Number of new builds per year/style of construction.-a query

Conrad

GreatApe wrote: »

Your second point about construction methods is important but the UK is so so far behind that it's not even on the long range radar.

Housing should move to prefabricated steel/glass towers for high density and prefabricated steel/cement/glass/wood for low rise.

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We've had masses of pre-fabs, concrete and so-on in the past, on the whole they were found to be more perishable hence why so few lenders touch them. Concrete tends to perform badly in our climate.


We might all each come up with favoured ideas such as glass tiles, but this is a bit like the range of suggestions for alternate car energy, many and varied and each with flaws. In the end professional surveyors determine what represents good, long term lending security, Joe Bloggs is likely to be unaware of the full range of factors that affect lending security.

GreatApe

CLAPTON wrote: »

I don't accept the general principle that change cost 10s of billions : however I have no special knowledge of building technology.
I can think of nothing worse that change being government lead except for government 'forcing' change either.
Industrial and commercial estates seem to have evolved without government pressure; what is it that stopped improved methods being applied in the residential sector ; are there lessons to be learnt form other countries

For small items companies can easily trial new techniques and methods as the loss if it fails is manageable and there are no further considerations.

For homes its totally different. If you have a great new technique/materials you have to convince the regulators you have to convince the public and you have to convince the banks and you may even need to prove 'lifetime' quality. So how do you propose making a new design of home and prove it can last 50 years without having a few around for 50 years to point to and say look it works fine.

Often there is also the need to get to some sort of scale for it to be viable so not only do you need to convince the above you also need to convince them to buy 100,000 units

The worse case of this inertia is perhaps nuclear power stations. You literally need $100 billion plus to bring a new design to market and build 10 out before anyone will consider you. Who has £100 billion to risk? Thus the only times we have had nuclear programs is government programs in the USA/France/UK in the 1960-1980s and china now. Whats more you are going to make mistakes so you need the pockets to overcome these huge financial mistakes until you learn enough to be good at it

Homes are of course not as bad, you can have one individual spend £1 million and design a whole new concept of a house you see them on programs like grand designs. The problem is they dont have the volume and experience to get the designs to an affordable level hence why those programs tend to be about £500k+ homes. if a whole new design could be built out a few thousand times it might get to material/labor cost advantage but you would probably need a few hundreds of thousand units before the banks and regulators are ok with it all

As I said there is no fundamental reason why the USA is 85% asphalt tiles for roofs and why the UK is 85% Clay/Slate. If it was purely down to the science/economics surely both would be one or the other? Instead its about inertia/regs/lending/customs/etc these stop better methods and designs from taking market share. The only way around this inertia is someone with very very deep pockets and a few decades or to mandate it

Roofs will go toughened printed glass tiles. From an economic and engineering and fundamental physics point they beat all existing roofing materials in every way. It will however take 50 years to overcome the inertia of the industry.

GreatApe

CLAPTON wrote: »

just asking why we haven't innovated building methods for the mass market

It is simply inertia

In markets that are not as old and entrenched the methods are completely different. Eg in China and Turkey both with huge huge building industries it seems they have tended to over 95% mid and high rise buildings of steel/cement/glass. The USA also a huge market about 10x the size of the uk its more a case of wood/panels/asphalt

GreatApe

westernpromise wrote: »

The result will be a house that's as well-built, reliable, long-lived and resellable as an Apple product.

Houses aren't phones although there are many Generation Xers who'd rather have the latest phone than a house.

manufacturing costs are fundamentally material costs and speed for a given investment. This is true for homes as it is true for ships car or phones.

If you want to build homes cheaper, even in the same materials and methods you need to do it quicker (each man lays more bricks per hour maybe with a robot helper) and you need a lower material cost (push your suppliers down or discover a fundamentally new way to manufacture bricks cheaper)


The biggest new build market is currently china. Some 10 million new units a year. It is steel cement and glass over there and its quite a good method.

Cornucopia

CLAPTON wrote: »

if the 'new' method of construction isn't cheaper (or better in some way), why would you want to do it?

It is cheaper and better (greener). The issue is that there insufficient incentive for the big builders to change, and at present, they are trickling houses on to the market in many areas so as to sustain maximum long-term profit.

The use of alternative technologies can provide an advantage to smaller players, but they still may require concessions on planning or funding in order to kick-start schemes, and this isn't generally happening.

unless the house is defective in some way; then people will pay the 'going' rate i.e. in comparison with comparable local houses and will neither know nor care about the original building costs

Possibly - the evidence from Scotland is quite positive on this. There is a better answer on the original question of land prices than the one I gave. It is that land in England is in very short supply, and that means that land with planning consent (or the prospect) is priced on the basis of what it will be worth with a house on it. The profit is already priced-in to the cost of the land. You can see this with the rebuild costs for any house's building insurance.

but we don't seem to actually have the new capability

No. It needs kick-starting by Government.

GreatApe

Conrad wrote: »

Again I'm finding myself asking, if it's so grim here why are thousands of Europeans each week choosing to settle here, over other parts of Europe?


