Grand Designs at Graven Hill starts tonight on Channel 4

[scottishjohn]

JS 

why did you choose blown cellulose rather than the eco beads as used in  beattie system ?

 

 

 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

7 minutes ago, scottishjohn said:

JS 

why did you choose blown cellulose rather than the eco beads as used in  beattie system ?

 

 

Just for the longer decrement delay.  The heat capacity of cellulose is a fair bit higher than bonded EPS beads, so has a much longer decrement delay, even though the U value is similar.

[gravelld]

When they were fitting the insulation in the plywood boxes it looked a bit prone to user error. My wife spotted some gaps. Any reason you couldn't fully box them in and pump them with cellulose/EPS?

Given plywood itself is very airtight, I guess the air tightness layer comes from a mechanical fixing between the boxes? I didn't see any AT membrane.

[Jeremy Harris]

13 minutes ago, gravelld said:

When they were fitting the insulation in the plywood boxes it looked a bit prone to user error. My wife spotted some gaps. Any reason you couldn't fully box them in and pump them with cellulose/EPS?

Given plywood itself is very airtight, I guess the air tightness layer comes from a mechanical fixing between the boxes? I didn't see any AT membrane.

 

If the boxes had holes in the webs then it would seem to be easy to just blow insulation in.  Larger boxes with fewer webs might make this even easier to do. 

[ProDave]

18 minutes ago, gravelld said:

When they were fitting the insulation in the plywood boxes it looked a bit prone to user error. My wife spotted some gaps. Any reason you couldn't fully box them in and pump them with cellulose/EPS?

Given plywood itself is very airtight, I guess the air tightness layer comes from a mechanical fixing between the boxes? I didn't see any AT membrane.

The Outside of the plywood boxes was just covered in a membrane. you would need something a bit stronger if blowing insulation in.

 

[gravelld]

That looked like a wind tightness or weather proof membrane, not an AT one.

[Gone West]

3 hours ago, ProDave said:

The Outside of the plywood boxes was just covered in a membrane. you would need something a bit stronger if blowing insulation in.

 

Knauf Supafil Frame insulation is blown in behind a membrane. It's the system I would have used if not Icynene.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le1MDxtEej0

 

[AliG]

I have just finished watching this and feel bizarrely annoyed.

 

So one couple without an architect managed to design and build their own house using fairly standard construction methods for a reasonable cost and well below the market value. It was a very nice house.

 

The other couple with the advice of an architect built an "experimental" house which despite being small, cheaply finished and supposedly built with volunteer labour ended up ridiculously expensive. It was of an entirely non standard construction method that looked insubstantial and prone to perhaps needing excessive maintenance. It would be very difficult to remortgage and resell. Building a house at 24 you would think this would be an important consideration.

 

So who is responsible? Did they want to build using this method or were they badly advised by the architect. Why did they not know that they needed sprinklers. They had built an open plan wooden box. The architects specialise in this, you'd think they would know.

 

I would really like to know who's fault it is and think Kevin perhaps needs to ask some more probing questions sometimes. I also don't understand why he is so enamoured with unusually built houses sometimes. A house is most people's largest asset and not a piece of art. Of course if you can get it right you can get something that turns out both beautiful and a great investment, some houses built on the show over the years have been stunning, but being different for difference's sake is not a great idea.

 

I really cannot comprehend how that house cost £200,000 to build.

[Ferdinand]

2 hours ago, AliG said:

I really cannot comprehend how that house cost £200,000 to build.

 

Perhaps they found a pipeline and had to move it ?

[newhome]

2 hours ago, AliG said:

Did they want to build using this method or were they badly advised by the architect. 

 

Says he was the project architect on his Twitter account. Before he locked down his social media accounts it said he went to Sheffield Uni and then to an architecture school. It was his GF I felt sorry for. Put a lot of the money in, and was no doubt led along by him. I also thought the programme portrayed her as a bit dim when also on social media he had congratulated her on 10 GCSEs with A*s and As and she had ‘done better than him’. 

 

Seems like he is proud of his box! 

 

[Ferdinand]

8 hours ago, JSHarris said:

If the boxes had holes in the webs then it would seem to be easy to just blow insulation in.  Larger boxes with fewer webs might make this even easier to do. 

 

They actually all had carrying slots, so that should be possible with a little enlargement of the slots if oriented outwards. I suppose the insulation could be fitted before they went into the wall. And could the "boxing in" be used to hold the wall together (maybe not)?

 

I thought that they did OK, and that the problem was the lack of an advisory HOG. The main issue seemed to be the initial overoptimistic forecast, and inexperience.

 

To my eye they skimped on the screw quality, and it was strange that they had non-collated screwdrivers. 28,000 high quality screws would only be about £100 extra over cheap ones.

 

Ferdinand

 

Edited April 26, 2019 by Ferdinand

[AliG]

@newhome some good investigating there. Kevin described them as having no construction experience, despite him being a manager for a developer. This makes that comment seem even stranger.

