That 250 is gonna eat into the budget....
Imagine how incredible that living space would have been if it was all glass.
id have sold the rental house to keep that.
Meh.
Over weathly, overstretched, oversized and unfinished box.
The wood panels looked stuck on, compared to the flush floating glass.
Kitchen cupboards were nice.
@klunk - yes it was. I remember really disliking the owners and wondering why they made such an enormous house that only looked nice from one angle outside.
The IoW property cost £3.3m ( https://onthewight.com/grand-designs-isle-of-wight-house-photos-stunning/) selling for £3.95m. It'll be interesting to see the spreadsheet bottom line after the sale
Imagine how incredible that living space would have been if it was all glass.
id have sold the rental house to keep that.
Or at least kept the glass that wasn't behind the steel columns!
So far I've been disappointed with this series - not nearly enough focus on triple-glazed glass panels from Germany, for example. But last night's was a doozy. Seeing the furniture (and full-grown people) against the walls showed that the size was ridiculous, and you wonder how well they might have been able to finish it if they'd done a normal sized house...
too big and not keen on the exterior wood cladding in such amounts....if only it had more glass, but failing that I think some clean white rendered bits maybe. I was quite taken by the plywood cladding inside, but again perhaps overdone. What window and lovely view though!
I liked the guy - he had a good bond with the contractors and was genuinely gutted by Kens passing.
I think it wouldn't be that difficult to add more glass in a year or so when funds allowed (and finish the interior ceiling)
It was like an airport, a cool Scandinavian one, but still an airport. I'd have gone a bit smaller with more windows and Mrs Spider was concerned about their heating bills.
Each to their own eh?
They were all nice people though, both clients and contractors.
I quite liked it, I do wonder how people can start such projects with seemingly little idea of real costs/time when there's potentially so much at stake. He got lucky a few times for sure.
I really liked the plywood cladding although it probably looks better on TV than being right up close to it. The external cladding was a bit meh but not too bad, hopefully done in a way that it can be replaced with glass at some point in the future.
I think it wouldn’t be that difficult to add more glass in a year or so when funds allowed (and finish the interior ceiling)
I thought that too, but might be a way off, given they were £150k over the ‘absolutely no more than that’ £400k budget.
Maybe start playing the euromillions...
he definitely got lucky quite a few times, plastering without a roof, pouring the floor without a roof and before the windows were in despite the glazer telling him not to, was a bit shady.
I wonder about the plan and the costing for these projects, surely anyone wanting to self build should be gorging on old episodes to learn tricks. He was right to listen to the builders but I'm not sure if he had anyone peer review his concept for the ridiculous ceiling height.
the interior and exterior panelling will improve as it ages.
the interior and exterior panelling will improve as it ages.
It'll go see thru?
Lots of calls for more glass in these projects. How can you manage internal heat without resorting to extremely expensive and clever glass? And on a more day to day point, what about privacy when you’ve got huge glass panels?
(I spend far too much time in hotels and have come to dislike the ones with big glass windows and air-con. That sets off my sinusitis and bakes me to death in the summertime. And I’ve also seen a woman walk half naked out of her shower in a Grand Designs type house next to a very busy clifftop walk in Gower. No curtains!)
Which half? Asking for a friend.
Which cliff? Asking for Harry_the_Spider.
West Cliff. Third house along. Can’t miss it - lots of glass and a crowd outside.
Who could moan about this week? Ok some of the art I wouldn't choose but Healthier kids is a win for me
Where do they store bikes? There is always a lack of utility space
We were saying that, the coupe came across as likeable, doing the best for thier kids, making sensible decisions.
Only thing I thought of to whinge about is the £700k they spent on the plot they could relocate to somewhere with better air quality outside of London, and the money saved could go towards setting up their businesses at the new location, but that’s nit picking I guess.
Awaits someone to say that they didn’t go over budget because of brexit, as they claimed...
yes done through necessity and for commendable reasons. build seemed smoth, just threw money at it and got a very high spec finish. Just a compromised location....it is a back garden and the neighbouring houses are very visible.
I liked it, but can’t help think that as soon as the kids play outside/ go to school they’re kinda back to square one with all the allergy issues.
But as for the house?
All that, and in SW London for about £1.3mil? Not bad at all.. it even had a garden FFS😳
Yeh I liked the house in the end. I liked the way that they didn't project manage themselves so Kevin still had a dig saying they would be too busy to supervise the build. Normally when people self manage he criticises them for being amateur project managers!
Yeh they could have saved a lot of London but I suspect they make very good money on their businesses in London and they just wouldn't be as profitable outside of the capital so then I suspect they wouldn't have been able to afford it.
