WHAT WE LOOK FOR IN A SURVEY OF IN-SITU CONCRETE NOT-TRADITIONAL HOUSING

摘要

Concrete was used extensively as an alternative to brickwork in house construction from the 1920's onward. A number of cast-in-situ concrete walling systems were developed in an attempt to lower costs by reducing construction time, although subsequent analysis reveals that many cast-in-situ concrete houses were in fact more expensive to build than traditional forms of construction. Commonly the concrete mixes developed included clinker aggregates and no-fines concrete. In total, about 1.5 million non-traditional houses were built in the UK up to 1975, of which approximately 450,000 were of in-situ concrete construction. BRE has visually inspected or investigated more than 25 in-situ concrete systems and a total of 84 distinct in-situ concrete housing systems are identified in a major new BRE publication. In early 2007 the Home Information Pack (HIP) is due to be introduced, and a duty will be placed on surveyors and inspectors to identify houses of non-traditional construction in the home condition reports. If more detailed assessment of in-situ houses is called for, then the following points should be kept in mind.