In January 2023, I wrote about the silent threat lurking in people’s homes.
Surveyors have reported a tenfold increase in calls from worried landlords and homeowners who have discovered damp and mould hiding in their properties – and threatening to cause chaos.
And how today’s standards may be tomorrow’s problems.
Sooner than I expected, the BBC website has reported that Homes insulated in government scheme go mouldy.
So, the government’s policies on home insulation are proving to be bad for our health.
What is not reported is that a lack of ventilation causes the mould. Not, as suggested, a botched installation.
Moreover, the government policy to install heat pumps is proving too expensive for ordinary families to install and run.
Not only are heat pumps unaffordable, but the mechanical ventilation systems required to keep houses damp-free and healthy are also unaffordable to install and will incur running costs, which will turn out to be discretionary. As will the heat pumps.
An even bigger problem is that as prosperity has been inflecting from flat-lining into contraction, whole-house heating costs will become increasingly unaffordable. As a result, so-called modern houses built to be airtight will become undesirable places to live and uninhabitable by today’s standards—even worse than the houses in the post-WWI2 slums.
The time has come to abandon all policies and standards of house design and construction and allow individuals to decide what to build. A popular culture of house design and construction will quickly emerge.
