Health risks associated with passive houses

[ProDave]

Indeed this is an interesting debate.

 

As I have alluded to before, in many ways I place more importance on the location, outside space, proximity and overlooking of neighbours, views, noise (or preferably lack of), sunlight etc than I do on the actual design and layout of the house. That can be changed, improved, altered, rebuilt, the location can't.  That is why I sometimes shout at the likes of Phil and Kirsty etc on the tv when they say "you can't possibly decide not to buy that house because it hasn't got off street parking" YES I bloody well can and will.  And it is as much the layout of housing estates that I hate and why I would never choose to live on one in a new box with a plot layout that may suit "Mr average" but not me.

 

If people are happy living shoe horned in, with a single garage you can barely squeeze a car into and with the only other parking being the drive in front of the garage, then good luck to them. They obviously don't have many interests. Where would I park my caravan, my trailer, my classic car, and even my boat?  Developers never think about that do they?  Perhaps they should try one or two plots on an estate with a decent double garage and extra parking alongside the garage, I bet they would be the most popular plots and would sell first. They could even charge a little more for them?

 

That is why self build is so important to me. I am happy to be building my relatively modest house on my 1/3 acre plot to the layout I have chosen and the house is designed to make the most of the plot and the views.  My house design would not work if you tried to pack it into an estate at a density of 30 dph and I would not want to live in it at that density with so little personal outside space.

 

And since this is going to be our retirement home, I want it to be efficient. That's why I am well insulating it, striving for good air tightness, have fitted good triple glazed windows (aluminium clad for low maintenance and long life) and will be fitting mvhr.  All so we can live comfortably without spending a fortune on energy to heat it.

 

 

 

[ProDave]

7 minutes ago, Sensus said:

But as I've repeatedly mentioned, there's another, possibly fundamental, problem with PH; namely that it is conceptually centred on a steady-state internal environment, whereas the human comfort zone is highly variable, according to levels of activity and personal perception.

Very true.

We often light the WBS, not because the thermometer in the room says it is cold, but because it is grey wet and dismal outside and it feels cold. On such occasions we will bask in the rom at 25 degrees and love it, but would never normally allow the heating to warm a room that much.

 

Likewise I worked in an air conditioned office kept at a constant 20 degrees. Sometimes you would be in rolled up shirt sleeves feeling hot. Other times you would have your pullover on and shivering.


 

[tonyshouse]

I like stable fairly constant internal temperatures, these equate to comfort.  Nice air quality is a bonus resulting from not throwing heat away in ventilated air BT using MVHR 

[PeterW]

But it's always the result when an organic element meets an inorganic element ...! 

 

Pick your industry - it doesn't matter which - and because every human is unique then anything that is designed is a compromise. 

 

There is no mass market for an AI house as it would be permanently  confused as it tried to align to the needs of the occupants as they interact with the house - some have tried to "automate" however it is playing at the edges as there is no way the systems could cope with the multitude of variation that occupants and nature would throw at it. 

[Construction Channel]

I think there is some confusion here between what the "major house builders" are trying to provide, and what the monkeys on site can be bothered to build,

The developers are un deniably building what sells, they would be mad not to, and they have probably got bigger teams researching this constantly than there are people in this thread, 

The problem comes when you get recently qualified college leavers on price work, I severely doubt any of the management teams have ever said, "Just slap the insulation in, it'll fit where it touches" or anything along those lines, and if every house on the major developments was built as per spec they probably wouldn't be too bad,

It also shouldn't be a case of getting every house checked. 

People should just take more pride in their work, whether this is instilled in the college environment, or every college leaver should spend a couple of years with the guy i did my apprenticeship with I don't know, 

there should be no excuse for just covering it up quick so the house can go to market, it's either right or it should get done again, 

 

rant over...... I just don't like the majority of site monkeys 

[oldkettle]

5 minutes ago, Sensus said:

@oldkettle

 

5) Maybe you're in the wrong job? If you're as good as you think you are, e-mail me your CV and portfolio... we are (quite seriously!) looking for staff at present, as it happens.

 

6) But, as I said, it also applies to existing housing stock, where the original build cost has long been amortised and is therefore of no relevance. The value of such properties comes down entirely to supply and demand.

