Cost

After all the energy, health, comfort, durability and environmental arguments have been made, the usual objections to building better are either financial (the build cost cannot be afforded) or practical (it is impossible to build such buildings). The second objection can be met in a number of ways, mainly through the case histories of hundreds of such houses in the UK and thousands elsewhere in the world

Cost however is often a sticking point. There are many assessments of the extra cost of building to higher environmental standards, and yet these are nearly all theoretical. In practice things are very different. For example it was found in a major study in the US comparing different types of building to different environmental standards (under the LEED certification system) that there was no actual correspondence between build cost and environmental performance. On all the projects assessed the major factors in build cost had been nothing to do with the quality of specification, but were down to site organisation, supply chain management, design delays etc. It is estimated in the UK that sites often work at less than 50% productivity because of the lack of proper site management, the irregularity of subcontractors, the problems with supply of materials etc.

Furthermore it does not end with the main build programme. A recent government report stated that “The number of defects in traditionally built homes in the UK is considerable, with house builders allocating up to £2000 per house to rectify problems.” Much of this is to do with bad construction practice which derives both from the way that sites are set up and run, and also from the increasingly complex and difficult building systems which we are adapting to meet the increasingly legislation in every area of construction. In the future the costs of failing to meet Part L (thermal including airtightness) or part E (acoustic) of the 2006 Building Regulations could be considerably more than £2000.

The problem is that this wasteful and expensive method of building is accepted as given and that environmental, health, comfort and other measures are seen as further extras, and always as additional cost. As I will show below however, this is not necessarily so. By stepping back from the confusion we can actually build better and save money at the same time. But it does require a new approach to construction.

Next: How we can build better