Why do useless people design houses?

[zeitghost]

My previous house was new build...never again!!

I cannot see how such houses will still be here in 25 years time -almost engineered to be replaced (is that the plan?)

If you want something more substantial go for older properties

I think this when I look at the £400k timber frame crap up in Tonna... the only thing that'll be there in 50 years is the basement reinforced concrete.

[BrowneIssue]

First house I bought was an 8 year old Barrett house in Buckinghamshire.

2 bed, mid-terrace.

The survey said the rooves were built wrong - in a bad storm the lot would collapse like a deck of cards.

Woodlice and worms came in: on peeling back the carpet at the front you could see the garden. You could put your hand through the gap under the floor-to-ceiling window.

I put a nail in a bedroom wall and it came out the other side: the wall was a single layer of plasterboard.

On Sundays I used to sit on the sofa with the telly on but the sound switched off and listen to the Eastenders omnibus in stereo because the neighbours had it on as well.

I quickly worked out I didn't need the heating on, you could feel where the neighbour's radiators were on my side of the wall.

I would be surprised if those houses were still standing.

There were some buckets and bowls in the loft left by the previous occupants. It was when I took them downstairs I found out the roof leaked.

I don't know what was worse, the house or the survey.

[zeitghost]

'King 'Eck, and I thought my 1930s semi was jerry built...

[rootsnall]

'King 'Eck, and I thought my 1930s semi was jerry built...

A 30s semi I lived in was solid downstairs but noticeably wonky upstairs. My grandad ( a builder in the 30s ) explained that the old hands built downstairs and then moved on to the next house and left the rest to the apprentices.

[tim123]

Had a look round at some local new builds. Seeing what I can get get when the market goes tits up next year.

Is it me or have all current houses been designed by muppets.

So far I can tell current trends are:

* Sticking lounge & dining room on ground floor and lounge on second...wtf? Handy for a brew when you are watching corrie.

* Putting bedrooms (sorry Study) on the ground floor, but still calling it a bedroom.

* Putting WCs on each floor, making the 3 "shower" rooms useless as opposed to just making a decent sized bathroom in the first place.

.

Much of this is all down to the accessibility rules. All new houses have to be built so that they are usable by the chronically disabled, despite that fact that 98% [1] of the people buying them will not be (so disabled).

tim

[1] 2% is probably a low estimate of the number of people who need these modifications but ISTM that a large percentage of the chronically disabled will also need the services of a warden, so normal houses will be CFU for them, even if they are made accessible.

[sasguru]

Anyone who has worked and/or travelled in Germany or Siwtzerland will know how utterly tulipe building standards are here.

[threaded]

Anyways, the house I currently live in was built in 1600. It needs constant maintenance, for example the thatcher comes on Friday to do some more, if he turns up.

Houses are like that.

[tim123]

Anyone who has worked and/or travelled in Germany or Siwtzerland will know how utterly tulipe building standards are here.

I've just moved into a new build in Sweden.

My heating is turned on at just above the 'frost' level and is rarely 'on'. It is minus 4 outside and 21 inside. God know's where this heat is coming from.

The floor is crap though - cheap laminate, and the skirting has been screwed on with visible screws, not fully countersunk and left with 'floppy' ends.

OTOH H&S is non-existent. We were allowed to move in before it was finished and had to clamber over unfinished flooring that we could have tripped over (and theoretically fallen off a 4th floor walkway) and squash past large, sharp, 'building' objects to get to the exit - lucky there wasn't a fire. None of the guys wear hard hats, I watched another building site where they swung large partition walls around on a crane, if the guy on the controls slipped and hit one of the workers he would have regretted forgetting his yellow hat.

tim

[TheFaQQer]

Well I either want to go really old or really new.

Not decided which way yet either.

Design your own.

My family designed our house together - in a pub on the back of a napkin. Then keep an eye on the builder - ours built it 90 degrees round the wrong way!!! So the views of the countryside from the lounge didn't appear - the room with the best views was the spare bedroom upstairs!

My dad did their last house as a conversion - knocked down the outbuildings himself and reused the bricks to build the extension. Re-did everything else himself apart from the extension build. The oldest part of the house was built in 1760, and still going strong...

[Chugnut]

Much of this is all down to the accessibility rules. All new houses have to be built so that they are usable by the chronically disabled, despite that fact that 98% [1] of the people buying them will not be (so disabled).

tim

[1] 2% is probably a low estimate of the number of people who need these modifications but ISTM that a large percentage of the chronically disabled will also need the services of a warden, so normal houses will be CFU for them, even if they are made accessible.

True, the same rules govern the height of sockets and switches. Sockets in new builds have to be 450mm from the floor and light switches 1.2m. They look totally tulip.