Grand Designs at Graven Hill starts tonight on Channel 4

[Ferdinand]

15 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

I believe they paid less than that, as the land was disposed of by the MoD pretty cheaply, for a host of reasons

 

I wonder if the number has been ppublished, or could be an FOI.

 

Interesting little article in the Guardian from Spring 2018, lots of number.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/feb/10/custom-self-build-housing-graven-hill

 

It is interesting that McCloud's own company has retreated from this level of *self*-build, and gone custom, with a lot of the build process in house.

F

 

 

[ProDave]

So they bought the site for £28m and are building 1900 homes on it. That works out at a per plot price of £14,736

 

Add on the cost of designing the site, laying the infrastructure, services etc building the roads and what would that work out roughly for the cost of each serviced plot?  I still think £100K per plot would cover all that and £250K or more per plot would just be profiteering, which was surely not the ethos behind the project?

[Big Neil]

On 12/04/2019 at 09:37, JSHarris said:

I can only assume that GD feel that stairs always look better without the mandatory balustrades

 

Maybe they are 'invisible' - Strong gusts of air pumped up at the sides in proximity sensors are tripped, to blow anyone back on to the stairs if they start to fall. That would be proper GD tech!!!

[NSS]

2 hours ago, Big Neil said:

 

Maybe they are 'invisible' - Strong gusts of air pumped up at the sides in proximity sensors are tripped, to blow anyone back on to the stairs if they start to fall. That would be proper GD tech!!!

I'll have pint of whatever you're drinking ?

[Danny68]

I'm still trying to get over that £800 for that beam the guy had, I need to up my prices ? 

[ProDave]

Tonight's offering had the usual non compliant staircase, in this case too wide a gap between treads.  And a balcony that had only a basic top and middle handrail that would fail Scottish building regs.  Would that be allowed in England?

[Declan52]

And don't forget eco house being said every 2 mins which grinded on my ears before the first break.

[Jeremy Harris]

I watched tonight's programme with a growing level of disbelief that anyone could be suckered into filling a house with so much completely pointless "eco junk".  It seemed a triumph of ignoring simple physics in favour of buying into sales hype for expensive, and largely ineffective, technological measures, when a far, far simpler, fabric first approach would have obviated the need for daft extravagances like a 2500 litre thermal store.

 

The house had obvious major airtightness problems, with a total absence of sealing around doors and windows, and even around the wall to roof junction, let alone all the myriad of penetrations through the walls.  The couple were on a tight budget, but opted to spend a massive amount of money on pointless stuff, and neglected to pay any attention, or any expenditure, on the things tht would have really reduced the house energy use. 

 

The final straw was seeing that they had a non-room sealed wood burning stove (which just illustrated how thermally poor the house is), with a very inefficient (and expensive) heat recovery system.

[ProDave]

And mention of T*****l M**s

[Sue B]

Watching the thermal store being lifted had me sitting with my hands over my eyes!  I struggled to believe they hadn’t measured the roof clearance to make sure they could get the thing in place.  

 

I didn’t see which MVHR they had and haven’t ever seen the vent that goes in the roof before.  Sad to see it’s not a great system @JSHarris - I’d love to put our vents up there rather than visible on the side of the house and quite liked the look of the round thing ?

[AliG]

Yes indeed. Thermal mass was mentioned.

 

The build had me looking up hempcrete. It seems to be used more for ecological than efficiency considerations, although U-values seem decent at the thickness used. The guy said that he didn’t want to live in a house surrounded by chemicals. Then you could clearly see the PIR insulation in the roof, never mind the now well known issues with their wood burner.

 

Much as I was impressed at him building his own house, I would have thought he would have been better off working and paying someone else to build.

 

Looking again this morning at the finished house though, the detailing was very rough. I don’t know what was going on with the tiling in the kitchen.

 

There was a discussion about running costs being zero. They said they hadn’t had any bills, but they also said they had been in for 6 weeks and it wasn’t winter. At one point he said the thermal store would be heated by the gas boiler as well as solar panels and the wood burner. They said if they kept using logs they wouldn’t have any bills. From a quick google buying logs costs almost as much as gas so I’m not clear what they meant by this.

