The 30 Year House - Part 2

 Will government encourage the use of new materials and communication without wires, wifi or Bluetooth that are already appearing on the market?

Will roofs protect against heat waves without using mains power to maintain a healthy population?

In June 2022, the government introduced a new set of regulations for new house builders. They set new standards for ventilation, energy efficiency and heating, and state that new residential buildings must have charging points for electric vehicles.

The Federation of Master Builders says the measures will require new materials, testing methods, products and systems to be installed. Indeed so it will. The price of climate change mitigation is not cheap.

There are new government rules concerning the amount of glazing used in extensions, and any new windows or doors must be highly insulated.” The problem is that the rules will aim to reduce the size of windows that are potentially a source of a lot of solar power.

Some say that walls will have to be thicker in order to comply with requirements for better insulation. Alternatively, new materials may make them thinner but the building sector has not got there yet.

Glazing on windows, doors and roof lights must cover no more than 25% of the floor area to prevent heat loss according to the new regulations which is a rule that has already been superseded.

As properties become more airtight, the regulator says there have to be measures to ensure proper airflow, such as having small openings (trickle vents) on windows that allow ventilation when a window is closed. Tosh! Do the job properly, save the NHS billions with proper air filtration.

For people extending their homes, they may be required to install a new, or replacement, heating system depending on the size of the build and have to use lower temperature water to deliver the same heat, which will require increased insulation of pipes commented insider. Its a big rock for all these ‘experts’ to hide under. Solar water heating is getting really good. Why not use it.

So the government get 5 out of ten for initiative and 2 out of ten for understanding what is needed and possible. It can also be said that technologies are moving so fast that some of these government initiatives are passed before the ink has dried on their parchment.

Meantime we also have to consider the prospect of poor quality housing in a time of fast-expanding populations and accelerating environmental change will be dangerous but also a magnet for disruption by the green-eyed disadvantaged.

In the foreseeable (next 30 years), houses will need to be easily maintained and repurposed in part or whole as technologies emerge. The need and cost of structural maintenance also have to be reduced.

Below is a whole chapter on finance. We have to examine how homes will be fnanced. There will be new forms of finance emerging to unstitch the excesses of builder speculation going back a couple of centuries.

It is not possible to think of a future house in the image of a house being built in 2022 and its close cousin that was built to house 18th-century coal miners.

For more see Climate Change House available from Amazon amzn.to/3RgR4Vf