tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147980902026-07-31T09:34:25.850+01:00The online ramblings of Housebuilder's Bible author Mark Brinkley. The paper version is updated every two years and is widely available via UK bookstores and AmazonMark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.comBlogger550125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-22056613548450797182022-01-14T16:31:00.133+00:002022-01-19T10:35:30.934+00:00

 Part O landed in our inboxes in December 2021, along with updates on Part F (ventilation) and Part L (energy efficiency). These standards will come into effect in England only in June 2022. Part O is new: it deals with the risk of summer overheating in new homes, a topic previously touched on, or rather skated over, in Part L. The risk is growing as summer heat waves become more commonplace

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-13011660692193295262021-03-15T09:59:00.001+00:002021-10-19T12:38:45.869+01:00

Our mastery of electricity is one of the defining achievements of humanity and yet few of us have more than a very basic understanding of what electricity is. Here I look at one crucial aspect of our relationship with electricity: the battery. Electricity is one of the fundamental forces which bind the universe: these days it's combined with magnetism to form one force, electromagnetism, and

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-39328106548098541702020-11-14T10:41:00.013+00:002021-01-27T09:05:36.209+00:00

There is a lot of talk about heat pumps. Some tout them as the future of home heating, a surefire way of combatting our carbon intensive heat habit. There's no doubt it's a big problem, as this diagram clearly shows, but are heat pumps an easy fix?First things first. What exactly is a heat pump? The clue is in the name. Heat pump. Unlike every other form of heating we have ever used, a heat pump

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-42129832285113908982020-04-21T11:26:00.003+01:002020-04-21T11:45:07.373+01:00

I’ve always felt that it is a good idea to have a waste strategy for every home I have lived in. Something just a bit more sophisticated than sticking everything in the bin, which is what used to happen. Over the years, it is something which we as a country have been encouraged to do as well. Whereas when I was a child there was one bin, now there are at least three and we are expected to sort

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-52123036537476121612020-03-08T18:09:00.002+00:002020-03-09T08:47:48.940+00:00

I've drunk wine all my adult life. Just how much, I hate to think.  It's an infectious habit for sure, one which I share with probably half the UK population. It seems, from a trawl of the stats, that we consume something like 25 bottles each per annum. Seeing as half the population doesn't touch the stuff, that must be about a bottle a week for those of us that do. But this blog post isn't

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-19096441360386488112020-02-12T08:02:00.000+00:002020-02-12T08:02:02.341+00:00

Back in November 2019, I blogged about plate tectonics and, in particular, how we live - and die -with the earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes that result from us living on an unstable planetary surface. It set me thinking more about the more general risks we face and how we can categorise them. Plate tectonics covers the below-ground risk. But what about things dropping on our heads from outer

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-2135826308142476682020-02-01T05:16:00.001+00:002020-02-01T05:36:12.741+00:00

The race is on to produce zero carbon electricity, which is the most straightforward way of slowing/stopping climate change. But how realistic is this goal, and how long will it take? Here's a summary of the situation in the UK. When we say 'zero carbon electricity' we are referring to how electricity is made, not what's in it. Using fossil fuels to make electricity (the traditional method, if

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-41767686746218986112019-11-25T13:01:00.002+00:002019-11-25T13:26:09.257+00:00

The theory known as the Tragedy of the Commons was first postulated by British economist William Forster Lloyd in 1833, but it was popularised by the American philosopher Garrett Hardin in 1968 in an article in Science Magazine. It is now widely used in the field of environmental studies. So what is it? Imagine an area of common grazing land. By common, I mean it is owned by everyone

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-87950025094083018472019-11-19T09:39:00.001+00:002019-11-25T12:46:31.190+00:00

The theory of plate tectonics is much more recent than our understanding of climate change. It was first postulated by Alfred Wegener in 1912, and what he talked about came to be known as continental drift. I can still remember learning about this phenomenon at school in the 1960s. Around that time other researchers took Wegener's hypothesis and ran with it so that soon theories started

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-74421204524169617262019-06-30T16:52:00.001+01:002019-11-19T08:57:09.467+00:00

In early June, I went to visit the Eden Project in Cornwall. It's been open since 2001, so you might wonder just why its taken me so long to get there, as I have been in Cornwall many times over these years. But it seems to me the Eden Project was built as a rainy-day visitor attraction and maybe I had been lucky with the weather up till now. But a wet June day finally saw me cross the threshold,

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-63253112705676138422019-06-18T06:01:00.000+01:002019-06-18T06:01:35.090+01:00

The text and images are ready to go on the next edition of my Housebuilder's Bible. Final proofing stage has been reached and the book is set to be printed in July for an August launch. This will be the 13th edition. The first edition one came out in December 1994, so the "project" (for that is what it is) is now in its 25th year. The book has sold just over 175,000 copies in that time which

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-63892754244597698182019-01-08T16:28:00.003+00:002019-01-08T16:28:50.425+00:00

Up until 2005, there were no restrictions on dealing with plasterboard or gypsum waste from construction sites. In that year, the government (at the behest of an EU directive) began to treat plasterboard differently. Although it's not a hazardous material in its own right, it can react with biodegradable materials to create hydrogen sulphide (think rotten eggs) and it has been deemed to be best

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-87285797302916013742019-01-02T10:29:00.002+00:002019-01-02T10:29:25.965+00:00

