MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
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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
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.
Of all the 'fun to be annoyed by' things this week (there were very few actually), this was the main one. The wife wondered whether the kids were home-schooled or went to school in bubbles... I guess the idea is that if you can have all night in a clean place, you might do better during the hours you're in the rest of the world, but still.
Also, v disappointed - they hired project managers, everything worked and was on time, no discussion of windows, no odd design choices and so on. I want to watch *Grand* Designs, not Designs That Actually Are Well Planned and Go Pretty Much to Plan!
Is anyone else enjoying Impossible Builds on More4 with Charlie Luxton?
Nope - I gave up on the one I watched when they were being all dramatic about the impossibility of building a conventional house of bricks and motor on Harris 'cos it was so remote - the delivered the crappy prefab onto site in a big lorry. The site was 4 miles from the ferry terminal and there is simply zero issue in getting conventional building materials to site. Perfectly straightforward build of a prefab house on an accessible site. From the lead in bits I thought it was going to be on one of the islands accessible only by a wee boat or helicopter.
Perfectly straightforward build of a prefab house on an accessible site.
I saw that one, I was amazed they spent so much money on a huge concrete block for the groundworks, when they could easily have had a bunch of holes drilled and filled with concrete, forming piles that the floor could have been laid on using a steel framework just like the rest of the house. It would have saved a lot of time and money. Something like this house constructed from shipping containers - which would have been my choice anyway, each module could be built off-site, delivered craned into place on the piles and services connected, and moved into straight away, with extra modules delivered and placed over time.
Anyone think that there is a serious lack of planning going on this week??? Do they not watch old episodes?
As always it's the bit of the story that isn't told, like her extra hours following the husbands job loss and why the architect mate wasn't used straight from the off. 3 years in a caravan
earplugs not in properly !
Yeah, I'm not convinced that was full picture.
That said - budgeting without finding extra £100k down back of sofa, no bling kitchens, lack of architect show-off projects, no pregnancy and no throwing £20k on lovely landscaping to finish. Rather refreshing for GD.
Never answered how they got planning? My understanding is that its not easy to get planning on agricultural land? Otherwise we'd all be doing it 🙂
why the architect mate wasn’t used straight from the off.
They touched on it, basically she was working on other (presumably more lucrative) contracts. I’m half expecting the mates house to be on in a week or two!
husband seems to have done alright out of the whole affair....
He was wetter than an otter's pockets.
Nice house though.
Also, what was going on with the original brief and Mystery Colin?
Unhappy Couple : We have £250k
Mystery Colin : I have designed a £490k house
Unhappy Couple : Smashing! Let's go ahead then. Sell our house, go through Planning and move into a ratty caravan with our young family for many years... but we still only have £250k
He was worse than her though. He only stuck 4 nails in on the whole job. If it was me unemployed and freezing to death I'd be labouring 24 hours a day to get out of the shit.
If she had found the nail gun I suspect that the fifth nail would have been between his eyes and the patio would have got more expensive.
It could, of course, all been in the edit and C4 just made them look like that.
Harry - you're forgetting the bit where they didn't actually have £250k......
I'm glad they showed Mystery Colin, so anyone currently considering his services could see what a total bell-end he really is. What is it about architects on GD not listening?!
End result was good for them I thought, fitted in well to the farm surroundings, modest but special, I liked the natty balcony/ terrace.
My understanding on planning, is that if you're the farmer, and you can show you have to live on the farm, you may get planning. I couldn't buy a field and claim to be a farmer and get planning.
The same with building barns and other farming type structures.
Although the second design on this job was okay, no actually I quite liked it. It winds me up that planning is generally only given in places like this for "grand design" type places - so basically if you have the money for a large project thats fine but if you just want a small place and live off the land sustainably, no that won't be allowed 😒
Dickyboy,
I think what you refer to is a section in the planning regs that allows buildings of 'architectural merit' (AKA big, expensive) houses to be built in the countryside. I don't think this was built under that, just a farm house built for a farmer.
But I could be wrong.
Harry – you’re forgetting the bit where they didn’t actually have £250k……
They had a mortgage approved for £250k, based on both their incomes. Then the fella lost his job, so offer removed.