 

7) I suspect that it would have similar credibility to the results of the recent survey I saw that suggested that no less than 1 in 10 of the UK population would be 'actively considering' self-building their home within the next 12 months. Old Red Indian saying: 'Talk is cheap, white man - it takes money to buy whiskey'

 

Yes, I'd say you're about right with the problems of PH (apart from cost, buildability and interstitial condensation, which also haven't quite been nailed yet, either). But better minds than you or I are telling me that to reliably fix those problems isn't nearly as straightforward as you might expect.

 

But as I've repeatedly mentioned, there's another, possibly fundamental, problem with PH; namely that it is conceptually centred on a steady-state internal environment, whereas the human comfort zone is highly variable, according to levels of activity and personal perception.

 

5) Thank you for your kind offer :-) If I was any good as an architect I would not be asking people how to move my stairs to get a better layout. One needs an eye, experience, intuition to improve things. Yet that does not stop me from stating the obvious when the layout is bad - as a user. Similarly, people don't care what technology is behind my application, they care about user experience. And I am happy with my current job - which I am reasonably good at.

 

6) Not sure how it refutes my argument. I noticed that in too many cases large bedrooms will be converted into smaller ones at a first opportunity because people in this country value number of bedrooms rather than overall size. But it usually stops making sense when the house is already 4 bed. 

If people liked smaller homes more they would be selling at a premium :-) and there would not be price difference between 150m2 4 bed and 180m2 4 bed. I somehow believe this is not the case.

 

7) It would have exactly as much credibility as "I like my tiny house" survey :-) But I would be curious to know how major developer tried larger houses for a bit more money and it flopped because people refused to buy the monstrosity. :-)

 

With regards to interstitial condensation, is it not a risk at all or a much lower risk in conventional buildings?

 

Steady-state internal environment does non mean the house is falling apart if temperature gets higher or lower, right? It just means "ideally to lower the energy consumption it is preferable to keep it stable". Which is desirable, but not enforceable. If one cycled home he will probably naturally feel somewhat hot. Well, open the window and enjoy - I personally prefer a shower in the warm bathroom :-) So all problems so far come down to ventilation.

Well, then here is my punchline :-) If a particular PH was build with inadequate ventilation there is a finite and not extremely large amount of money that can fix this problem. It may be 2K or 5 or 10 but it is unlikely to be 30. I'd say it's not too bad. I may believe otherwise (as you said,  better minds are not sure how to fix it reliably) when I see the evidence that somebody tried simple measures and failed.

 

[oldkettle]

54 minutes ago, PeterW said:

There is no mass market for an AI house as it would be permanently  confused as it tried to align to the needs of the occupants as they interact with the house - some have tried to "automate" however it is playing at the edges as there is no way the systems could cope with the multitude of variation that occupants and nature would throw at it. 

 

My personal semi-educated (a course on machine learning and general IT background) opinion on AI house is it is - "in theory" :-) - not too far away (certainly less than a decade) and that the main problems are unrelated to AI, i.e. cost of automation itself and privacy concerns. If you mean different people in the same house will have different and contradictory requests - it's a different story :-) But real AI - as opposed to standard "fixed options" software - is very good at adapting to pretty much anything, although for now only in isolated areas. Amazon, Google, MS, Apple and others are moving fast.

[ProDave]

33 minutes ago, oldkettle said:

 

6) Not sure how it refutes my argument. I noticed that in too many cases large bedrooms will be converted into smaller ones at a first opportunity because people in this country value number of bedrooms rather than overall size. But it usually stops making sense when the house is already 4 bed.

If people liked smaller homes more they would be selling at a premium :-) and there would not be price difference between 150m2 4 bed and 180m2 4 bed. I somehow believe this is not the case.

 
 

That's an interesting argument.

