Building Concrete Houses

[jeds]

Looked like poured concrete to me.
Do you mean like system built tower blocks?

I was almost certain they were poured concrete.

There are 34 house types on the designated defective list, all of which are precast except for one or two very obscure ones. There are 62 in-situ house types, none of which are designated defective. I can't say the houses down the road from you are not in-situ concrete, but the stats are against it.

Certainly it isn't correct to say that all 'poured concrete houses are condemned or rebuilt'. There are thousands upon thousands that are perfectly good houses and can be mortgaged with no problem. You can't say the same about precast houses.

 

[Nige F]

. Builders, plumbers used to be pretty low paid work 40 years ago. I know because my dad was one and we were always skint but my friends now doing the same work are raking it in.

Gas Safe is the reason

 

[noseall]

My opinion on this is people in the U.K. pay generally extortionate prices for labour. I’ve got a lot of friends who are tradesmen and they are doing pretty well for themselves and don’t answer to anyone. One of my great regrets in life is giving up my training as an electrician.

Im not sure pensioners having to pay thousands upon thousands for basic work so guys can drive around in 4L Mitsi warriors is good for the economy. It’s good for them of course!

Reason for this being that we’ve encouraged kids to be graduates so those who pursued trades are laughing and graduates are scrimping on 20k a year. I’m not a grad but it really has swapped around. Builders, plumbers used to be pretty low paid work 40 years ago. I know because my dad was one and we were always skint but my friends now doing the same work are raking it in.

In 2008/9 I was working long hours and equated to about £7.50 per hour. I've done some jobs practically for free. Forgive me if I don't weep when tradesmen get a decent wedge every once in a while..

 

[Dylan123]

In 2008/9 I was working long hours and equated to about £7.50 per hour. I've done some jobs practically for free. Forgive me if I don't weep when tradesmen get a decent wedge every once in a while..

I actually had a think about this and I do agree, tradesmen do need to earn a reasonable wage and it’s vital work. I think the reason it’s expensive is due to the cost of tax, insurance and regs which don’t exist to the same degree elsewhere.

Also I’ve been stung so many times by tradesmen it makes you a bit bitter. No other interaction in life ends up so slippery. You don’t get solicitors putting you on a day rate and then working 2 jobs and leaving at half three.

I’ve finally found a decent builder, plumber etc but it cost me a lot of money finding out the duds. Good ones the work is quoted for and done to spec, but with the others it’s a constant battle.

I checked the average salaries online and they are lower than I thought - as I said, all the tradesmen I know seem to have a lot of £.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

I know a couple of retired tradesmen. They're physically knackered and can barely move.

Also many struggle to earn a living when middle-aged, as their body just isn't capable any more. Most tend to scuttle off into management type jobs if possible, e.g. quoting, fetching materials etc. I'm happy to earn less for not trashing my body.

I also think many are more flash than rich. That massive monster truck is probably on monthly payments, wait until the economy collapses to see how many stay in their driveways. The saying goes that you only find out who's swimming naked when the tide goes out!

But back on-topic... Does anyone build poured concrete houses that actually have a cavity? The no-fines concrete is intended to replace a cavity by having many small voids within a single wall rather than two walls with an air gap. The problem was of course damp. Greece is obviously a lot warmer than the UK, so insulation matters less, plus they get a fraction of the rainfall.

 

[mattylad]

I lived in a poured concrete house in Burnley for a few years, the house was fine (its the neighbors that were not).

I'm sure there was a cavity, there was also plasterboard that was about 30mm thick with a cardboard style construction to it.
No cracks etc.

Sold it easily.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Looked like poured concrete to me.
Do you mean like system built tower blocks?

I was almost certain they were poured concrete.

They were part poured, part prefabricated concrete panels, where the panels were structural. Floor poured, panels erected and bolted down, then another floor laid. Except on some, they skimped on the fixing bolts.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

I lived in a tower block back in the 90s. The old caretaker I chatted to was there when it was built in the 1960s. He said that they had a set of moulds to cast one complete floor (6 flats), they filled it with concrete, poured the roof then took it all off and moved it all on top, repeat 15 times until you've got a tower block. I don't think any of it was prefabricated, but others were, there were various systems made by different companies. I didn't know whether it had a cavity or not, I suspect not as it was clad in more recent years (and now needs replacing with the non-deadly variety).

