Author: Jack

Surveying Wall Cracks

Posted on by Jack

Wall cracks are a worrying sign for any homeowner to see on their property, but it may not be as bad as you think. The immediate reaction is probably to start panicking that your home is on the verge of total collapse, when, in a far more likely scenario, the building is probably just settling into its position and the plaster covering the wall has cracked due to the small changes in position. Of course, any crack is worthy of your concern, and seeking to find out what the risks are is ideal.

To discover all of the possible risks, hiring a structural surveyor to examine the wall is the best solution. These things aren’t always readily determinable through eyesight, whether that is because the wall is obscured by plaster or wallpaper. A surveyor will have tools like infrared imaging, which can be used as a noninvasive method for determining whether or not something is structurally unsound.

Replacing Roofing Shingles

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Roofing materials are some of the most at-risk components to any building envelope, due to how they are more exposed to the elements than any other component. They are used to shield the rest of the property from rain and slow, so it is little wonder that the first thing to go is the shield.

This reality is one reason among many others that the most important function of any roofing system is that some of the components can be easily replaced. Roof tiles and shingles are among the most common and appropriate materials to use thanks to this assessment. They are essentially a form of built-in obsolescence.

Because these products, both wooden shingles and stone and metal tiles, are guaranteed to at some point break down and need to be replaced, it is important that they can be cheaply and easily replaced. This requirement presents itself in two ways; cheap and easily acquired materials and cheap and easy labour for it too.

Replacing roof shingles and tiles is a time-consuming but fairly low-level skill. It is time-consuming because, in order to replace a single broken shingle, you will often have to remove many more until you’ve got the space to reassemble the layout of the shingles. It is low level because all you’re really doing is adding and removing panels. There is an element of danger involved, and every year roofers will experience a large number of workplace injuries.

 

Best Paying jobs in the Construction Industry

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Working in the construction industry can be a very profitable career pathway, particularly for those who manage to move up the ranks. Some professions within the sector can earn upwards of £40,000, and there are more of them than you might expect.

Project management is a clear example, and the spread between how much you can earn in this position is massive too. At the lower end of the scale, working as a deputy project manager can earn you within the mid 30’s, as a official project manager of a small construction enterprise working on smaller projects, you can earn within the mid 40’s, and working on larger projects can continue to earn a lot more than that.

Architects is another profession that you can pursue that, when qualified for, can be a very well paying jobs. Again, the amount you can earn from the position is largely dependent upon what it is you’re designing and what your reputation says about you, but a typical architect can expect to be paid at least £40k. It is important to note that being an architect is by no means an easy career path, with architects needing 5 years of training, followed by 2 years of internships, and finalised by an exam, where, if successful, you are awarded with your architect accreditation.

Besides these, there are also tremendous opportunities in becoming a land surveyor and structural engineer, which can likewise end up being very lucrative careers. Unlike being an architect, you won’t need as much education in these areas, but you will need a university degree.

Is the New House Building Scheme Going to Impact Property Prices?

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George Osborne came out in his recent spending review in the Autumn Statement with a promise to build roughly 400,000 more homes over the current parliament. This has been done to alleviate the current housing crisis, which is a crisis of supply above all else. If we leave aside the debate about whether or not these are enough to sort out the problem, which is going to have to take place somewhere else, we still have questions left over on how this is going to impact house prices, and what impact that is going to have on the construction industry.

Like with anything in the economy, price is mainly determined by the principles of supply and demand. The main feature of this new house building scheme is to massively increase supply, which almost definitely means that price will go down; it is mainly a question of by how much, which will be determined by how quickly this increase in supply can be absorbed by the record high levels of demand. Of course, the record high housing prices has priced many people out of the buying market as it is, so prices may need to come down as a necessity anyway.

Another side to the economics of this is that the decrease in value of homes is likely to have a negative impact on some businesses in the construction industry. The fact that there is going to be a massive push towards building homes means that there will be more building projects on-going over the coming years than there have been in the last few decades, which will mean growth for the industry and more work for the workers. The downside to this is that the construction companies that have invested in building projects already, with the expectation that housing prices will sit at a certain level, may find that their expectations were misplaced.

 

The Energy Efficiency Requirements of New Buildings

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The construction industry have a lot of competing requirements, but the two which receive the most attention are undoubtedly making homes in a cost effective way, but also producing homes which have high levels of energy efficiency. In some ways these don’t have to be mutually exclusive, but thanks to a number of reasons, in practice they often are.

Climate change has become a big concern for the global community, and scrutiny needs to be applied to every facet of modern life. As a part of this, a lot of the burden has been placed upon the construction industry to use construction techniques and materials which minimise the carbon emissions during construction, as well as using insulative materials and architectural designs which limit the need for energy to heat homes. Much of this is enforced by law for all new buildings.