The future of residential building electrical installations

Denis McMahon:

My mind turns back to picture books I read in the 50s and 60s, prophesying life in the next century. Houses would no longer have chimneys and the fireplace would be replaced by the TV and entertainment centre.


There is a new housing development going up near me. Most of the  houses are provided with - guess what - chimneys! Oh well, it is good to have something to attach your TV aerial to! 

New housing estates in the 1950s where houses did not have fireplaces represented the first instance in centuries where the skyline was not interrupted by chimneys. By the 1970s houses without chimneys were the norm for new builds and generally houses with chimneys were those built to a customer's design rather than speculatively built. In the 1980s house design took a sharp turn from the modernist designs from the 1950s through to the 1970s with more emphasis on tradition. Chimneys returned even though they were purely decorative or just used as flues for gas fires. The building industry today still holds much resistance towards modernist designs of houses.

I have made representations to our council that it would be preferable for all new houses to be oriented to provide plenty of south-facing roof, to make maximum usage of possible future solar panels, given that economics preclude building these in at new. So far the interest of the council has been zilch.

Very interesting.

Denis McMahon:

My mind turns back to picture books I read in the 50s and 60s, prophesying life in the next century. Houses would no longer have chimneys and the fireplace would be replaced by the TV and entertainment centre.


There is a new housing development going up near me. Most of the  houses are provided with - guess what - chimneys! Oh well, it is good to have something to attach your TV aerial to! 

New housing estates in the 1950s where houses did not have fireplaces represented the first instance in centuries where the skyline was not interrupted by chimneys. By the 1970s houses without chimneys were the norm for new builds and generally houses with chimneys were those built to a customer's design rather than speculatively built. In the 1980s house design took a sharp turn from the modernist designs from the 1950s through to the 1970s with more emphasis on tradition. Chimneys returned even though they were purely decorative or just used as flues for gas fires. The building industry today still holds much resistance towards modernist designs of houses.

I have made representations to our council that it would be preferable for all new houses to be oriented to provide plenty of south-facing roof, to make maximum usage of possible future solar panels, given that economics preclude building these in at new. So far the interest of the council has been zilch.

Very interesting.