 

We used to own a 2 bed mid terrace ex council house as a buy to let. We often thought the front bedroom that was the full width of the house would divide into two. Particularly as the 3 bedroom version of that house was only very marginally larger overall. the killer was the need to cut a big hole in an outside wall to install a second window.  When it was priced out, the cost of converting it would have barely covered the extra price it might sell for, so we decided to leave it as a 2 bed.  Interestingly shortly afterwards I did the wiring alterations for someone doing that 2 to 3 bed conversion.  By the time you had taken out the extra bit of landing you needed to give access to the now two front bedrooms, what you were left with were two tiny bedrooms, barely adequate as single childrens rooms, so I am glad we didn't do it. that was definitely a case of one generous room was better than two inadequate rooms. however had they been built with two windows, I am sure more would have been converted.

[ProDave]

1 hour ago, Sensus said:

 

You are so, so wrong that it's not even funny!!

 

I have spent decades of my life agonsing over these issues - and frequently fighting battles with Planning over them - on an almost daily basis. There's one Highways Officer for Gloucestershire County Council who I'm fairly sure will still be suffering PTSD as a result of our arguments over parking provision on one particular development in Cheltenham.

 

And, yes, we've tried the oversized garages and parking thing. I also once had our site Sales Teams ringing round every competitor development they could find doing a comparative survey of garage sizes, in an attempt to justify to the boss that we should make ours larger.

 

That just reinforces my view that I am far from being your average home buyer. I don't mind being labeled strange or even eccentric if that is the case. I prefer to see it as individual, and I want  a home that reflects what I want to do with it, not what a developer thinks the majority of people would do with it.  Perhaps people that strive to self build are of a similar persuasion and prefer the flexibility to have something individually built to suit their needs, in which case that explains why I feel at home here.

 

But previously I have looked at the plans for new developments and thought  "if only they moved that over there and put this in there" then it would have been a home I could have lived with, usually with little impact on the development density and hence builders profit.

 

It might be interesting to have a straw poll and see from the self builders here, is it the flexibility to have a better house that made you choose self build? or is it the chance to have a house in a better location with the outside space better suited to your needs?
 

[Ferdinand]

One further observation I would like to make.

 

Two reasons for loss of innovation and trying out ideas are imo that:

 

1 - Local and regional developers have been decimated. There are not developers building say between 25 and 500 houses per year. There are some left, but it is tough.

 

The site I sold is for about 100 houses. I would eventually have found someone to buy a 50 plot site, but much below that and it cannot support the sales / marketing infrastructure needed by a large developer. 

 

There are not many developers out there able to take on a normal site (ie one without a killer benefit such as getting it nearly free or getting very high prices) of say 10-40 plots and having a profitable "normal" project with "normal" houses on it. By "normal" I mean houses of perhaps 900->1800 sqft.

 

Such builders would be able to do trial innovation in collaboration with eg small research organisations, or to be places where eccentric inventors could find space to make a living as well as indulging their imaginations around the edges. More variety would be an additional benefit.

 

If they are acre plots with gin palaces that sell at 1m each that has more leeway, but it is like the tighter control needed to make a supermini to sell at 12k vs a Jag to sell at £70k. But that is not where we need new ideas.

 

2 - Such profitable niches have gradually been eroded.

 

One reason is that the full panoply of planning gain has been applied to smaller developer in most places.

 

Think for example that Segal started with a small bungalow in his back garden while he built his house, and Span Developments (Eric Lyons) only built around 2000 houses in nearly 20 years, with an average development size of around 30 (2134 houses / 73 developments).

 

What we have left at the lower end are builders doing developments at a couple or a few houses a year on plots as they come up. That is too small.

 

I would like to see some Planning Gain only kick in at say 12 houses. IIRC it used to be 15 in most places.

 

The overhead of reports and phalanx of oar-inserters is now many times what it was only 20 years ago.

 

Are TV programmes the main drivers of innovation now?

 

Ferdinand

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Span_Developments

Edited October 12, 2016 by Ferdinand

[Stones]

8 hours ago, Sensus said:

In all respects. Yes, there's focus on minimising build costs.

 

There's also (arguably much more) focus on maximising saleability; you can stand a little extra build cost if the houses sell like hotcakes.

 

Technically, there's also a lot of focus on maximising buildability, minimising defects and warranty claims, and maximising customer satisfaction (yes, believe it or not, they really do care: you guys only have to satisfy yourselves with the end result, and often wear heavily rose-tinted spectacles as you do so - for a developer building several thousand homes a year, caning a poor reputation for quality and customer satisfaction is serious!).