Why didn't they move in with her mom ? Big house just up the lane .
@richmars - yes that, it was touched on at the beginning of the program by the mk1 architect. Maybe because they had planning permission for the grander design they were able to pull at the heart strings & consequently get this one through.
We too wondered why persevere in a cold tin can and not move in with her mother, but hubby didn't seem keen on her when Kevin mentioned granny flat so maybe there's issues?
Why didn’t they move in with her mom ? Big house just up the lane
Would you want to share a house with them?
That black corrugated cladding looks as if it will absorb a lot of solar radiation during the summer. It doesn't matter how well the walls and roof are insulated; that heat will collect and the entire box will get hotter and hotter.
But it set off the red cedar cladding inside the balcony.
Never answered how they got planning? My understanding is that its not easy to get planning on agricultural land? Otherwise we’d all be doing it
I think the critical bit was at the beginning when they said they had a small holding that was turning a modest profit. I think that is the key.
I liked the house they ended up with, modest sensible and nice. Not your typical GD where you need intercoms to find each other. As said the original architect was a fool. Architects must hate Grand Designs as they all come across as not having a clue about how much things cost to build. The second one was very good in this one. I did get the impression the client would have lived in anything as it was all about the location and not the building for her
Architects must hate Grand Designs as they all come across as not having a clue about how much things cost to build
A good few years ago on GD there was a house built on Skye to a tight budget , the bedroom was kind of in the roof and and one of the owners asked the architect if he could put a roof window in the design. He basically said "No, you can't afford it".
The builder on Skye was also also probably the best one I have seen on GD
Haven't seen the whole of last night's but her language was telling. It was her house on her grandads farm and her children. Second husband not getting on with her mother? He was a touch weak.
The reveal was right at the end, when Kev does the monologue. The mother had a self-built house on the land and I would bet my right obllock that she sold granddad's farmhouse and land to pay for it, hence her desire to buy back the farm and have her own house.
1/4 of the programme gone and all they've done is... nowt. Nada. Zilch
I reckon the twin with the house side on to the pond got the much better deal!
That's just round the corner from me. I watched it go up and thought it was a warehouse/ factory.
I liked that.
But no pregnancy?
Standards Kev, standards.. 🙄
slacking indeed kevin, not even one baby, should have been a high chance of 4 on this one.
Really? Milf quotient was waaay too high.
Did well to get a 25 ton steel frame for £42k, though i bet they painted straight over that mill scale and surface rust 🙄
That’s just round the corner from me. I watched it go up and thought it was a warehouse/ factory
Any of your neighbours expecting?
I liked this weeks episode. I did prefer number 1's house (the twin with the wife), number 2's (with the girlfriend) place was a bit pizza express/shop like for me.
I did chuckle at "we are going to build for xx per M" without getting any quotes to find out what the work would cost. Hi Tesco, yes, I know it says £9,99 but I only want to pay £7...
Was that really a bath in the bedroom that I saw, def not my cup of tea this week.
Steel stairs and concrete stairs.. it's a no from me. Twin hipster douchebag episode.
Nice views over the pond, houses were not furnished/finished really....I think they need some softening but that's personal choice. Not the most interesting episode.
Does anyone else think that this series seems to focus more on the sob stories/struggles of people building a house rather than the actual building of the house? Could fit all the building shots of the whole series into a 30 minute slot. I want to see more of the craftsmanship that goes into building houses, not shots of people talking about money.
He’s losing his touch, I reckon. Usually we have a build/pregnancy factor of almost unity. This series, he has let not only us - but the property owners down. His testosterone levels must be on the wane...
the coincident factor in all of these programmes is the size - the self-builders are always undone by rapidly escalating costs because they request 4m+ ceiling heights so the error magnitude blows the budget. so they end up with bare walls etc because they are going to have to live with it because they're skint.
I agree with Bavariangaz - more building focus, but I imagine the contractors say TTFO to protect their own professional reputation. it would be good to have a review programme(s) and have hindsight advice.
I don't know about Kev losing his touch, he may not have got her pregnant but he managed to add 2 kids in the 1 hour episode! That's going some by any standards.
