What is jerry building?
Jerry building is housing put up on a large scale, at speed and as cheaply as possible, where pace and profit took priority over build quality and craftsmanship. The Dutch term is revolutiebouw, and it refers above all to the working-class districts built in the growing Dutch cities between roughly 1870 and 1900.
Industrialisation drew large numbers of people into the cities. Private investors filled the gap, putting up entire streets without any coherent urban plan and with almost no supervision. The pattern will be familiar to anyone who knows Victorian speculative terraces in Britain.
Characteristics
- Under-designed foundations — shallow, on too few piles or on soft ground, producing settlement and leaning facades
- Thin walls — often solid one-brick or even half-brick external walls with no cavity, so rain penetration and cold
- Poor materials — rejected or second-hand brick, lean mortar, undersized timber
- Deep, narrow plans — bed recesses with no daylight, poor ventilation, shared sanitation
- Very high density, with rear courtyards built over
The end of it
In the Netherlands the worst excesses were ended by the Housing Act of 1901 (Woningwet, in force from 1902). It obliged municipalities to adopt building by-laws, created municipal building control, set requirements for housing quality and provided the basis for the housing associations. It is regarded as the start of modern Dutch building regulation.
The term is also used more loosely for later mass housing of poor quality, including parts of the post-war reconstruction.
Why it still matters
Many of these houses are still standing, in the nineteenth-century ring around the cities. If you are buying one, look at:
- Foundation repair, which is the single largest cost; always commission a foundation survey
- Rising damp, because there is no damp-proof course in the wall base
- Timber floors with joist ends built into the masonry, which may have decayed
Related terms
- Facade
- Renovation
- Restoration
- Mortar
- Driven pile
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