Here are only some other examples of 'UK worst in Europe' reported recently which makes me question why so many ruddy people keep CHOSING the UK?




Fattest in Europe

Most drunk

Least active

Least productive (in work)

Shortest stay in maternity wards

70% of European card debt

Highest teen pregnancy

Worst literacy and math results

Highest domestic abuse

Highest abortion rate

Greatest inequality

Highest rents

UK school leavers 'the worst in Europe for essential skills', report says

UK school children unhappiest in Europe

English teenagers 'are most illiterate in the developed world', report reveals (Jan 2016)


Worst at learning other languages

it is mostly to do with language, if you speak an ok level of english you are better off going to the uk than you are going to say France. On the other hand if you spoke ok French then France would likely be your choice.

There is also family ties. If your brothers or cousins went to London 10 years ago and you are thinking of migrating do you go to London and they help get you a job and get started or do you just randomly point your finger at some german town you can pronounce and know no one that lives there?

Conrad

Cornucopia wrote: »

The issue is that there insufficient incentive for the big builders to change, and at present, they are trickling houses on to the market in many areas so as to sustain maximum long-term profit.

Given large constructors are owned by everyone's pensions and ISA funds, what returns should those funds seek on our behalf?


About 5% is a reasonable and not un-due return and I think you will find constructors deliver about this return level.


In order to deliver your aim of reducing profits, this will harm savers and pensioners.


People are shopping around for best performing pensions, ergo, their true imperative is good returns, not how builders deliver homes;


Compare pensions

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwjPq9-s9MPQAhUoAcAKHVSACRgQFgg6MAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.money.co.uk%2Fpensions.htm&usg=AFQjCNHbZhkFyMb3LTaCKLFH2gIwuCGgbg&sig2=ODu0zTBhhjuH07dYUpwvgA&bvm=bv.139782543,d.d24

GreatApe

Conrad wrote: »

We've had masses of pre-fabs, concrete and so-on in the past, on the whole they were found to be more perishable hence why so few lenders touch them. Concrete tends to perform badly in our climate.

We might all each come up with favoured ideas such as glass tiles, but this is a bit like the range of suggestions for alternate car energy, many and varied and each with flaws. In the end professional surveyors determine what represents good, long term lending security, Joe Bloggs is likely to be unaware of the full range of factors that affect lending security.

The problem is the failed new methods entrench more inertia.

Look Mr X or company Y built a concrete home it fell apart after 40 years, dont build or lend or buy on concrete homes. Forgetting that there are as huge a range of different concretes as there are of steel products. However the bank manager and the public does not know that so concrete is tared with a bad image so even if fundamentally it is a good idea its is not viable due to ignorance.

Go to some countries and its 95%+ concrete which clearly shows it is a viable material. In fact I would guess right now worldwide the number 1 residential construction method is concrete


There is always a fundamentally best method for a given range. Right now for roofs this is probably toughened glass tiles yet currently it has close to 0% of the market. In the USA its 85% asphalt tiles and in the UK its probably 85% Tile/Slate.

martinsurrey

Cornucopia wrote: »

they are trickling houses on to the market in many areas so as to sustain maximum long-term profit.

So you have a 1,000 unit housing estate to built, and you want to build them all at once, on day one you need to hire 1,000 ground workers to clear the entire site and dig foundations for 1,000 houses, then you sack them after a few months, then you need to hire 1,000 brick layers to start building 1,000 houses walls at once, then you sack them after a few months, then you need to hire 1,000 roofers to build 1,000 roofs at once, then you sack them after a few months, and at the end you have 1,000 houses to sell at once.

and I guess you've found an easy way to find and hire these vast numbers of trades in an area for a short period of time rather than building 100 houses at a time and employing 1/10 of the people for 10 times as long.

not to mention the efficiency from developing in stages as you learn as you go and the trades get to know the designs.

but no, its easier to blame "fat cat builders".

Conrad

GreatApe wrote: »

Look Mr X or company Y built a concrete home it fell apart after 40 years, dont build or lend or buy on concrete homes. Forgetting that there are as huge a range of different concretes as there are of steel products. However the bank manager and the public does not know that so concrete is tared with a bad image so even if fundamentally it is a good idea its is not viable due to ignorance.




Lenders tend to have quite long lists of which concrete methods they accept, although some exclude all concrete.

Go to some countries and its 95%+ concrete which clearly shows it is a viable material.


The damp and variable British climate seems not to favour concrete. Damp causes rot and can freeze and then split the material etc.


In much of Turkey the climate is pretty dry and dependable.


China might be a bit like other Asian nations that tend to tear down properties after a few decades, that's not really workable in the UK, and perhaps not a good use of long term resources




Right now for roofs this is probably toughened glass tiles yet currently it has close to 0% of the market. In the USA its 85% asphalt tiles and in the UK its probably 85% Tile/Slate.


You could be right, but just listen to people talking about the merits or otherwise of the options for provisioning national power or car power, rail or airports- each option seemingly 'the one'

Me in red...