News & Blog

Mark Oliver, MD of H+H, discusses how after the deepest and longest house building depression in history we are now, thankfully, experiencing an upturn. The latest estimate from the Construction Products Association predicts that by the end of this year there will be 138,139 new home starts. Thatﾒs an increase of 16.7 per cent on last year and a jump of 29.5 per cent since the darkest days of the recession in 2009 when there were only 106,635 new home starts.

Demand for building materials has exploded over the summer.  Why?  Is this permanent? And how are manufacturers responding to the challenge? Mark Oliver, MD of aircrete block manufacturer H+H looks at some causes and solutions.

November 7th marked the event of the 2013 Housebuilder Awards, held at the Tower Hotel (Guoman Hotels) London. Hosted by Housebuilder Media, the evening saw nearly 500 people hear impressionist and comedian Jon Culshaw announce this yearﾒs winners for each category, presenting every one with a different industry leader, including our very own MD, Mark Oliver.

A triple extension on a private three bedroom home has been constructed using H+H Celcon Blocks Standard Grade with traditional mortar. The house in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, has been transformed over a three year period by Gill Building, which recently completed the final 3M x 10M extension on the rear of the house.

H+H?s innovative Thin-Joint System, using Celfix mortar and Multi Plate aircrete blocks, has been used to speed-up the construction of a student accommodation block at the University of Reading.

H+H has published details of how its products align with the new Eurocode 6 (EC6) in addition to the existing British Standard BS5628: Part 1: Code of Practice for the use of Masonry, which has now been officially withdrawn.

Our updated Products & Applications Guide has now been uploaded to the Downloads section of the website.

Changes to the rules that govern the installation of precast concrete flooring will allow the benefits of H+H?s innovative Thin-Joint System to be realised in the construction of more apartment blocks, care homes and other buildings with precast concrete floors.

The thoughts and opinions of Neil Thomas, Director of Housing at H+H.

H+H has become one of the pioneers of Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology in the country by being one of the first manufacturers to launch downloadable BIM objects for each of their products.

Mark Oliver, H+H MD, reports on how merchants may not always capture the value they add when providing this service to builders

H+H's innovative all-in-one building method, R? Build, has been used in the construction of a pair of semi-detached bungalows on a restricted site in Kessingland, Suffolk.

Robust Details E-WM-23 and 24 are now available for a high-performance cavity separation wall construction using H+H aircrete blocks.

How do the products contribute to the sustainability agenda, and what are their sustainability credentials?

When building new dwelling-houses and flats have you considered using aircrete blockwork for separating walls which can provide significant thermal benefits? Doing so can simplify your build process, save time, money and give improved thermal benefits.

In part one of our new specifiers guide, Jenny explains away the misconceptions that may exist about our range of aircrete products...

In September 2012 Vince Cable announced that the Government would be developing eleven sector strategies across key industries during 2013 with the aim of promoting both short and long term economic growth. The construction industry was selected as one of the eleven sectors and a Construction Industrial Strategy Advisory Council (CISAC), representing the breadth of the industry, will oversee and steer the development of the strategy out to 2025.

H+H's innovative Ra Build method has been used for a private self-build project in Bottle Lane, Maidenhead. The property stands on the site of the old house, which was demolished in favour of a masonry build.

The demise of previously leading retailers in their respective sectors, Comet, Jessops, HMV and Blockbuster, is largely blamed on their failure to adapt to online retailing.   Commentators suggest that by not changing their business model to ﾓclicks & bricksﾔ (from ﾓbricks & mortarﾔ), as others like Tesco and Argos have done, these previously market leading, but now collapsed, companies missed a trick.

H+H is delighted to announce it received a 2012 Barratt Supplier Excellence Award, as part of its Supplier Conference in February 2013.

H+H's Multi-Plate Package has been used to build six houses, as part of a social housing project, in Seaford, Sussex.

Celcon Blocks supplied by H+H won the Bricks and Blocks supplier award from the NBG for the second year running, presented during the group's  Annual Gala Dinner held in Edinburgh at the end of last year.

We are all familiar now with the arguments surrounding the need to reduce our carbon emissions.  The building industry has responded impressively and new building techniques, as well as new materials, mean that it is quite possible to build houses that have almost no carbon emissions related to their heating needs.

Highwood Group has used H+H's Thin Joint system of large format aircrete blocks and quick-drying Celfix Mortar to meet a tight programme for the construction of a specialist care home and six assisted living bungalows.

Two newly updated brochures have now been posted onto the H+H website.

External render finishes are growing in popularity as an alternative to brick, and with H+H Celcon blocks commonly used to build extensions or whole buildings it seems sensible to know how to apply external render to them.