house
Let an agent tell a house from the household living in it and from the plot it stands on, judge its condition and its permissions, and decide what may be done to it and by whom.
Research draft, second pass
A second pass drafted this model: the structure a model of this thing needs, and what is known about it in the world. The line under this one says how the second half was obtained - researched against sources, or recalled without web access, in which case nothing here was read anywhere and every claim is a lead to verify. Unreviewed either way.
written by Claude from model knowledge without web access - no source was read, every claim is a lead to verify
Researched by: Claude
Purpose and description
Let an agent tell a house from the household living in it and from the plot it stands on, judge its condition and its permissions, and decide what may be done to it and by whom.
A building intended as a dwelling for one household, standing on a defined plot, with its own entrance and its own connections to water, power and drainage.
What it is for: Sheltering a household: keeping weather out, holding warmth, and giving a place to sleep, cook, wash and keep belongings.
It can be live in it, which is the point and the thing most rules protect; enter and leave it, and stop others doing so; heat, cool, light and supply it, all of which need connections it does not own; alter, extend and repair it, mostly with permission; buy, sell, let and mortgage it, none of which touch the building; insure it against the events that damage buildings.
Distinguishing features
A dwelling for one household with its own entrance, which separates it from a flat and from a block containing many
A building, which separates it from the household that lives there and from the plot it stands on - three things constantly confused
Permanent and sited, which separates it from a caravan or a houseboat used as a home
Residential by permission as well as by use: a building used as a home without that permission is a different legal object
What it looks like
A roofed structure of one to three storeys with walls, windows and at least one door to the outside, standing alone or joined to neighbours, usually within a boundary that marks its plot.
Physical character
floor area: 50-250 m2 - varies more by region than by anything about the building
storeys: 1-3 count - excluding cellars and roof spaces, which are counted differently by different registers
occupancy: 1-6 people - designed occupancy and actual occupancy routinely differ
service life: 60-150 years - structure outlasts every system inside it
How it is recognised
Its own front door to the outside, which is what separates a house from a flat inside a larger building
Roof form and wall material, which indicate period and construction and so what may be behind the surface
A street address or plot number, which identifies this house rather than the kind - and addresses are reassigned more often than people expect
Meter positions and service connections, which say what it is actually supplied with rather than what it appears to have
Related models
is a kind of - everything true of buildings applies: structure, permits, inspection, demolition
is confused with - the people are not the building; they move, it does not
is confused with - the plot is a separate object with its own boundaries and its own register
needs - a dwelling without them is uninhabitable regardless of its condition
contains - rooms are where occupancy, heating and most alterations are actually reasoned about
regulated by - these decide what may be built, altered and occupied
In practice
Families and kinds
by attachment: detached, semi-detached, terraced
by construction: masonry, timber frame, panel, prefabricated
by tenure: owner-occupied, rented, social, shared ownership
by period, which in practice predicts construction, insulation and hazards better than any other single fact
Identifiers
address jurisdiction-specific human-facing and reassignable; not a stable identifier
cadastral or title number national register identifies the property in law, which is the plot plus what stands on it
building reference in an address register national the closest thing to a stable identifier for the structure itself
Standards and regulation
National building codes, which set structure, fire, insulation and accessibility requirements at the time of construction or alteration
Planning or zoning regimes, which decide whether a dwelling may exist there at all
Energy performance certification schemes, which produce the rating attached to sales and lettings
Housing fitness and habitability standards, which govern what a landlord must maintain
Failure modes and hazards
Water: roof, plumbing and rising damp, which cause most of the slow damage buildings suffer
Structural movement and subsidence, which is what surveys look for and what insurers price
Fire, with escape routes and detection the things that decide outcomes
Hazardous materials from the period of construction - asbestos, lead paint, lead pipe - which constrain any alteration
Services failing: heating in winter and drainage at any time make a sound house uninhabitable
Also called
+525
Where this came from
wikidata · CC0 1.0
Also registered as vr.tr.house-artifact
Drafted structure
Bundle to layer to finding to question, as the second pass will find it: 5 bundles · 10 layers · 10 findings · 20 questions.
