WTF !!! Are they trying to make us rely upon the state?

A few hours yesterday and this morning wifey dragged me around some new housing developments up here in NE England probably the one place left in the UK where house building land is reasonably plentiful and affordable. So what did I find? Every estate cept one NONE of the houses had fire places or chimneys !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, Most had garages TOO SMALL to put a full sized car in , few had enough room in the bedrooms for both DOUBLE BED and WARDROBES, All had condensing combi boilers and no hot or cold tanks, there was no extra strength planned into the loft space for water tanks. Most had no LARDER space cept for the very largest of houses even then it would have to be shared with the ironing board and hoover, most had gardens no more than 6 ft wide on the front plus 3ft for paving. The main back garden averaged 32 ft by 28 ft MAX. There were few surface drains most saw the gutter down pipes concreted in with no open drain grid for people to pour grey water down. Parking spaces were very small and if two cars parked on the road there was only enough room left on the road for a bicycle to pass through. There was NO leisure or play areas for kids on ANY of the developments. WTF are they doing to this country? these are not residential communities they are nothing more than dormitories for drones.

No effing chimneys or fire places??, No larder space,and no room to grow food or let kids play ?? Talk about making the sheeple reliant on the energy companies and supermarkets and expensive leisure facilities.

It's not about the people, it's about the profit. Housing estates these days are an excersise in shoehorning in as many units as possible on the space provided. Barratts, Wimpy et al, have absolutely no interest in how or where the kids play or whether the drains can cope, or whether a fire engine or the bin wagon can get down the road. It's more cost effective to build a house sans chimney. I doubt these morons are sophisticated enough to see what they are doing,
It's actually cheaper and easier to have a woodburner fitted to an outside wall with the flue going through the wall than having one set into a fireplace. Much as it's irksome, until some of the building rules and regs are looked at by someone with a vested interest in family wellbeing rather than proft new builds are going to get cheaper to build and more expensive to buy.
Offspring is looking to buy his first property in the new year, he already has his sights set on one of the many 1930's semi's in this area. He doesn't want a shoebox with endless problems, no drainage and zero garden.

It's the same here in the states. No one seems to consider the possibility that the grid could ever go down. I agree with Sally that it's purely profit driven here, no conspiracy theories. The place we are building for the son and DIL has opening windows with convection in mind, woodburning stove that can be cooked on, very low maintenance and fire resistant siding and roofing. I like the idea given for water storage in the loft. It would have enough gravity pressure to flow downstairs. A secondary hand pump should be easy to incorporate in it to fill that tank. The regular water heater would work well as the tank too. Hmmm, you got my wheels turning here.

Of course companies build houses for profit. And they build what will sell in a given area. Small homes and lots for people with limited budgets. One good option would be to buy a large lot or acreage and build yourself or hire a contractor to build to your specs.

Arcticdude said:

Of course companies build houses for profit. And they build what will sell in a given area. Small homes and lots for people with limited budgets. One good option would be to buy a large lot or acreage and build yourself or hire a contractor to build to your specs.

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I'm a big believer in sweat equity. Even if you're not very knowledgable with building, there's a lot you can do yourself to save money. As you pointed out, the property is by far the most important part. Things like a water source, enough area to grow things, rural enough for security, etc. A tiny house is also a good way to start. It can be added to later on, but a small lot is a lot harder to make larger.

welcome to modern housing in the 21st century, our place is one of these, housing association semi detached, 2 bedrooms, no chimneys or fireplaces, all electric, no mains gas here, if you want gas you have to have a propane tank in the garden, and this is in the middle of the English countryside, not a city.
we just make sure we put in place "resources" that will replace the mains services in an emergency, like wood burning stoves, a supply of firewood, water tanks, camping stoves, rocket stoves, mobile (cylinder) gas heaters and the like.