 

It cost between 200 and 300k. How can you not know to that level of accuracy. Did they include his foregone wages? The budget wax again stupid. They knew the size of the house. You couldn’t buy the materials for 60k. Never mind build it.

 

As ever I do enjoy GD. I suspect that if they got more accurate and technical then it might not be so fun to watch. Again it wasn’t really my kind of house, but each to their own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 19, 2019 by AliG

[Jeremy Harris]

8 hours ago, Sue B said:

I didn’t see which MVHR they had and haven’t ever seen the vent that goes in the roof before.  Sad to see it’s not a great system @JSHarris - I’d love to put our vents up there rather than visible on the side of the house and quite liked the look of the round thing ?

 

 

You can easily fit normal MVHR vents through the roof if you wish, there are several roof mounting vent designs available, some of which look quite discreet.  You will need to space them apart, though, to make sure the fresh air intake is a couple of metres away from the exhaust.

[Russell griffiths]

That last place was probably the most poorly finished, load of crap I have seen in a long time. 

 

I hope he never has to change that thermal store once the house is finished. 

[hallega]

Not my cup of tea, I would have been right on the finish, it appears to be very rough, interesting with the hempcrete, like building a cob wall... I actually fell asleep in the middle of that programme, although it could have been something to do with grouting tiles in the silo bathroom (not done that for ages!)..... No...not for me!

[ProDave]

So was this MVHR designed on a Dalek some form of passive ventilation stack that does not use any electricity?  And yes I would have been tempted to have attached a sink plunger to it to get the neighbours talking.

 

Agreed some internal "finishes" were rough, but they did say it was not finished.

 

All the wood I burn is free, but I suspect free firewood is not so abundant in Oxfordshire.

[Gone West]

9 hours ago, Sue B said:

I didn’t see which MVHR they had and haven’t ever seen the vent that goes in the roof before.  Sad to see it’s not a great system @JSHarris - I’d love to put our vents up there rather than visible on the side of the house and quite liked the look of the round thing ?

Siting them on the roof is not the best place for maintenance such as cleaning insect screens.

[Declan52]

1 hour ago, Russell griffiths said:

That last place was probably the most poorly finished, load of crap I have seen in a long time. 

 

I hope he never has to change that thermal store once the house is finished. 

Wouldn't need to every get a leak or it will be a tsunami coming down the stairs.

[Jeremy Harris]

The MVHR used is a Ventive Windhive, up to 72% efficient at best, which is pretty grim, pretty much any other MVHR will run at 80%, many will run at around 85%.

 

However, given the pretty dire airtightness (apparent from just the shots showing the absence of decent sealing anywhere) the efficiency of the Windhive almost certainly doesn't make much difference, so the thing is most probably a bit of a white elephant (or should that be Dalek?).

 

Why a family of four needs a 2,500 litre thermal store, in a house that apparently has a gas boiler, is a bit beyond me.  It may well better utilise the heat from their solar thermal system, but still seems a heck of an overkill to me, especially for a house being built on a really tight budget.

[Declan52]

Why is it that when you watch these programmes about a self build and they have budget issues they always blow money on stupid stuff. You would think some one on the grand design team would have a word and say maybe you should look at this type of thing as yours mate is way too expressive and won't actually work. But then that wouldn't be good TV I suppose.

Plus they are bound to have watched grand designs and seen how things can go tits up really easily but they never seem to see it when it's heading that road on their build. Some times you just need to take a step back and question each decision you make before you give the go ahead.

[Jeremy Harris]

It seemed pretty clear that this couple had been led by the nose by whoever was advising them, and they just didn't question whether or not the advice they were getting was sensible for their house and budget.  Their "eco awareness" seemed pretty flawed, with so many contradictions that I had to conclude that they really didn't know what was harmful for the environment, and their health, and what wasn't.

 

It was a pity, as their tight budget could have been used to build a house with a significantly lower through life environmental impact if they'd taken the time to properly research what would best fit their requirements and budget.

 

Their build costs were around the same as ours, yet I strongly suspect the environmental impact of their house is a lot greater, may two or three times greater, perhaps.

