Housing construction or production

Around the year 1600 every nail produced in the UK was hand crafted one at a time, but the demands of ship building in the UK were so great the process was soon automated. In short we ran out of blacksmiths. Fast forward 400 years and we don’t have enough brick layers, roofers, carpenters, plumbers, electricians and tilers. The demand for new housing has outstripped our national ability to deliver, and training more artisans is not the way to address the problem.

The reality is that the building industry has changed little since Roman times and remains relatively untouched by the gains of the industrial revolution. Whilst other industries enjoy the advantages of robotics and automation, new materials and technologies, housebuilding remains in the ‘delivery dark ages’. Dropping one brick on top of another, nailing every tenth tile to the roof, cutting joists and flooring by the plank, nailing a component at a time, not to mention the archaic way they are wired and plumbed, sees house construction in the UK taking many months. If we are to build 250,000 new homes a year to meet the growing demand, this is not the way!

Not so long ago the automotive and aircraft industries operated like the building industry today, and if they had continued that way we would all be driving the unreliable monster vehicles of the 1890s whilst flying dangerous bi-planes! Production line methods have not only brought great advance in availability and design, they have brought about better performance, comfort, reduced material wastage, and the ability to adapt and change rapidly. Sadly, house building enjoys none of these features, in the UK that is! Looking abroad however we see a different scene altogether.

Go to Germany, Scandinavia, Canada and the USA and the construction of homes is rapidly migrating to production. Homes are manufactured a panel or room at a time fully wired, plumbed and decorated in a factory under clean and controlled conditions. A concrete raft is laid and prepared on the building site with accurately located plumbing inlets and outlets. This takes two to four weeks to complete, but when the manufactured housing units are delivered the entire construction can be completed in less than a week. And the new owners can move in sans dust, design and construction failures. No need for snagging lists, decorating and carpet laying, and kitchen appliance fitting. The building is complete and ready for picture hanging TV, hi-fi and wi-fi living!

These are the overt benefits, but there are many more! Building a home in the UK is critically weather and material supply dependent. The uncertainties of both cause delays and hold ups measured in weeks. Every build has a new set of unique (and oft repeated) problems, errors, faults and mistakes spanning basic layout, design, plumbing, electrical, IT, windows, doors, floors and flues! Design variabilities see nowhere to hang your hat, no built-in wardrobes, detached garages, the poor use of space, and poorly designed bathrooms and kitchens. German, Scandinavian, Canadian and American builds suffer no such maladies: they see continual improvements of design, materials and components along with far lower transport costs. They are also far more sustainable and demand far less energy to produce, operate and maintain!

Given the shortage of able bodies and skilled people in the UK building industry it is interesting to consider what happens when a house is factory assembled on site in a week as opposed to being built a nail-at-a-time on a waterlogged site over three months or more. This effectively frees up a huge and extremely capable workforce, but also opens the door to building associations, families and individuals, and a new era of DIY home assembly! This is the kind of transformation the UK needs to see if it is to hit the national need for new homes.

Traditionally the UK builds and people buy homes that are too small, only to extend them later. The factory production and assembly route allows for pre-planning so a home can expand a ‘child or new need’ at time across a pre laid/prepared raft with minimal disruption and planning. Effectively, adding a box or changing the size of a box, removing or adding a wall needs only a screwdriver and not a bulldozer and a dozen workers! If other sectors have taught us anything, it is that the future is about change, the adoption of the new and adaptation to the needs of a changing spectrum of living and working demands. Office buildings and workplaces are having to recognise this and so will our homes.

Traditional methods of construction cannot satisfy such an environment, but the factory production of new living spaces can. It really is time for the building industry to change, to catch up, get modern, and to deliver better designs to a better quality using less material at a much lower price. After all, every other industry has done exactly that already!