It would be very difficult to cast a cavity wall, I can't imagine how you could slide a 100mm wide mould slab out of the middle of a 2.5m tall wall without the mould or the wall breaking. Presumably this is why they made it using the "no fines" method instead, where thousands of air pockets throughout the wall allegedly provided similar insulation to a cavity...

What Exactly is No Fines Concrete & Why Use it To Build Houses? - Non-Standard House Construction - Information & Resource Centre

No-fines concrete (NFC), is an open formed cellular concrete, but unlike standard concrete, no fines (fine aggregates) or sand, is added to the mix. Research in the 1950s suggested that the use of NFC in construction would provide attractive savings to the construction industry, particularly in...

nonstandardhouse.com

 

[stuart45]

Have a look at Laings easyform.

 

[jeds]

Or the Wimpey no-fines.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

...neither of which have cavities, I suspect the answer is that pouring a wall with a cavity probably wouldn't work, so they cooked up this "no fines" nonsense instead.

Probably all works OK in Greece but not in damp, cold Britain.

 

[martygturner]

I live in an insulated concrete formed house, very quick to build warm as toast in winter cool in summer no damp issues and definitely no mortgage issues.. we built 2 one to sell and one to live in...the one we have sold - which paid off our house - has been through 4 sales in 14 years no issues whatsoever.

Just the same as timber buildings in the states, not popular here but they do the job in even the harshest environments.

 

[stuart45]

...neither of which have cavities, I suspect the answer is that pouring a wall with a cavity probably wouldn't work, so they cooked up this "no fines" nonsense instead.

Probably all works OK in Greece but not in damp, cold Britain.

Laings easyform have a 50mm cavity.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

Laings easyform have a 50mm cavity.

Apologies, yes you're right.

Laing Easiform Houses: Everything You Need to Know

Do you live in a Laing Easiform home? Find out what it means for your mortgage and selling the property. Sell any home in any condition with SOLD.CO.UK.

www.sold.co.uk

The next form of Easiform homes were built during around 1925 to 1945. They had a cavity separating the inner and outer walls. The other wall was three inches thick with a two-inch cavity. The home was usually finished with pebble-dashing.

I'm guessing that they must put some sort of formwork in for the cavity then just leave it in. I can't see how they could slide out a 2" former from a 3" wall, it would just fall apart.

It was probably as expensive to build as brick once they added the need for a cavity. The skill level must be pretty similar too, given the other details of inserting reinforcing rods around windows etc.

Brick's a pretty efficient way of building really. The big advantage is that it doesn't need any surface finish after, and I think most people think bare brick actually looks nicer than any render.

I know that mortgage lenders are funny about some "non-conventional construction" houses, but I don't think that's the full story. Brick's actually a pretty cheap way of making a house that most people think looks nice.

I'm sure the housebuilders would be challenging the banks over their policies if they really could build a saleable house for a lot less by using something other than brick/block. But they seem happy to carry on.

Really you could look at brick/block as being "prefab" building units compared to poured concrete. So poured concrete is one extreme, prefab wall panels are the other end of the scale, brick/block is a comfortable middle ground, using factory-made units that still gives flexibility and avoids the need for bolts that get missed out or rust away in the future.

 

[stuart45]

Apologies, yes you're right.

Laing Easiform Houses: Everything You Need to Know

Do you live in a Laing Easiform home? Find out what it means for your mortgage and selling the property. Sell any home in any condition with SOLD.CO.UK.

www.sold.co.uk

The next form of Easiform homes were built during around 1925 to 1945. They had a cavity separating the inner and outer walls. The other wall was three inches thick with a two-inch cavity. The home was usually finished with pebble-dashing.

I'm guessing that they must put some sort of formwork in for the cavity then just leave it in. I can't see how they could slide out a 2" former from a 3" wall, it would just fall apart.

It was probably as expensive to build as brick.

Being a bricklayer by trade I've never worked on these types of houses as new builds, as there isn't a lot of masonry in them. I would guess that the metal formwork would need to be removed from the cavity though, as there wouldn't be a cavity with it left in.
These types of houses tended to be built after the wars, when skilled labour was in short supply. It's easier to use labourers and semi skilled workers to build a house like this, as long as one man who knows what he's doing in in charge.
With bricklaying it takes a certain amount of time to get used to the tools, so knowledge alone isn't enough.