 

I tend to draw comparison with another of my enthusiasms, that of cars. Car enthusiasts (be they classic car buffs, performance freaks, or whatever), will tend to snear at mainstream products as 'white goods', without being willing to accept that the niche products they revere are wholly impractical, heavily compromised, and totally unaffordable, for the majority of people. You might not like them, but the products of Toyota, Volkswagen et al are successful because they deliver what most  people are satisfied with, at a price and level of convenience they can actually afford.

 

 

 

 

 

The analogy to cars is an interesting one.  30 years ago, reliability (and in many cases build quality) of cars was very poor.  Automation and strict quality control have improved cars, and consequently owner experience and satisfaction many times over..  Is the building industry in the same position?  Is a far higher degree of factory prefabrication the answer (pre insulated panels / cassettes, modular house)?

 

12 minutes ago, ProDave said:

That just reinforces my view that I am far from being your average home buyer. I don't mind being labeled strange or even eccentric if that is the case. I prefer to see it as individual, and I want  a home that reflects what I want to do with it, not what a developer thinks the majority of people would do with it.  Perhaps people that strive to self build are of a similar persuasion and prefer the flexibility to have something individually built to suit their needs, in which case that explains why I feel at home here.

 

But previously I have looked at the plans for new developments and thought  "if only they moved that over there and put this in there" then it would have been a home I could have lived with, usually with little impact on the development density and hence builders profit.

 

It might be interesting to have a straw poll and see from the self builders here, is it the flexibility to have a better house that made you choose self build? or is it the chance to have a house in a better location with the outside space better suited to your needs?
 

 

We embarked on our first self build after going to see two 'starter' homes newly built by a large developer.  I remember going into the first and asking where the lounge was (staircase running up one wall).  I remember stretching my arms and being able to span the width of the room!  The next house up was several thousand more, and was a bit better proportioned, but not enough to make me buy.  In the end, I built a 3 bedroom bungalow which had 50% more floor space than the larger of the two houses we had looked at, for the same price as we would have paid for the larger developer house.  

 

Having built our own, and seen what we could do with our limited resources, we didn't consider a developer built house until much later in life, when we bought a house from a small developer (building 6 houses).  I bitterly regret that purchase as although the house itself worked reasonably well in terms of space, it was poorly put together and poorly finished.  It was the lack of quality control (over the build process) that made me decide that we would only ever self build in the future.

[ProDave]

17 minutes ago, Stones said:

We embarked on our first self build after going to see two 'starter' homes newly built by a large developer.  I remember going into the first and asking where the lounge was (staircase running up one wall).  I remember stretching my arms and being able to span the width of the room!  The next house up was several thousand more, and was a bit better proportioned, but not enough to make me buy.  In the end, I built a 3 bedroom bungalow which had 50% more floor space than the larger of the two houses we had looked at, for the same price as we would have paid for the larger developer house.

 

Pet hate of mine, stairs going up from a living room.  In older less well insulated houses, that resulted in a cold draught of air coming down the stairs into the living room in winter.
 

 

I bought my first house in 1986 when property prices were going silly and you just bought anything you could afford to get you established (I literally bought the cheapest house on the market in the county at that time, not because I liked it, but it was all I could afford)  At the same time a colleague bought a studio flat.  As he was sat at the tea table at work describing it, one of the older guys (who clearly owned a large house) came into the conversation part way through and said "what are you describing, it sounds like a landing" and when he found out the floor area, he pointed out his garage was bigger than that.


 

[daiking]

5 hours ago, Barney12 said:

 

And that is the absolute nail on the proverbial head! Modern housing is now very much in the realms of "consumer purchasing". Developers build what people want to buy. Full stop.

 

To quote the HBF 2016 survey:

 

"In terms of the design of their new home, 92% of buyers were satisfied with the internal design of their new home and 86% were satisfied with the design externally."

 

Yes, legislation can help shape energy efficiency, design, house sizes et all but ironically if the government or the big developers do too much of that then the accusations of nanny state would fly in.

