Typology Study: 21st Century Detached

A typical new build detached house.

While new build houses come in all different shapes and sizes, volume house builders have a fixed number of layouts that they reuse across sites nationwide. The example used in this article is a 3 bed detached layout, similar to Persimmon’s “The Clayton” or Linden Homes’ “The Mountford”. However the article gives a good overview of the characteristics of a typical new-build home and the information here will apply to many volume house-builder new build homes.

Characteristics

Layout
The main thing that differentiates the layouts of newer houses from historic ones is the advent of modern plumbing! It’s now common to have a minimum of 3 bathrooms in a newer house – a downstairs toilet, a family bathroom, and an en-suite.

Typical ground floor plan

Typical first floor plan

Construction
A typical new build house has a concrete ground floor slab that is at least 100mm thick and insulated on the underside to prevent heat loss. Upper floors tend to be constructed using timber, with joists hung from steel hangers attached to the external walls. The joists are usually decked with OSB, at least 15mm thick, with a plasterboard ceiling hung from the underside.

Unlike older houses, which typically have solid external walls, houses built from the 1930s onwards tend to have cavity wall construction. This means they have an inner leaf, now typically constructed with concrete blocks, and an outer leaf – commonly constructed from a single skin of brickwork. The outer leaf is not load bearing and is instead tied back to the block work wall using steel wall ties for support. The cavity between the inner and outer leaf is filled with insulation. External windows and doors are usually double or triple glazed,  composite or uPVC.

External wall detail: 1. Concrete blockwork inner leaf, 2. Brick outer leaf, 3. Stainless steel wall ties, 4. Insulation, 5. Cavity

Roof detail: 1. Prefabricated roof truss, 2. Boarding, 3. Vapour barrier, 4. Counter battens, 5. Roof tiles

Roofs are commonly constructed using prefabricated trusses. These are braced with strutts, and covered with boarding (such as OSB), which is then covered in a vapour barrier. Counter-battens are then fixed to this surface to support  a tiled finish. Most new builds are not designed for the roof space to be occupied and so the insulation sits at ceiling level, rather than following the line of the roof. The roof space is left ventilated to the outside air to avoid the build up of condensation.

Internal walls tend to be timber stud work covered with plasterboard and a finished with a skim coat of plaster.

Benefits

One of the main benefits of newer homes is they are much better insulated than older properties, meaning they are easier (and cheaper!) to keep warm in cold weather. Newer homes are also more likely to be electric only. Having a house with no gas heating or appliances means your carbon footprint will automatically reduce as the national grid decarbonises. Another benefit for the environmentally conscious is that most new houses have off-road parking. While this may seem counter-intuitive, off-road parking make owning and charging an electric car much simpler.

Newer homes benefit from modern building regulations meaning they are generally constructed to better safety, accessibility, and energy efficiency standards than older homes. You are much more likely to have straight walls, floors, and ceilings than in an on older property. Though this may seem relatively minor, getting furniture to fit, pictures to hang straight, and items not to wobble and slide all over the place can be a minefield in older (wonkier) properties. And finally, when undertaking any home improvements or DIY you are less likely to have decades of other peoples bodged jobs to decipher and rectify along the way!

Disadvantages

You don’t have to be talking about new-build homes for long before someone mentions the poor build quality. Many who have moved in to a newly constructed home will be familiar with the process of uncovering an array of defects that have to be rectified by the developer. The majority of homes in the UK are over 60 years old, however new homes are built with a structural design life of just 50 years.

Newer homes tend to be smaller than comparable period properties, in large part due to the tendency of volume house builders to squeeze as many bedrooms in as possible. This is driven by the UK housing market, where properties are marketed primarily based on the number of bedrooms rather than square feet (or square meters) as is the case in many other countries. It’s is also common for new build houses to sit within smaller plots than their older counterparts, limiting the opportunities to extend. This is particularly noticeable with detached and semi-detached properties.

While better insulation means new homes are easier to keep warm in the winter, the changing climate means overheating is increasingly becoming an issue in the summer months. Lack of adequate ventilation and solar shading is increasingly being cited as an issue, though more recent additions to building regulations are starting to address this. 

Potential improvements

Potential improvements: 1. Add external shutters to prevent overheating, 2. Install solar panels, 3. Install a heat pump, 4. Convert the loft, 5. add a rear extension

While smaller plots sizes may mean there are limited opportunities to extend, a loft conversion could be an opportunity to gain additional space. The widespread use of prefabricated fink trusses on new houses may mean there is more structural work involved than you may anticipate – essentially amounting to an entirely new roof structure.

Adding solar shading can improve internal temperatures as we begin to contend with summer overheating. Simply adding external shutters to prevent direct sunlight hitting your windows can be an cost effective way to keep the inside of your home cool.

A more intrusive change, that could help to keep your home a comfortable temperature year round would be to ditch the gas central heating and radiators and install a HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) system. This system will keep you home cool in the summer and warm in the winter. It should be noted that air conditioning your home is extremely energy intensive and so such a system should only be installed if you have a renewable energy source such as solar panels or a heat pump.

Finally, while developers may benefit from lots of bedrooms and little living space, there is no reason you need to live with it! Consider converting bedrooms to additional work, living, or storage space – or just getting rid of one in favour of a larger bedroom.

Final word

New build houses seem to be like marmite, you either love them or you hate them. While homes produced by volume house-builders are often criticised for their poor build quality and lack of character, they tend to offer a better starting point in terms of energy efficiency and sustainability than older homes and there are still many opportunities to improve. Overall while newer properties may seem finished, they still offer plenty of renovation potential.