BISF Non-Traditional House Thermal Efficiency Problems

Problems with your Non-Traditionally Built House

Are you concerned about problems with  your non-traditionally built house?

If you are then read on to find out more.

We are Independent Building Surveyors who carry out building surveys on all ages, types and styles of property including non-traditionally built houses.  Our surveyors use thermal imaging cameras during the course of our building surveys.  Thermal imaging allows us to ascertain how the heat is working within a property and is one of the many tools we use during our structural building surveys to give you the best building survey report information.

Thermal Imaging a BISF non-traditional house

Whilst carrying out building surveys also known as structural surveys our specialist surveyors use thermal imaging to aid with their inspection of properties amongst other surveying equipment such as electronic wood and structural moisture meters, drones, etc.  Over the years many BISF non-traditional houses have had amendments to help to try to improve how the building is performing.  In the thermal images below you can see that insulation has been added to the front of the BISF house.

The property was not pre-heated therefore the conditions were not ideal .  

Thermal Images Key to colours; blue = cold, red = warm, green/yellow = cool

 

What is a BISF House?

After the war there was a shortage of housing which led to us using many innovative ways to build houses quickly.  It is rumoured that some of the companies that were building aeroplanes and bombs, etc one day were very quickly turning their hand to building houses.  This resulted in what is now known as non-traditional construction. 

A  British Iron and Steel Federation (BISF) house is non-traditionally constructed house and called a BISF as they were the manufacturers of this type of house system.  The BISF house is a pre-fabricated steel structure originally built with a shallow pitched asbestos roof, panelling to higher level and render to lower level.  Between the metal frames are timber struts and insulation with an inner plasterboard or hardboard, which originally had a design life of between ten and twenty years.

There are considered to be around one million properties built from non-traditional construction.  The Building Research Establishment (BRE) have over 500 systems listed between 1900 and 1976 excluding RAT Trad and post 1976 timber framed construction.  There were approximately 35,000 BISF houses built over a period of 6 years.  It was only exceeded by non-traditional buildings of aluminium bungalows which were 55,000, Easy Form which was a concrete system which had 90,000 built and Wimpey No-fines which had 300,000 built. 

BISF buildings do tend to stand out.  They are predominantly built by Local Authoirities. 

 

What are the problems with a BISF constructed house?

It should be remembered when looking at these buildings that they were after the War to fulfill the requirements of a lack of housing.  Equally they also fulfilled the need for work and allowed the factories that had been producing things for the war effort to then change and use these buildings.

Common problems are:-

1. Corrosion and deterioration of the frame that is hidden by the structure
2. Properties are poorly thermally insulated for today’s standards
3. Noise transfer between buildings

 

For more information about non-traditional houses click on one of our links below

British Iron and Steel Federation (BISF) constructed houses

Will I be able to obtain an mortgage to purchase a Non-Traditional House?

Types of Non-Traditional Properties