Although I like the idea of sustainable building I do have grave reservations about people thinking that the building reguations are there just to provide jobs for council workers.
The building regs are there to ensure that people get safe, warm, and long lasting homes.
Far be it for me to suggest that the people who bleat the loudest about too tight building regs are the ones who don't know their ar** from their elbow when it comes to building and are the same ones that consider health and safety rules as a hindrance because they don't do anything more dangerous in their daily lives than carry some hot coffee across the office but...
I would be very interested to see how the house is wired up and how its plumbed in as well.
Some people seem to think that a roof is strong enough just because it hasn't fallen in
yet and that a place is dry so long as water drains out faster than it drips in.
I like the idea of strawbuilt homes, just not always blown away by the execution of the technique.
Now planning regulations are another matter, those numpties are a law unto themselves.
Why are U getting into such a pan ****e about building regs
If U would of read my post at least, U would of seen that I said that SOME
planning reg's are a good thing, but that they are taken to excess more for the benefit of the mortgage lender's and insurance industry to protect the quality of there investment, and this also "creates" work for jobsworths in the council. I never mentioned
building reg's at all, your just touchy about that for some reason. (well I guess I am too, I object to paying increasingly extortionate amounts of poll tax to finance nebulous and inefficient local authority jobsworth wages and pension's)
Any way if
building reg's are so clever why do they allow for stupidity (eg clad houses with so much cheap and nasty VINYL, render old timber frame houses with non breathable mortar, allow people to fit upvc window's). I thought one of the main concerns in making a fit building (apart from setting out the sturucture so its able to withstand live/dead load's, wind/snow load's etc), is the constant need to prevent or manage ingres of water, or include ways to let the building breathe? Most modern "dwellings" are hermetically sealed boxes they dont breathe. Fresh air let in does wondes thats why they invented air brick's. U might have a idealistic utopian view of why we have "building reg's" and it might be partly true (make safer warmer houses etc), but there is also the inscapable fact that they go hand in hand with the demands of the construction industry, finance and insurance industry and also political fashions and trends as well.
Its perfectly normal to be a nimby; who in there right mind
would want EG a massive wind farm, or an abattoir on there doorstep
The local council want to allow the biggest multi species abattoir in europe to be built on a green field site less that 1/2 a mile from me. If they wanted to alow that right near
your home can U honestly say U would be pleased? Or if they wanted to put up one of those stupid and virtually useless (except to enertrag) windfarms, would U be delighted about it? No U would be RIBBED (relieved its being bult elsewhere darling)
As for "alternative" construction method's your right they can be disastrous if badly executed, and theres a lot of establishment resistance to this as it upsets the cosy mortgage/insurance/mas volume construction industry/local authority grand plan relationships, the british public is rather expected nowaday's to be herded into estates like cedars park at stowmarket, all open plan, crammed in, conveniently next to a supermarket, cheap crappy looking characterless houses. The establishment wants to maintain as much control over house building as it can, independent minded maverick folk are the danger to there agenda. And who is some jobsworth official to determine if such and such a dweling is fit for such and such a person any way? But theres no reasson why these alternative construction method's cant be seriously taken on board and done well, even set out a series of reg's to make it "official", maybe U could pioneer that?. The building industry is wasteful and inefficient, but I believe there is a futuer for (or return to the tradition of) low impact housing, which in the long run is more likely to reduce environmental damage than if U wash your rubbish and pay the council to take it away.
PS can I ask waht method you use to get rafter length's and plum and seat angles if your doing a cut roof? I always ask carpentrs, some are bodge and trimmit trial and eror, others have precise sytem's.
cheers Jonathan