Identity, plot and property rights Which house this is, what land it stands on, and who holds what over it.
The building, the plot and the rights are three separate objects that share an address, and nearly every mistake about a house starts by merging them.
Which house this is
Address, register entries and what each of them actually names.
Identifiers and what each identifies
An address names a delivery point, a title names a property, and neither names the structure.
- What address and register entries name this house, and does each refer to the building, the plot or the property? definition
- What evidence resolves the case where the address has been reassigned or the plot subdivided? provenance
Rights and interests
Ownership, tenancy, charges and rights others hold over it.
Who may decide what
Owner, occupier, lender and neighbour each hold different powers over the same house.
- Who owns, who occupies, and who else holds a registered interest or right of way over this house? definition
- Whose consent does a given alteration require, and what must an agent refuse to arrange without it? action
Fabric, construction and period What it is made of and what that implies about everything else.
Period and construction predict insulation, hazards, repairability and cost more reliably than any survey line item, and they cannot be changed.
Structure and materials
Walls, roof, floors and foundations as built and as altered.
As built and as altered
The original construction and every change made since, which is usually undocumented.
- What construction and materials is this house built from, and which parts have been altered since? definition
- What evidence exists for alterations, and what should an agent assume where there is none? provenance
Hazardous materials
What the period of construction implies is present.
Period hazards and their constraint
Materials that are safe in place and dangerous when disturbed.
- Which hazardous materials are likely given this period of construction, and where would they be? boundary
- What must be established before any work disturbs them, and by whom? action
Habitability, services and performance Whether it can be lived in, and how well.
A house is fit to live in or not, and that depends on connections and systems it does not contain rather than on the structure that dominates its description.
Connections and supply
Water, drainage, power, heat and communications, each with its own supplier and failure mode.
What it is connected to
Which services reach it, on what terms, and what happens when one stops.
- Which services is this house connected to, metered how, and who supplies each? definition
- Which single failure makes it uninhabitable, and what is the response? action
Thermal and energy performance
How well it holds heat and what that costs.
Performance, measured and modelled
The certificate figure, how it was produced, and what it fails to capture.
- What energy performance is recorded for this house, assessed by whom and when? measurement
- Where does the assessment method diverge from how the house actually behaves? boundary
Condition, defects and maintenance What state it is in and what is falling due.
Buildings fail slowly and predictably, and the whole value of a condition model is that it turns a slow failure into a scheduled task.
Defects and their urgency
What is wrong, how bad, and how fast it worsens.
Defects and their trajectory
Findings with a date, a severity and a rate of change.
- What defects are recorded for this house, found by whom, and how quickly does each worsen? measurement
- Which defect obliges immediate action rather than scheduling, and on whose judgement? action
Maintenance cycle
The recurring work that keeps a house from failing.
Recurring work and responsibility
What must be done, how often, and who is obliged to do it.
- What maintenance does this house require, at what interval? definition
- Who bears each obligation under the current tenure, and what happens when it is not met? action
Permissions, alteration and lifecycle What may be changed, by whom, and how the house ends.
Almost nothing may be done to a house without permission from somebody, and the permission regime is the part an agent is most likely to get wrong.
What needs permission
Planning, building control, conservation and tenancy constraints.
Permission required, by change
Which alterations need which consent, and which need none.
- Which consents does a given alteration to this house require, and from which authority? definition
- What must an agent verify before arranging work that may need consent? action
Change of use, extension and end
Conversion, subdivision, demolition, and what each does to the identity of the thing.
Identity through change
When a change makes it a different house, and when it does not.
- Which changes preserve the identity of this house in the registers, and which create a new object? boundary
- What must be recorded so that a later reader can follow the house through those changes? provenance
What the second pass must settle
- Should the model treat a house as a building with a dwelling use, or as a dwelling that happens to be a building - the two give different answers for conversions and subdivisions?
- How should shared structures be handled, where a terrace is one structure and several houses?
- What is the minimum evidence for occupancy, given that registers, utilities and reality routinely disagree?
- How should period-implied hazards be represented so they are treated as likelihoods rather than as recorded facts?