New series of Grand Designs

[NSS]

I'll be watching tonight's episode with interest. It's billed as "Britain's first 'healthy' house" and that's quite a claim.

[Pocster]

3 minutes ago, NSS said:

I'll be watching tonight's episode with interest. It's billed as "Britain's first 'healthy' house" and that's quite a claim.

Problem is ‘ upstart crap ‘ is on first - a poor mans black adder ...

[NSS]

1 minute ago, pocster said:

Problem is ‘ upstart crap ‘ is on first - a poor mans black adder ...

Never watched it but it sounds like I've not missed much!

[NSS]

Not sure what to make of all that. Obsessing about low voc materials seems irrelevant when there are dust traps everywhere you looked.

[Pocster]

11 hours ago, NSS said:

Not sure what to make of all that. Obsessing about low voc materials seems irrelevant when there are dust traps everywhere you looked.

Presumably the kids never ‘venture’ outside .....

[Lesgrandepotato]

If they build and finished that like that for half a mil I’m the pope. Special moment for me. We’ve had a few days of long hours sorting this. Days! 

[Lesgrandepotato]

Enjoying the second impossible build, memories of mountain biking the rhenigidale postman’s path on Harris a couple of years back. 

 

[Lesgrandepotato]

Do they have to bring in the aggregate via ferry? That must be a face melting cost! 

[ProDave]

That was another house who's build cost far exceeds it's market value.

 

There is a lot of very solid rock, and peat bog on Harris, but no gravel quarry that I know of.  About £99 to get a car across the Minch, a lo more for a lorry.

[Lesgrandepotato]

That’s what I suspected, I can’t fathom how much that would add to a truck load of stone. 100’s  if not 1000’s per load 

[Lesgrandepotato]

What’s it worth 150-200k or so? Probably governed by the rental income?

[Lesgrandepotato]

It’s a hell of a life style change from Perth. Would you really want to grow old somewhere that remote?  I’m slightly amazed that if it takes that much stuff to build a drive that it’s not cheaper to pile it. But I guess getting a wagon of concrete is nontrivial as well! 

[Simplysimon]

59 minutes ago, Lesgrandepotato said:

It’s a hell of a life style change from Perth. Would you really want to grow old somewhere that remote?  I’m slightly amazed that if it takes that much stuff to build a drive that it’s not cheaper to pile it. But I guess getting a wagon of concrete is nontrivial as well! 

want to pile into peat? not something i'd want to price

[ProDave]

6 minutes ago, Simplysimon said:

want to pile into peat? not something i'd want to price

It won't be very far before you hit the bedrock there. But other places could be more challenging, e.g Ranoch moor, where the railway line literally floats on a raft over the bog.

[AliG]

Is anyone else riding Grand Designs a lot less interesting in the last couple of years?

 

So many of the houses are so unusual they have little relation to any house anyone might build and so my interest rapidly wanes.

 

I now way prefer Building The Dream which seems much more grounded in reality.

 

I do wish they put more emphasis on how houses are actually built.

 

I need to try Impossible Homes

 

[Thedreamer]

For the Harris build, I would imagine a lot of the rock pecked on site would have been used for the access and any quarry material would come from Lewis rather than coming on the ferry.

 

Upwards of £80k for groundwork ouch!

 

Have seen it time and time again both on the TV and with my own eyes, people who have money to burn on sites that are not really fit for building in the west coast and the Hebrides.

[Jeremy Harris]

11 hours ago, ProDave said:

It won't be very far before you hit the bedrock there. But other places could be more challenging, e.g Ranoch moor, where the railway line literally floats on a raft over the bog.

 

As an off-topic aside, one of the first applications of EPS as a foundation system was, I believe, as a railway support raft across a bog.  Probably better than Salisbury cathedral's foundations.  That's reputedly built on loads of straw that was laid down in the water meadow to provide something to build on.

[joe90]

The Old Vic in Bristol was also built on straw bundles in a bog, it only became a problem when newer building methods drained the water table, it then had to be underpinned but it was fine up till then.

[ProDave]

Just watched last nights GD.

 

The thing that struck me about this one, it they seem to have picked about the hardest part of the site to build on, excavating probably thousands of tons of sol to dig into the hill.

 

Why do people do that?  Is it really a case that the planners would not have allowed them to build on an easier flatter part of the site? or they perceive that to be the case?

[Declan52]

That was a massive hole in the ground. Some very tidy digger work though. 

Thought the house looked very nice when it was finished.

[Pocster]

19 minutes ago, Declan52 said:

That was a massive hole in the ground. Some very tidy digger work though. 

Thought the house looked very nice when it was finished.

It was better than I expected . Not sure about corrugated exterior though .

Think I would of been happy in the caravan ?

[Lesgrandepotato]

I loved that. Way better final design. I think I’ve found a design for my garage. 

[NSS]

How much money did the first architect take them for, designing a £500k build when their budget was £250k and then they spent more on several additional iterations of drawings before getting a new architect.

[Pocster]

I think if Kevin mccloud came on my site I would pretend to have Tourette syndrome

[ultramods]

16 hours ago, NSS said:

How much money did the first architect take them for, designing a £500k build when their budget was £250k and then they spent more on several additional iterations of drawings before getting a new architect.

 

I was "screaming" at the TV get rid of the cantilever and don't build into the hill. You do need to question the original architects motives/mentality/intelligence/sanity.