Construction quality is not expensive – it’s lack of planning that costs money!

No-one sets out to do poor quality work in construction. But most of us worry about costs. And it is very common to imagine that high quality will cost too much.

Yet research in several countries is starting to turn this idea on its head. Some teams - even, some whole cities – are turning out high quality buildings with no additional costs at all. On the other hand, poor quality construction can turn out to be unexpectedly expensive.

Much of the evidence about costs for high quality, energy efficient construction has come from the world of Passivhaus. In Passivhaus, quality is make-or-break. An independent certifier decides whether the building meets the quality standards. If the building fails to be airtight, fails to use quality-tested components, or the team fails to provide evidence to the certifier that the building is built as designed, it isn’t a Passivhaus.

So Passivhaus is often used as a proxy for “quality building” when comparing costs.

Even Passivhaus can be built for standard costs

Buildings and energy expert Professor Axel Bretzke has studied statistics from recent years. He reported his findings to the International Passivhaus Conference in 2021. He described “a remarkable trend”. The evidence he presented shows that energy efficient construction in Germany can cost less than construction that merely meets the legal minimum.

For example, a study in Hamburg of all the publicly subsidised housing in the city found that the Passivhaus dwellings cost fractionally less per m2 to construct than the standard buildings. Their costs were also least variable.

North American researchers have found similar trends. Experience in high-quality, energy-efficient construction can reduce – and even reverse - the Passivhaus cost premium.

For example, US construction advisor Zack Semke studied records of publicly subsidised housing in Pennsylvania. Passivhaus was incentivised in the scoring process for funding. This meant quite a few developers in the state – with between them, 28% of the subsidised housing projects - opted to begin building to the Passivhaus standard.

Collaboration is the key

Semke found that while the construction cost premium for Passivhaus (per sq foot) was around 6% in the first year, it dropped to 1.6% in the second. In the third year, Passivhaus projects were actually 3.3% cheaper to construct than homes to the basic regulations.

Funding for public housing in the US is competitive and schemes must be good value to succeed. Semke suggests that this cost pressure drove close collaboration within the design teams, to find economical ways to deliver high quality buildings.

Shoddy construction can come back to bite you

Passivhaus is generally acknowledged to deliver high-quality buildings. But all clients want a building that is energy efficient, high-performance - and built as designed and specified.

The differences between high- and low-quality construction are important for the owner, the user – and for the construction team. A building that performs well benefits everyone. On the other hand, shoddy construction can come back to bite you!

Defects need to be put right, which costs money, time, and a lot of stress. Serious defects may result in legal action, which can cost clients, and design and construction teams, very dearly. Sometimes owners have to move out at the builder’s expense, while defects are put right. The worst building defects may even result in demolition.

AECB member Paul Buckingham has written about how he gets called in by homeowners to diagnose faults in their new homes and help them get them put right.

Common problems he sees include homes that are cold and uncomfortable or have much higher heating costs than they should. The causes are often cold air leaks. Incorrectly positioned - or even absent - insulation is also common.

Poor design and construction harms reputations

Repeated failures in building quality harm a firm’s reputation. This happened to one large UK housebuilder after serious defects were found in a number of their homes - including the omission of fire barriers in some cases. Lack of quality control was at the root. An investigation by a construction lawyer found that: “The builder’s pledge that it inspects the work at all stages of the build process is not currently met.”

The scandal was widely publicised, with reports in the press of the house builder being “blasted by homeowners for their shoddy standards.”

Reputational damage like this is expensive. As a report in the UK Financial Times noted, after these faults were revealed, the value of the company on the stock exchange fell by almost a third – and the company was left “trying to repair its reputation”.

Not all litigation is reported – many cases are settled out of court, to avoid publicity. But confidential surveys have suggested that failures of airtightness and insulation, potentially dangerous services installation, and, in particular, overheating, are common reasons for building owners to sue.

But it definitely doesn’t have to be this way! In the second part of this feature, we will learn some of the secrets of teams who are building really good buildings, without breaking the bank.