Joining me on this week’s show are Malcom McMahon and Richard Hatfield from Greenheart Sustainable Construction. They walk me through some of the current trends in building methods and alternative building materials, along with some of the potential obstacles that they envisage along the way. From SIPs to Pre-Fab to I-Beams and Hempcrete and Grand Designs to Passive House, these two are on the ground pioneering sustainable building in the real world, so make sure you listen in won’t you?
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Resources mentioned:
Link to the Greenheart Sustainable Building website
PassivHaus or Passive House website & introductory video
Link to the new Deal Tips Service
Link to the Podcast feedback survey
Today’s must do’s
Get clued up with some of the current methods and materials used in building and construction now. Connect with Greenheart if you fancy exploring Self-Build.
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Property Investor Toolkit – here is the book link on amazon.co.uk & amazon.com in case you would like to get yourself a copy to accompany this series
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Transcription of the show
Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Property Voice podcast. My name is Richard Brown and it’s a pleasure to have you join me on the show again today.
Joining me on this week’s show are Malcom McMahon and Richard Hatfield from Greenheart Sustainable Construction. They walk me through some of the current trends in building methods and alternative building materials, along with some of the potential obstacles that they envisage along the way. From SIPs to Pre-Fab to I-Beams and Hempcrete and Grand Designs to Passive House, these two are on the ground, pioneering sustainable building construction in the real world, so it should be a great way to set the scene with construction technology as a subset of the PropTech movement.
So, let’s hear from Malcolm and Richard now then.
Property Chatter
Interview with Malcom McMahon & Richard Hatfield from Greenheart Sustainable Construction
Summary and Key Takeaways
It’s always good to hear the ‘warts and all’ take from people delivering on the ground. There is tremendous promise and indeed a growing demand from several sections of society, including the general public for some of the more sustainable building materials and alternative building methods. Yet, there is still a way to go with some of the other stakeholder groups before we can truly say that the future is fully upon us!
Here are some of the key themes from my discussion with Malcolm and Richard
- Sustainable Building can marry the two worlds of the green, ecological agenda to the property investor’s commercial agenda…there is often a business that supports the drive as well as purely environmental considerations.
- Some trends they have seen with alternative building materials include a drive towards timber frame buildings, SIPs along with some complications with some new materials such as Hempcrete.
- Europe is leading the way with these alternative building methods…we are slower to adopt them in the UK. For example, 10% of additional development land in Germany being allocated for self-build and the Passiv Haus movement to name just 2 such examples. The lead times and costs of imported materials do hamper the roll out in the UK currently.
- Pre-fabrication and modular building methods are on the increase and will most likely be a significant growing trend. They can ensure greater quality, reduced build times and reduced costs, allowing better houses to be built more quickly.
- Growth sectors in Self-Build, potentially using the Passiv Haus energy-efficient standards, Self-Finish and Build-to-Rent will help to drive greater adoption and a longer-term view of the business case as occupants and owners will have a greater vested interest in a building’s running costs.
- There is a push and pull with this agenda. Some of the stakeholders around the property market can hamper progress, such as large housebuilders looking to build low-cost units to a minimum standard for maximum profit, banks looking for short-term gains, planners limiting new build development and surveyors not signing off on certain building methods and materials. However, the general public want decent, affordable and energy-efficient homes at the same time, so there is a demand, just not an organised and co-ordinated one as such.
- New build will lead the way as retrofit or refurbishment is simply harder to do on an economic basis. However, if we are building around 200,000 new homes a year, it will take quite some time before we make a dent in the approximate 25 million homes in the UK. So, it will be more about acorns than oak trees for a time yet.
- We have and continue t make progress, as seen in improvements in building regulations, the Renewable Heat Initiative and Green Deal and pro-climate change commitments from Government.
- If you want to get in touch with Malcolm or Richard, perhaps to invite them to build your own Self-Build then, the easiest is to visit their website, which is greenheartuk.com to see their contact details. The links are in the show notes or drop me a line and I will point you in the right direction.
As usual, the show notes can be found over at www.thepropertyvoice.net or if you want to talk about anything from today’s show, receive an intro into one of my guests or just talk property investing, email me at podcast@thepropertyvoice.net, I would be happy to hear from you!
But for now, all I want to say is thank you very much for listening once again this week and until next time on The Property Voice Podcast…it’s ciao-ciao.