property to rent out. Any ideas about improving housing stock and/or somehow making the world a better place are usually some form of self-justification or spin.

The issue is that there are only whatever number of houses there are. Unless you're converting disused shops or building new houses then every house bought to rent out is one more house available for rent but also one fewer house for an owner-occupier to buy (which they'd have probably fixed up for themselves). One landlord buying one house turns one potential homeowner somewhere in the country into a renter. Not the individual who rents it, but someone somewhere among the population. It has to, as that house that was for sale isn't any more.

 

[securespark]

Is there a good alternative to foam based insulation in cladding systems?

I've read you can use Rockwool slabs. But how do they compare in practice?

This is something I wondered about a lot at the time, but never really found the answer.

Well, if my chat with a surveyor is correct, you can use rockwool in place of rigid insulation, but you would need a much thicker layer.

 

[JonathanM]

Well, if my chat with a surveyor is correct, you can use rockwool in place of rigid insulation, but you would need a much thicker layer.

I've been doing a bit more Googling.

It seems that, according to the enquiry testimony, they could have met the design spec with 250mm of Rockwool, but instead they used 150mm PIR. So overall, they saved about eight inches each way, back to front and side to side, on a tower block. There seems to be lots of space around the building, so I don't think there was massive pressure to use the thinnest possible system. If it did come down to wanting to save eight inches each way, that is a massive shame.

I've also been wondering about other issues which might play a part, when choosing insulation for these systems in high rises, such as cost of installation, lifespan, weather resistance, aesthetics, and general interaction/integration with other elements in these types of building systems.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

In my utterly unqualified opinion, rockwool has pretty much zero structural strength, so it will need some sort of framework around it. I would imagine that rockwool plus a metal frame will probably cost more than a slab of more expensive insulation that doesn't need much support. So the more expensive insulation probably was the cheaper option overall.

I'm currently sitting on a floor that's entirely supported by PIR board and nothing else. Basically concrete, PIR slab then chipboard, it's what's called a floating floor, they were popular in the 1990s. There's a heck of a lot of heavy stuff in the room too, as it's used as a store room with floor to ceiling racking full of stuff, but it hasn't sunk at all. I expected it to be a bit like a bouncy castle but it's rock solid - unlike a suspended floor nothing vibrates or makes noises while walking around, not a bit.

 

[JonathanM]

In my utterly unqualified opinion, rockwool has pretty much zero structural strength, so it will need some sort of framework around it. I would imagine that rockwool plus a metal frame will probably cost more than a slab of more expensive insulation that doesn't need much support. So the more expensive insulation probably was the cheaper option overall.

I'm currently sitting on a floor that's entirely supported by PIR board and nothing else. Basically concrete, PIR slab then chipboard, it's what's called a floating floor, they were popular in the 1990s. There's a heck of a lot of heavy stuff in the room too, as it's used as a store room with floor to ceiling racking full of stuff, but it hasn't sunk at all. I expected it to be a bit like a bouncy castle but it's rock solid - unlike a suspended floor nothing vibrates or makes noises while walking around, not a bit.

This is a photo from earlier in the thread. It does seem to show an overlapping framework. And also those pins going through the Rockwool slabs look pretty big. Unfortunately, I can't find an image of PIR being installed in a high rise for comparison.

 

[noseall]

Should PIR be used in any low-rise building now? I have a room with it under a chipboard floor and above a plasterboard ceiling.

It's no more prone to combustion than say a timber roof, a Chinese sofa or a Christmas tree.

 

[JonathanM]

Re Grenfell specifically, forgive my ignorance but I've read reports stating that the insulation was Polyethylene. Obviously I can understand that wrapping a tower block in essentially foamed carrier bags is going to be a problem. But was it actually PIR, and/or has PIR been referred to as Polyethylene in reports about it? I realise that ultimately everything's oil derived so you could say it's all the same stuff taking the broadest possible definition, but I can't find a clear answer.

I think the cladding panels were polyethylene, and the insulation was PIR.

EDIT: I can see you already answered that in your next post.

 

[ajohn]

Wasn't the tower a retrofit? The reason the particular material was used is likely to be down to cost. A thickness of that needed compared with rock wool or what ever and installation costs. That probably set the price charged for it. I haven't heard any solid info on how the fire got to the stuff.

Some of the tower problems seemed to be down to the retrofit aspects but their is an ever increasing interest in improved insulation levels on new builds. Cheapest favoured. Floor insulation under or over a floor slab is a little different to walls but plasterboard is viewed as being fireproof - in some ways.

I watched some local timber frame houses going up but just in passing. When the frame went up polythene was hung to provide damp proofing from the brick skin. Same with roof covering before it was all tiled. The brick skin went up incredibly quickly on a number of them, Not sure when the initial internal fit started or was completed. That would include insulation,

 

[Brigadier]

You're using selected quotes to fit a disingenuous line of argument: have you become the de facto spokesman for the Lord of Dorks?

When the argument is lost, the ad hominems begin.

 

[Dork Lard]

You're using selected quotes to fit a disingenuous line of argument: have you become the de facto spokesman for the Lord of Dorks?

I don't think that what you think is fully matured in your head yet, you seem to take an interest in the current state of our housing market but you cannot quite seem to work it out & make sense of it.

BTW, I am Dork Lard, the Lard of all Dorks.