Quality of new build houses...

Was just a bit flabbergasted walking past an ongoing new build-likely-to-be-billed-at-350k+ box Property in the Benijofar area. Am not a builder so maybe the builder experts on here can make reassuring comment... But I wouldn't personally buy this one for love nor money... Am I being over particular here? This just doesn't look to me like a very sound build...

Can’t say that I can see anything wrong. Here, they pour a frame and infill with, non structural, pot bricks.

Just the usual crap Spanish block work but the thin coat of render usually holds it together!

they are built to a price to maximize profit ,labour and materials as cheap as possible ,I have seen better build quality by individual builders working for themselves on singular projects,

There are some old, and I mean old, they look at least 100 years old, houses in Rojales and they seem to be held together with bits of off-cuts of brick, stone, mortar and tile..... they look really botched up...... but they are still there despite earthquakes and 100 years of Spanish weather..

In Spain the weather is more temperate and what would never do in Scotland might do very well in Spain..I don´t see many Spanish houses falling down..

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It is an eye opener when you see them being built and without render on them, they patch the holes up with odd bits of brick and cement and look terrible but as already said they seem to keep standing although you do see a lot of cracks here and there, whether that's the render or the brick work, not too sure.

So not as bad as it looks then? It was this bit in particular that looked bad to me. Maybe all our houses are like this underneath

To be on the safe side I think I'd still rather buy one that has been proven to be able to stand for a few years...

Shiva wrote:So not as bad as it looks then? It was this bit in particular that looked bad to me. Maybe all our houses are like this underneath

To be on the safe side I think I'd still rather buy one that has been proven to be able to stand for a few years...

I agree. Four years ago I bought a house (Spanisch style - not a concrete modern bunker) wich was 11 years old. At that moment you can observe if something went wrong in that period. Mine was and is still OK

Let’s be honest that is shocking workmanship.

House building in general went to the dogs around 1980. I wouldnt buy any house in UK built after then. My G'dad on my mothers side was a Master Builder, he would have burnt on the site bonfire half the timber they put into new houses these days. The Spanish seem to use a system of building a poured reinforced concrete frame and then infil with the cheapest blocks they can find, applied by the cheapest labour they can find, on the theory once its been rendered by a half compatent plasterer, no one wil be able to tell the difference. . I notice how many third rate brickies from UK become builders when they step off the Ferry.

THis house was built 30 years ago, it seems to be built of solid thermalite blocks, and the roof appears to consist of a concrete wall plate front and back with a central wall to he ride, and the tilign is supported on 4x2 rafters with a diagonal purlin to prevent racking. But its certainly not built to stand extreme weather. They dont even use underfelt on the tiles, which would do wonders for the thermal insulation, and help keep the building cool in summer and warm in winter.