[AliG]

Part of the trouble is what exactly is an “eco” house.

 

Is it one that uses minimum energy to run, or to build or is it one made from the most natural materials? And who is providing independent evidence for what is being used.

 

It’s a bit like electric cars. Some people will argue that they are not “eco” die to how they are built and then you have to get into arguments about embedded energy, rare earth metals, etc

[newhome]

2 hours ago, AliG said:

Part of the trouble is what exactly is an “eco” house.

 

 

The VAT Tribunal decided the following (although it's equally vague) but it seems to be defined by 'purpose' in their view. 

 

Quote

We agree with Mr Cosham that now, and more importantly, at the time when he claimed the VAT incurred on the electric blinds in December 2014, sustainable homes or eco-builds would be generally recognised as a distinct category of buildings ....

 

It is built with specific components in order to achieve a specific purpose and is more analogous to the sheltered housing referred to in the Taylor Wimpey decision. Our conclusion on this point is that eco-build homes can be treated as a distinct type of building for this purpose.

 

 

[Gone West]

The builder is a regular contributor to the GBF. Whilst his build may have used materials and techniques that are unusual I don't see why there is so much criticism. Nobody builds their first self build and gets everything right. There are a myriad ways of building a good house, not just one, so I congratulate him on having a go and producing an interesting looking house. I would be very surprised if any of the houses featured have been signed off by building control so are in an unfinished state.

[ProDave]

Perception is most of it.  Some people perceive "concrete" as bad but Hempcrete as good because it is natural.  

 

The electric car thing is interesting. SWMMBO saw an advert for a "self charging hybrid car" .  "Oh that's a good idea, saves all that messing about plugging it in to charge it"  I had to go through a process of questioning her well how do you think it charges then if you don't plug it in, before the penny dropped.

[Jeremy Harris]

I'm not at all critical of either their aims or the amount of effort they put in, it seemed clear that they worked damned hard to build that house, and all credit to them for that. 

 

What bugs me is that they were on a very tight budget, yet seem to have been persuaded to spend large sums of money on elements that don't seem to match their stated goals at all.  For example, why install a very expensive, bulky and heavy, 2,500 litre thermal store?  A family of four just won't need anything like this capacity, and they could have saved a lot of money, and gained some useful space, by fitting something better matched to their requirement.  Someone must have convinced them that this was a good idea on their limited budget.

 

In contrast, the timber/hempcrete construction method looked to be a pretty good choice, as it matched their requirements and budget well; it was probably the best way to build the sort of house they wanted, for the money they had,IMHO.

 

Wood stoves are always going to be controversial, as despite there being hard evidence that they cause harmful air pollution, and aren't sustainable here in the UK (unless you happen to also own around the 15 acres or so of woodland needed to sustain a single stove), fitting one is still a matter of personal choice, a bit like choosing to drive a diesel car, perhaps.

 

The Ventive heat recovery system is both very expensive and inefficient, so seems another odd choice for anyone on a tight budget.  The apparent absence of normal airtightness detailing also made me wonder whether it was even worth fitting heat recovery ventilation, especially a system like the Ventive, that is highly dependent on natural convection to work.

 

The internal 2,000 litre internal rainwater harvesting system really gave me the willies, though.  The idea of storing 2,000 litres of water at room temperature, in vented tanks inside the house, then using that to flush toilets, creating an aerosol of fine droplets into the air every time, doesn't seem to fit in with their desire for the house to be healthy to me.  Rainwater harvesting is fine, but it seems essential to keep the storage tanks as cool as possible, as the last thing you need is to create an environment that's near-ideal for the growth of harmful bacteria inside the house.  There's normally a requirement to run Legionella control measures on any water system that stores water between 20°C and 45°C, as Legionella thrive between these temperatures.  If the tanks are kept below 20°C then Legionella will remain dormant, which is one reason why a lot of rainwater harvesting systems use external, or better still, buried, tanks.  With tanks up in the roof space, it seems very probable that they will sit above 20°C, so will provide an ideal environment for bacterial growth. The tanks looked to be 1,000 litre IBCs, so they couldn't have been heated to 60°C periodically.  I guess they must be just living with the risk.