The Housing White Paper published in February 2017 marks a departure from decades of housing policy. There’s an acceptance that we need to do things differently if we have any hope of solving the nation’s housing crisis. The target announced in the Budget for 300,000 new homes to be built each year is staggering when you compare it to the rates we’ve actually achieved over the last 30 years.
We will need fresh ideas and new approaches to build good quality homes on this scale. Arguably, panelised offsite construction holds many of the answers:
Speed
Who is going to build all these new houses? If it’s traditional builders how will they step up their productivity at a time when the pool of skilled labour is diminishing? We know that a like-for-like building project can be completed around 30% quicker using panelised offsite. This advantage is magnified when there is standardisation of the product.
Production capacity is easier to flex than the marketplace for traditional construction skills. Creating buildings using SIPs is less labour intensive so there is a much smaller lag in bringing additional capacity on stream, compared with the need to recruit and train skilled people.
Also, the time savings through greater standardisation are not available to traditional builds, where the design may be the same but the effort required to build it doesn’t much change.
Risk
The Government envisages Housing Associations taking on an increased share of the home building burden, but without significantly increased grants. They will need to fund development by borrowing against future revenue.
This exposes associations to levels of financial risk that they haven’t previously needed to manage. Potential delays and quality issues could raise risks to unacceptable levels. Using panelised offsite eliminates many common construction risks resulting from weather or the availability of labour or materials.
Quality
Can the rate of completing traditionally built homes be increased by over 50% without affecting quality? There is a serious question mark against this. Quality risks would add significantly to the risks in the previous section.
Panelised offsite construction is a highly controlled and repeatable process, which ensures quality.
Market Diversity
Some would argue that the traditional volume housebuilders could have completed many more homes than they have in recent years, but they had little incentive to increase supply in a seller’s market. Some inside the Government clearly seem to believe this.
Whether or not that’s the reality, the Government is keen to create a more diverse market by encouraging SME and custom build providers. These may be more receptive to new methods such as SIPs than traditional volume builders. A partner such as Innovaré that can support them through the entire process from design to manufacture and installation may prove invaluable.
Design
When it comes to designing homes, the UK seems to be rather set in its ways. This may be a reflection of how housebuilders have focused on a specific part of the market. By being more adventurous with design we can create homes that are efficient to build, and a joy to live in and among.
Panelised offsite is hard to beat when it comes to design flexibility and the capability to convert stunning designs into buildable structures of almost any size.
Sustainability
The final challenge is sustainability. Construction is a major consumer of energy and resources. Every part of a Structural Insulated Panel is recyclable, whether it is production ‘waste’ or at the end of life of the building. The timber used is from sustainable resources and it ties up atmospheric carbon within the building structure. Buildings constructed from SIPs are inherently energy efficient.
The Housing White Paper clearly throws up a number of challenges. SIP based offsite construction does seem to tick a lot of boxes in helping to overcome these challenges.