I don't understand how the allergic reactions were reduced so drastically. If they are home educated then I get it but you can't control the environment outside of the house.
Nice build, nice people and very cute kids. Hope it all works out for them.
Liked the house and the family.
Except for cutting the tree down. Didn't they think it may be a bit close and therefore not put the house in the middle of the plot?
I dont understand how the house helps with the allergens. Do they not open the doors or windows? Is the dog the only bug free dog in the world? What happens when they go outside? And the biggest probelm its in London, probably the most polluted space in the country.
I guess it had an impact as kids generally sleep for 10 hours a day, and being able to do so in an environment with filtered air let them recover between school, etc. and led to fewer asthma attacks. The air pollution in London is massive and the particulates are a known cause of asthma in children.
I think the filtration system was the main benefit to them - they could probably have retrofitted that to their existing house and got most of the benefits.
I thought they had a wood burning stove, which is one of the worst things you can have in your house for particulate pollution - like bringing a diesel inside! However, I couldn't see a flue, so I'm guessing it was an electric fakey one.
Anyway, nice couple, competent build and a nice house at the end.
We need a car crash one next week with an obnoxious pratt to redress the balance! 🙂
Yeah liked that one. I thought the house was great, location less so. Really hope it continues to work for them
I thought they had a wood burning stove, which is one of the worst things you can have in your house for particulate pollution
A lot of them are fitted with chimneys.
A lot of them are fitted with chimneys.
It doesn't all go up the chimney, even for a well sealed stove.
The Environment Agency and Public Health England want to ban wood burning stoves not only because they pollute the air outside the home but also inside.
they pollute the air outside the home but also inside.
Clearly *some* soot must end up in the air in the house when it's emptied etc - indeed the hearth needs regular cleaning.
However, in use I'm pretty sure the airflow is out of the house and up the chimney.
So, are we talking about flow of smoke in use into the house or pollution from the messy ash/soot/dusk that gets left behind?
And is it quantified anywhere?
Is a wood burning stove compatible with a sealed house / whole house heat recovery ventilation system? It surely needs to be a very fancy sealed (from the room) stove that doesn't use the room air for combustion.
Ok some of the art I wouldn’t choose but Healthier kids is a win for me
The "art" could have been improved by replacing with a poster of a tennis player scratching her bum. As somebody once said of Tina Turner's house, "I didn't realise you could spend a million dollars in Woolworths". Some of the decor was naff too, but that's all easily fixed and the house looked nice, even without its health benefits (if any).
I did wonder about the dog sneaking into one of the shots. Surely they didn't do all that, but still had a pooch?
So the filter they showed, full of dirt, that was filtering the air entering the house?
So how long does it take to filter the inside when they leave all the doors open?
Shouldn't they have air locks instead of doors?
I can see the point of reducing out-gassing from sofas and carpets, but surely a losing battle filtering the air.
The air system will be constantly pumping air out as well as pumping air in. So even if you have the doors open for a while it should cleanse when the doors are shut. We've got one. It was not installed for the same purpose though. We had loads of condensation and no extraction so rather than fitting typical extraction fans we went a bit further and installed a MVHR system upstairs. It basically pumps fresh filtered air into the bedrooms and takes wet air out of the bathrooms. The outgoing air heats up the incoming air so its energy efficient. It's made a big difference from condensation and mould. It's basically just a step up from positive air ventilation for our house. Their's is a sealed system and ducting through our the whole house so taken a step further again.
Are we to assume all the art was VOC free as well. I know it's picky but you can't have solvent free paint, water is a solvent to water soluble stuff and technically paints don't use solvents are the pigment does not dissolve. (Feel better now)
also didn't see an extractor fan for the hob.
The art will be on loan from her job, with maybe the exception of the painting they paid specific attention to. probably not low VOC paints but they won't be fresh, more likely a load of stuff that's been in the gallery for ages 🙂
You're right about nothing being VOC free, I think the emulsions etc were 'low VOC' rather than zero
And there must have been a hob extractor somewhere, isn't it a building reg now?
Is anyone else enjoying Impossible Builds on More4 with Charlie Luxton?
Also I get their jobs are in London BUT if the children's health was, as the claim, the most important thing. Then plenty of places they could go take a pay cut, yet still have a decent income that wasn't a polluted metropolis.
Indeed. But probably not where a personal trainer and a gallery owner can earn enough to spend £1.3m on a house
Is anyone else enjoying Impossible Builds on More4 with Charlie Luxton?
Yes, they also seem more modest and achievable than many of the grand design projects
