Housing: Modern Methods of Construction

Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords, I have personal experience of building and owning two houses of non-traditional construction. One was built in 2006 of larch, pine and oak with a green roof, solar panels, hemp insulation of the external walls and an internal wall forming a heat sink built of granite recovered from the burnt-out cottage it replaced. Large south-facing windows maximise solar gain and ground-source heating is carried under the floor.

Labour costs were saved by assembling large sections, built to size by expert workmen in comfortable factory conditions. Although the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, referred to the difficulty in obtaining a warranty and insurance as a barrier to the uptake of MMC, I had no problem in that regard. As Peers for the Planet pointed out in its briefing for this debate, a fireproofed wood construction brings a 25% reduction in embodied carbon emissions.

The other house, built in 2016, is a Passivhaus—the gold standard of energy-efficient construction—and there were no difficulties with a warranty or insurance. The block-built walls have an external thick layer of high-density expanded polystyrene coated with render. It looks like a traditional house, and blended without objection into a highly prized conservation area. The insulation is under the floor as well as in the walls and roof. The windows and doors are triple-glazed and there is active filtered ventilation. South-facing large windows and smaller windows facing north result in a warm house with no need for heating of any sort for eight months of the year. The solar panels take care of the hot water. The lesson, as the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, pointed out, is that modern design and innovation is everything, and the sooner the planners and builders get the message, the better.