New build quality

[Redpathos]

I often hear people saying how they wouldnt touch new build with a barge pole , and that older house (before 1960s) are built to last.

Are there anyone here who is working in the building industry (better still if you work with/for one of those major housing developer) here who can enlighten me if indeed the new build houses are of a worse quality. Do they indeed have a shorter life span compared to older houses (assuming of course both are given regular maintenance)

Timber frame is classed as traditional build

Whether your home is constructed from timber frame should be covered by the sales information when you buy it in terms of maintaining your home

@Redpathos

Modern houses and by that I mean houses built from 1920 onwards tend to have cavity walls - which means they have a 2 skin construction. The outer skin is weatherproofing and the inner skin is structural.
The cavity (if constructed properly) allows any water that gets through the outside wall to run down the inside and come out the bottom rather than get into the house.
Older properties will tend to have a narrower cavity and it won't be insulated, brand new ones will have a wider cavity and it will be insulated however the key thing is it will still if constructed properly stop water penetrating into the inside walls.
What the outside skin is made of can vary and doesnt really matter but tends to be brick, rendered block or tile hung.
The inner skin is what keeps your house up.
Structural timber frames are not a new thing but rather a revisit of old technology and are absolutely fine. In fact thermally they tend to perform better than block work.
Depending on how they are put together tends to affect how good they are but that applies to all types of construction. So if you get factory made cassette wall systems they tend to have better quality control than anything built on site as they are built inside and not affected by the elements and can be precision engineered but even these are crap if put together on site badly.
Timber is favoured because they are quicker to construct the main structure and easier to get the right thermal values.
Insurance classes them as non standard as there is a perceived higher risk of water / fire damage to the timber frame however this isn't necessarily the case (lots of research on fire risk) and this is a more common way of building now it won't necessarily affect premiums especially on a large housing estate - it tends to affect one off bespoke builds more. Insurance tends to lag behind technology and will be more than cautious because they understandably don't want to pay out. My professional insurance now has so many exclusions that it's ridiculous but that's been an industry wide knee jerk reaction to Grenfell (even though I've never worked on a tower block in my life)
If designed properly and built well timber frame can be just as good as masonry construction.
Also don't get confused with those that have masonry exterior walls (both skins) and timber non structural internal walls (stud walls) that is considered standard construction and is a very normal and traditional way to build.
No-one knows what the next scandal that will hit the industry although grenfell is quite complex as to why it became the issue it did and the faults are multifaceted.
Asbestos is a continuing issue, as is lead paint that came before it.... as our knowledge grows we learn.
I suspect MDF fibres will be something we phase out (more for the construction industry health rather than homeowners) and we will move away from plastic based insulation and paints mainly due to sustainability concerns but the phasing out of VOCs has already quietly become a thing.
Sorry that's become a bit of a construction lecture.... I can and do go on about this stuff for hours so I apologise but it might help in understanding how houses are put together.

The latest swizzled with new builds is three-storey homes. Because they're building vertically rather than horizontally, the floor space footprint becomes even smaller. This means you end up with three or four decent bedrooms with ensuites and even walk in wardrobes, but on the ground floor you have a tiny kitchen-diner with an even smaller living room.

Here's an example

Mine's a three storey. I have four double bedrooms and two bathrooms. The ground floor had a good sized lounge and big kitchen diner. It has a large footprint, so it's a huge house. My neighbour's house has a tiny kitchen/diner and lounge though. It depends on the footprint.

An electrician working here told me that new houses have a design life of 75 years- basically the life of the timber frames used to build them.This house is 100 years old and still as solid as a brick whatsit, and should last another 100 years and probably a lot more without breaking sweat

Yes - a plasterer working on the huge estate near me told me the same - only he said it was 70 years.

This is odd

There are 12 century timber framed buildings still standing

Also a 70 year life seems rather tight for getting a mortgage - it's the cut off for most leaseholds and often 100 years plus is mentioned

Suggesting a maximum life of 70 years would mean that you would never be able to sell on a new build timber framed home - yet it's happening all the time

Of course there is the difference between how long it os expected to last with no TLC and how long with

Re the garden size - even in high end new builds they are often tiny. This is a development that's just being started, they don't have prices, but based on the location, we're talking £1-2m+ and for the size of the house the gardens are TINY (especially the one on the S bend)

bowdonhomes.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Lowood-Draft-Site-Plan-STA.pdf

I would take the 70/75 yr 'design life' with a pinch of salt.
Where have they got this figure from? And why would the electrician know about the structural qualities of the frame ( a lot certainly don't as they are a particularly bad trade for drilling / cutting though structure they shouldn't because it's easier to run their cables - not all but they definitely have a rep for it along with plumbers)

I've heard anything from 25-100yrs bandied about however that doesn't mean that it definitely won't be standing longer. Some just may need need work to keep going, some won't last that long and some will last better than that, I don't think you can broad brush it and state they aren't going to last there are too many variables.
The timber used, the sizing, protection from damage and the elements will all have an effect on how long they last. They won't just crumble to dust in 70yrs. They can be repaired and replaced just as masonry can be.

I'm presuming those with the 100yo + houses have had substantial improvements done in that time and that they are not in the exact condition they were 100yrs ago (they will have even if it's just mains services and the upgrading of sanitary facilities - which are huge changes - even if they are now aging again now)
This will be the case for current new build houses as they get older.

Also worth bearing in mind that whilst those 100yo plus houses that are still standing are still here, there are plenty that didn't last as well. So it's a self selecting data set, those that are still here are the better quality ones.

@wonkylegs thank you for the taking the time to explain so thoroughly.
Whilst i agree with your point that old houses that are still standing comes from a self selecting dataset, we havent have enough time to see how new houses fare.
Another question, from first hand info i know of a few people who bought new build and have problem with soggy lawn .. how do you go about spotting this issue when buying off plan /mid completion?

Ha! I always think of that book when I people mention Victorian houses. It's one of the reasons I was against getting one!

I don't think you can. It's to do with what it's being built on I think - just putting top soil over a load of rubble etc if it's a brownfield site.

We had pretty poor drainage in our garden and I always took that it was because it was built where there was a old factory.
My parents didn't - their new build (back in 2000) was built on green space.

I saw on a gardening show where there was a new build with poor drainage and they basically had to dig the soil out and replace it.