Today I start work on the next edition of the Housebuilder's Bible - No 13. I haven't used blogger since 2015 as my attentions moved on elsewhere and blogging seemed to fall from grace both for me and in general. But I am thinking it a great place to get back in the swing of writing short pieces, if only to hone my rusty writing skills. My aim is to contribute a few blogs about things I uncover

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-53385845970874591622015-09-28T16:13:00.000+01:002015-09-29T10:17:09.425+01:00

I spent the weekend working at the Homebuilding & Renovating show at London's Excel centre. By way of relaxation, I often walk the neighbourhoods surrounding these venues both before and after showtimes. Excel is situated next to the Royal Victoria Dock in the heart of London's East End and co-incidenatlly, very close to the site of Ronan Point, the ill-feted tower block which partially

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-77723075227995442852015-09-17T09:39:00.000+01:002015-09-17T09:39:13.241+01:00

Selfbuild can be a slippery concept. It has a definition which seeks to differentiate it from other kinds of build: it's that the project is conceived and executed by people for their own use. But is that in itself exceptional or noteworthy, and does it justify the amount of column inches that get spent lauding selfbuild as if it's the answer to our housing problems? Probably not. This question

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-17244300498577387142015-09-11T16:57:00.000+01:002015-09-11T16:57:09.705+01:00

On Sunday evening last week, I set off to cycle across Cambridge to have supper with Mandy, my partner. As I passed along Trinity Street,  ahead of me I spied a crowd assembling outside Great St Mary's Church, the historic heart of the city, just across the street from King's College Chapel.  I had no idea what was going on but as I slowed down to pass the throng, I saw a man (Richard

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-519791937847822622015-08-27T12:40:00.000+01:002015-08-27T12:42:11.890+01:00

In April 2015, the CDM (Construction Design and Management) Regulations were expanded to include selfbuild for the first time. This appears to be in response to a European Directive that all building works should be covered by Health and Safety legislation, regardless of the way the sites were run, or of their scale.  The UK government risked being fined if it didn't implement the Directive

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-10226362177861378752015-08-20T11:00:00.001+01:002015-08-20T11:00:05.677+01:00

In the post war years, we had a housing problem. A shortage even. Lots of people had been bombed out in the war and it was often cheaper to build new neighbourhoods than it was to repair the bomb damage. The governments of the day weren’t hamstrung by self-imposed borrowing constraints so they geared up to the hilt and embarked on a council house building programme the like of which hadn’t been

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-17337500491254369062015-08-19T14:40:00.004+01:002015-08-19T14:47:39.279+01:00

Passivhaus aficionados like to make the point that Passivhaus construction doesn’t have to cost any more than “normal” construction. This seems counter-intuitive because the Passivhaus standard demands certain rather expensive features, such as triple-glazed windows, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery and more insulation than you can imagine fitted into places you’d never dreamed of. How

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-8546190032000322712015-07-24T18:18:00.003+01:002015-07-25T14:02:28.708+01:00

Since their somewhat surprising election win in May, the Tory government has been getting stuck into some of its bete noirs, or should that be bete verts. They have taken the axe to feed-in-tariffs, to solar farms and on-shore wind, to the Green Deal, to the 2016 zero carbon targets and to any uprating of Part L, the energy efficiency regulations. Their all too brief explanation is that they

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-75617372737980514872015-06-16T12:53:00.000+01:002015-06-16T13:01:15.545+01:00

This morning I received an email from Eva Morrison who is a Business Development Manager at Axis Corporate Finance, located in Canary Wharf in London. At Axis, she writes, we assist our clients to find a high yield property, find them suitable finance to complete the purchase and find them professional and corporate tenants to rent the property through professional estate agents who manage the

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-32247847538273073402015-05-26T12:35:00.001+01:002015-05-26T14:33:04.295+01:00

Earlier this month, stories appeared in the Sunday Times and the Daily Mail about overheating in eco-homes. In particular, Passivhaus was mentioned. Why exactly should an eco home overheat anymore than any other home? What the stories implied was that because these houses were so well insulated, they wouldn't be able to cool down in summer. Heavy insulation used to keep the buildings warm in

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-65787973599132362062015-02-26T14:47:00.000+00:002015-02-26T14:47:04.554+00:00

I've just had my 500th article published. I started freelancing in 1997 and have mostly written for Homebuilding & Renovating since then. But in the early days, I used to find all kinds of unlikely spots to take my musings and here is one of my earliest pieces dated December 1998, written for the Velux company. It's about the nascent housing crisis and it's interesting to reflect how the

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-41242180494388640772015-01-20T07:14:00.003+00:002015-01-20T07:31:04.370+00:00

The average private dwelling currently suffers an attempted break-in every 12 years and over half of these attempts are successful. Of course, it all depends on where you live. Some quiet locations still exist where no one locks their front doors, whilst there are some inner city areas which seem to get burgled regularly. Wherever you live and whatever the future holds, burglary is not a

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14798090.post-6960224232119353242014-12-30T10:46:00.000+00:002015-01-05T19:03:13.539+00:00

I've been busy. I've bought a derelict warehouse on a backstreet in Cambridge and am making plans to knock it down and build a house there. It all came about very suddenly. The site was put on the market at the end of October and, as it was said to be "the last brownfield site in Romsey Town", it attracted enormous interest. There are lots of people in Cambridge who would love the chance to

Mark Brinkleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03473684038478246288noreply@blogger.com3