 

His partner did seem a bit taken along for the ride, but who am I to comment, my wife would probably say the same. Much of the time it seems that one half of the couple is the driving force behind a self build. The trouble is they get the blame when it doesn't go well.

[newhome]

49 minutes ago, AliG said:

His partner did seem a bit taken along for the ride, but who am I to comment, my wife would probably say the same. Much of the time it seems that one half of the couple is the driving force behind a self build. The trouble is they get the blame when it doesn't go well.

 

Yep, been there done that too! Unfortunately I ended up having to finish mine and there are still bits internally that I’ve no clue about. Moral of the story always involve the other person enough that they know what’s going on or document it all. 

 

 

[Gone West]

10 hours ago, newhome said:

Moral of the story always involve the other person enough that they know what’s going on or document it all. 

Yup, Wendy is happy that she knows how everything works. We have a straightforward heating, DHW, ventilation system with nothing bespoke. It was one of Wendy's must haves, agreed before we started on the build.

[newhome]

1 hour ago, PeterStarck said:

Yup, Wendy is happy that she knows how everything works. We have a straightforward heating, DHW, ventilation system with nothing bespoke. It was one of Wendy's must haves, agreed before we started on the build.

 

For me hindsight is a wonderful thing unfortunately. I could never have envisaged that my hubby wouldn’t be around to finish the build and then when he got sick he said he would go through everything with me ‘when the time came’. But admitting when that time was didn’t happen as to him I think it was a sign of defeat, and then later he was on so many drugs he couldn’t even log onto his bank account let alone document the build. It’s not too terrible TBH now that the heating is fixed. It’s just really the ST, the electrics in the garage, the MHVR and numerous bits of wiring that I’m not sure about. 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

Anyone spot one of my section drawings that I annotated up for building control in tonight's show?

 

Blink and you'd have missed it!

 

(yes, it was very briefly shown on a desk in the MBC factory in Gloucester, and yes, they did ask me if they could use it, ages ago)

 

 

[Ferdinand]

2 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

Anyone spot one of my section drawings that I annotated up for building control in tonight's show?

 

Blink and you'd have missed it!

 

(yes, it was very briefly shown on a desk in the MBC factory in Gloucester, and yes, they did ask me if they could use it, ages ago)

 

 

 

Bugger. Forgot that it was a Thursday again.

 

F

[Russell griffiths]

18 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

Anyone spot one of my section drawings that I annotated up for building control in tonight's show?

 

Blink and you'd have missed it!

 

(yes, it was very briefly shown on a desk in the MBC factory in Gloucester, and yes, they did ask me if they could use it, ages ago)

 

 

I did 

[ProDave]

I did wonder if that was an MBC frame, but slotted into a steel building frame, slightly different way of doing it.

 

Self build relationships never cease to amaze me.  Let's build a house together. Oh I will bugger off to Moscow for 3 years and leave you to build the house without me.

 

The other thing that strikes me, is time and time again the people building these first 10 houses say what a lovely peaceful location with fantastic views. but hold on what will it be like when all 2000 houses are built there and you no longer look at empty fields but other houses.

[recoveringbuilder]

Both things I just said tonight but at least they’re still together, and exactly what I was thinking about the beautiful view, maybe won’t be so beautiful once all the rest of the houses are there.

would have liked to see the young couple finishing though but maybe we’ll get to see it at the end 

[Visti]

17 minutes ago, ProDave said:

The other thing that strikes me, is time and time again the people building these first 10 houses say what a lovely peaceful location with fantastic views. but hold on what will it be like when all 2000 houses are built there and you no longer look at empty fields but other houses.

Those 10 houses will not have anything built Infront of them as they're in the northern fringe, so they've got a sweet deal. All of that space is protected for newts, an orchard or privately owned farm land to the farm just on the other side of the trees is the distance.

 

The rest of us are paying x2.5 that in a more congested part... ?

[newhome]

I just caught up with the last episode. I really liked the house the older couple were building, and he seemed like a really lovely guy too. The other house, well you couldn't really tell what that was going to be like as it just wasn't far enough along.

 

@Visti are the houses that are not yet complete on the programme further along now or was the latest filming quite recent? Wonder if the guy from episode 2 is still living in a shell with no bathroom etc? 

[Visti]

@newhome those 10 are all complete as far as I am aware. Grand designs just decided they didn't want to wait any longer for the final homes to complete, and Graven Hill we're quite desperate for them to air for marketing purposes, meaning the tail end of some of the builds didn't make it in.

[NSS]

Just caught up with last week's episode. The older couple (albeit younger than me) reminded me so much of what we set out to do and why. Like them, there simply wasn't a house we could buy that adequately ticked the boxes we needed to tick. Okay, they went about it a different way (SIPS as opposed to TF, a lift rather than a ground floor bedroom suite, coated rather than SageGlass and he was far less 'hands on' than I was) but hopefully they've achieved a similar outcome in terms of meeting the needs of her health conditions.

[recoveringbuilder]

Well! Quite fancy one of those modular homes!