 

As @Crofter has said this forum is far from being an accurate cross section of the wider community. Anyway I don't want to be part of the 'common herd', I aspire to being just a little eccentric

 

This isn't directed at you only Barney as I disagree with all this 'market' talk but I am not smart enough to deal with everything. But what you have just described about buyers is a good example cognitive bias. If you've just spunked your life's earning on a pile of baked clay and firewood, sat on a postage stamp of clay of course you'll tell a stranger you're over the moon. Most people could not deal with the thought that they're absolutely freakin' nuts to do so. Unfortunately only the certifiably nuts would be able to contemplate that. 

 

There is no housing 'market' in this country. Its a political construct from planning downwards, an absolute scam and at sad indication of the country and how it treats its people. This forum (and others similar) are usually populated by men of a certain age often with experience of the housing dis-industry. None of which is a reflection on the increasing difficulties faced by millions of people who just happen to have been born later than others or not received some demographic gift.  

 

Its rotten to the core.

Edited October 12, 2016 by daiking

[Declan52]

I don't like the phrase saying we are being different/strange or eccentric just because we want to live in a house that is well insulated has little or no draughts has clean air has no mould and above all else due to theses factors costs little run. Surely if you live in a draughty cold mould ridden house and pay a fortune out on energy costs are you not a bit strange. I know the high cost of houses in some areas is a major issue but does everyone not have the right to live in a warm house with no mould and fresh air and doesn't cost a high percentage of their income to run.

[daiking]

1 minute ago, Declan52 said:

I don't like the phrase saying we are being different/strange or eccentric just because we want to live in a house that is well insulated has little or no draughts has clean air has no mould and above all else due to theses factors costs little run. Surely if you live in a draughty cold mould ridden house and pay a fortune out on energy costs are you not a bit strange. I know the high cost of houses in some areas is a major issue but does everyone not have the right to live in a warm house with no mould and fresh air and doesn't cost a high percentage of their income to run.

 

In my personal opinion that is a right and that is something that lies with the government. None of this shoulder shrugging hand wringing about not interfering in the market despite all the other govt interference that freaks it up. Housebuilding is a local service not an international. they should be knocking up houses everywhere they are needed so taxpayers can lead happy productive lives not farmed in worse conditions than livestock for the benefit of landowners.

[Barney12]

Crikey this is all getting rather depressing. I think ill go back to the pub and have another pint, discuss pointless nonsense and laugh at the local farmer who when presented with some free left over roast potatoes from the evening food service said "Ere these teddies has got grass on em!" (They had a sprinkling of Rosemary!) (Teddies is a Devon term for potatoes!) 

 

(for clarification: that was an attempt at humour to lighten the mood! )

 

Yours 

 

Aspiring Eccentric (and ever so slightly odd)

Edited October 12, 2016 by Barney12

[Barney12]

3 minutes ago, Sensus said:

Sorry, Barney... I'm not doing anything to lighten the mood much, am I?!

 

No! 

Bit of an incident in the pub tonight - some strange person threw a bottle of Omega 3 pills at me 
Luckily I ducked and my injuries were only Super Fish Oil

[Nickfromwales]

3 minutes ago, Barney12 said:

 

No! 

Bit of an incident in the pub tonight - some strange person threw a bottle of Omega 3 pills at me 
Luckily I ducked and my injuries were only Super Fish Oil

2 day ban for you 

[Barney12]

Just now, Nickfromwales said:

2 day ban for you 

 

Bugger, is that all. It's my school report all over agaIn "must try harder"  

[Construction Channel]

we could throw in some warning points for dragging the thread off topic?

What ya think Nick?

[Nickfromwales]

Nope. I think this thread NEEDS a night off.   

 

[Construction Channel]

You were lucky this time @Barney12 

[jack]

19 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Nope. I think this thread NEEDS a night off.   

 

 

It irks me to agree with the plumber, but I think he might be right this time.  

 

Stopped clock, twice a day, etc! 

[Construction Channel]

Just now, jack said:

Stopped clock, twice a day, etc! 

 

Plumbers run by date stamped 24 hr digital clocks if that is the case

[SteamyTea]

43 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Nope. I think this thread NEEDS a night off.

 

23 minutes ago, jack said:

Stopped clock, twice a day, etc!

Bugger, I have loads to say, but just in from work.

 

I like a good rant.