BUILDING BRIEFING: 
Modern Housing
- Meeting the requirements
Houses are always changing to cope with the rising cost of land, building regulations, material shortages, whims of fashion and the expectations of owners and tenants. Following his recent series, Trevor Yorke takes a look at the demands and expectations of modern housing.
Every generation imposes new demands upon the building industry as they have to juggle safety, efficiency and quality concerns with the increasing cost of construction. Builders cannot just supply a brick shell as did their Victorian counterparts; the modern property must have central heating, services connected, lighting installed, kitchens fitted and bathroom suites plumbed in. They must also meet new regulations regarding the environmental impact of homes, not just with regards to efficient heating and insulation but also the effect of an estate upon the local infrastructure. In the 1930s, houses were erected along main roads out of town in an uncontrolled ribbon development which blotted out the countryside and linked villages into the urban sprawl. Today it can be a long battle to obtain planning permission as tighter regulations are in place to protect the local environment.
Due to local authority demands and the spread of conservation areas, the appearance of the finished house may have to reflect vernacular styles and be built with local materials. At the same time it has to appeal to potential clients who, fuelled by magazines, television, and the internet, are more fashion conscious than ever before. Builders of private houses in the 1950s and 60s faced similar issues as the functional facades of the fashionable modern style were too plain for many tastes so were covered with hanging tiles, timber boarding and stone cladding to give them a more familiar and reassuring appearance.
The major problem facing builders, however, is making a house that conforms with all these demands yet is cheap enough to be affordable for the mass market. In the past, the majority of working families rented rooms or lived in small houses with a limited life-span. Most of the Victorian terraces still standing were built for skilled workers and the middle classes, who represented only a small proportion of the population. It was not until the early 20th Century that attempts were made to produce cheaper new houses with the room for a family (while also being affordable to the masses). New materials and prefabricated buildings were seen as a possible solution; however, experiments with iron, concrete, timber and steel structures were often unsuccessful, while the prefabs erected after the war were only ever a short-term solution. Today, with the new regulations covering energy efficiency, environmental impact and local planning, the construction industry is once again looking to experiment with factory production and alternative materials in order to meet these new challenges. How have these changes affected the houses built today, what can be done to the existing stock to improve their performance and what will those built in the future look like?
Timber framed houses
Timber framed houses aroused the interest of builders from the 1950s as experience in America and Scandinavia showed that they could make warmer houses: an important consideration at a time of record cold winters. Unlike the foreign types, those built in this country were hidden behind a outer skin of brick, hanging tiles or other cladding, such that by the 1980s nearly a quarter of houses were built this way. Concerns with damp penetration halted its use, but as owners were generally unaware of the timber structure within their property there was little outcry, and new forms are once again proving popular. They have many advantages over traditional forms of housing: foundations do not have to be so substantial as they are lighter, construction time is reduced, and the walls can have better sound deadening properties. They are also more environmentally friendly, not only through good insulation, but because less carbon is emitted in the production of timber than other materials (partly because a tree is usually planted when an older one is cut down and young, growing trees absorb more carbon dioxide than the mature ones used for timber).
Houses today
Walls foundations and roofs
Building Regulations
Ever since the 1965 Building Regulations first put limits on energy loss through the structure of a new house and subsequent changes tightened the standard, further methods of heating and insulation have become an issue. This was measured by a ‘u-value’, where the lower the figure the better the walls and roof were at reducing heat loss, with the target value dropping to around a quarter of the original level over the past 40 years as insulation has improved. Central heating, which was only fitted in one in three houses in 1970, is now present in most, and modern gas fired condensing boilers (the heat from gases produced during heating is reclaimed) are more efficient than earlier systems, achieving 85-90% efficiency (the proportion of the energy used that is turned into heat). Insulation of the loft, the use of new materials that are better at retaining the heat inside and double glazing have also helped to improve performance.
In the last decade, however, new regulations have made the builder not only consider the energy efficiency of the house but also how every detail affects the local and global environment. The 2006 Building Regulations set new standards and introduced a Dwelling Carbon Dioxide Emission Rate (DER), replacing the old u-values and bringing in air tightness, lighting and renewable energy sources, in addition to heating and insulation performance to estimate a rate of carbon emission. The Government’s aim was to progressively improve the performance of new housing so they would achieve carbon zero, where carbon emitted during a year is balanced by renewables (solar, wind and geothermal), which is of importance as housing accounts for around 30% of all emissions in the UK. Certificates rating the energy efficiency of a house and its carbon emissions have been required on new housing when sold since 2007, and on rented property when a new tenant moves in since 2008, although its accuracy is hampered by the limitation of the survey, so some aspects of performance, like wall thickness, are not measured.
Further to these regulations, builders of new houses now have a system that looks at the environmental impact of the property not only through its emissions but also aspects like water run-off, local ecology and the waste produced during construction and occupation. This Code for Sustainable Homes, which replaced the BRE (Building Research Establishment) eco homes rating system of 2000, rates new properties from one to six (one being just above current regulations and six being the most environmentally friendly). Some builders are planning systems of ponds or tanks as part of an estate to control and reuse floodwater. They are fitting rain and grey water harvesting systems where water from either the roof or waste from washing is collected in a tank and pumped back into the house for use in toilets, washing machines or outside taps. NDhomes of Carlisle is building the ‘Paddocks’, a new estate on the edge of the city racecourse, which has achieved a rating of four (the first in the country to do so) by fitting solar panels, air source heat pumps and triple glazed windows, as well as tackling aspects like recycling, transport and rain water harvesting and being part of the Considerate Constructors Scheme.