Unfortunately volume house-builders run the show. It will be interesting to see whether things get better or worse under Labour. I'd certainly like quality over quantity. And good luck with your retrofit. Cambridge has loads of good stuff going on. Hopefully you're already connected but if not check out some of the links on this page - houseplanninghelp.com/352. ^Ben

That is a very good question. I think they did. Perhaps not massively. I'll ask Paul and post the answer soon. ^Ben

As the Google Podcasts app is shutting down, this will become Google's new way of distributing podcasts. ^Ben

What a great comment. Value engineering is often a hard sell but it makes so much sense and there is an elegance in simplicity. ^Ben

Thanks Christian. We've really struggled to get people to watch our documentary (I don't think long form works that well on KZbin unless it's a how-to video!) so thank you for taking the time. ^Ben

Apologies, that was always the intention but it ended up taking up too much time and energy. We did make a number of podcasts about the build which are linked here - www.houseplanninghelp.com/235. We also produced 20 videos for our Hub members - hphhub.com/. But yes, I don't think we'll be getting back to the vlog on KZbin. Apologies again. ^Ben

Nobody is saying it's easy but hopefully we'll see more well executed retrofits as the years roll on. ^Ben

@@Houseplanninghelp Unfortunately the planning system itself is often pretty hostile to it, and especially has its priorities backwards in a lot of instances. In Scotland a huge portion of the housing stock are stone-built tenements, but you run into all sorts of issues thanks to "preservationist" interest groups lobbying councils to keep buildings Listed and planning regs tight because preserving their house values and the perceived "proper" style of a historical neighbourhood is more important to them than livable homes for people in this century - my own tenement isn't even a listed building itself, but merely being inside a "conservation area" makes going for Enerphit impossible as I'm restricted to using exclusively traditional-style all-wood sash & case windows which are never going to reach the required levels of airtightness and insulation. Even attempting a lower level "energy efficient" upgrade with the current paltry levels of grant & subsidy would be prohibitively expensive and wouldn't even break even in terms of adding value to the property. We're so far behind where we need to be it's dispiriting.

@@YodhrinsForge Have you seen this video? kzbin.info/www/bejne/pH3MfIesgZ6Mias There is some good work going on but there needs to be a lot more. ^Ben

@@Houseplanninghelp I have, it's a great project, but unfortunately it's not really a solution in most cases as it relies on all the properties in a stair being unoccupied and renovated at the same time. That's only really practicable when you have a single owner who has spare housing stock in their network to move residents to. If you wanted to enact it in most typical tenements where each flat is owned by a separate owner-occupier or landlord, you'd have to go beyond just subsidy and, functionally, bribe people to make it appealing enough for widespread uptake - or at the very least cover the cost and then make it mandatory using statutory notices, which no politician would ever have the courage to even consider.

That is certainly the plan. In real time it's nearing the end of the big work. ^Ben

Thanks Ashley. We haven't quite got the hang of spinning all the plates but hopefully we'll get there one day! ^Ben

@@Houseplanninghelpyou can

You are

Sounds like a builder who wants to sell ya stick built

I'm afraid we have no costings for this but you could contact the architects to get an idea - www.conker.cc ^Ben

Yes, I think you're correct.

Yes, sealed off to wildlife and ventilated with a few air bricks.