We've recently watched two episodes where the houses have been clad in black corrugated material, one in plastic and last night's in steel. Last night's houses were also steel-framed. Having a pal who owns a steel and glass flat at the top of a building in the middle of Leeds I can tell you that no matter how well insulated, solar gain makes those modern buildings unbearably hot in summer while all the glass and steel makes them freezing in winter.
I did like the "industrial" look of the interiors with hanging strip lights, exposed pipework and conduit and will be having that in the dream house in Scotland, but only in the well-insulated larch-clad gym / workshop / pottery studio!
Just watched Sundays GD and nearly spat my tea out as Steph is an old GF!! he was definitely a bit wet and not her type 🙂
At least I know I could live the Grad Designs lifestyle by putting a sofa and tv in the warehouse at work. Plenty of exposed brickwork and cabling there. Hmm not for me. Previous builds this series I've liked though.
Steph is an old GF!!
Wow! So many questions... that I'm not going to ask.
I think the only reason that "soft bloke" was still alive (at the time of filming) was that she was fattening him up to feed her young.
it's the natural order of things. Post industrialisation we had masses of warehouses and nowhere to live so we converted them all into accommodation. Now we're building accommodation that looks and behaves like warehouses.
But they'll be laughing, how many feature pallets of beans can they get straight in through their bifold doors and stacked under their 8m ceiling when the brexocalypse happens, whereas I've got a small cupboard.
How massively over budget this week? And what environment impact pouring all that concrete
Agree about the concrete. Loved the bit in Rom skatepark though. Visited that many times in my younger days. 🤘
I was in a meeting with the Cemex Technical guy last week at Cambridge University, talking about real hi-tech stuff. Not concrete with bits of paperclip in 😉
Nuclear power station.
I don't doubt the technology but domestic doesn't seem to be the best use, the design is overly complex , all those levels seem to be fussy and for all of his love of curves in the skate park there are none here.
I hope there is no mercury in those kitchen units
50s/60 chemistry labs.
Concrete rot in 20 years. I do love a skate park thou
Hmmm I liked the couples idea but I think he completely lost the idea why he liked concrete. He should have used all the curves he loved in the skate park, instead he got a badly finished concreate block with a harsh interior. Although the kitchen was okay. He must earn a pretty penny doing that diving.
Looks dreadful. Where is the organic element he loved so much...? Inside looks like it’s already damp and the finish is poor.
Abysmal. That budget, no kevin offspring . A banksy on the wall maybe?
My god that’s ugly.
Awful. One of the worst I can remember.
The looks are hurting my eyes and the acoustics especially in the kitchen diner were hurting my ears. I think it would make me ill to live there. Pigmented render inside and a nice floor covering may help.
The only skate park that looks like is The South Bank.
Looks like it smells of piss.
But if you rendered the lot and painted it white ld move in tomorrow.
It looked like a U-Boat pen.
Good luck trying to sell that in the future...
There is a silver lining to this build, it’s been reported they’ve just signed with a major film studio who are making a feature about a dystopian future, where the world outside has collapsed and a family has no choice but to try and survive in a bunker, surrounded by broken and worn out furniture salvaged from the old world. Apparently the film makers are going to save a fortune as they don’t have to dress the set!
All the underfloor heating in the world couldn't make that seem like an agreeable place to live.
Why didn't they just buy a decent house and build a skatepark in the garden?
It must be Lewes thing. That ghastly rusting cheese grater of a place from a few years ago is in the same town.
Not sure about the reclaimed science lab kitchen. As a child of the 80s I wouldn't want to touch my old science lab furniture, let alone prepare food on it. Also, are there be several thousand "Subway Knobs" and messages proclaiming that "Laura is a Slag" scratched into it?
Whatever, it was their money and their choice.
I guess a house doesn’t have to be homely if you only spend 6 months a year in it, the rest of the time being spent in a decompression chamber.
the wife may feel differently in a year or two
Not sure about the reclaimed science lab kitchen. As a child of the 80s I wouldn’t want to touch my old science lab furniture, let alone prepare food on it. Also, are there be several thousand “Subway Knobs” and messages proclaiming that “Laura is a Slag” scratched into it?
I built some exhibition units out of reclaimed Iroko that had previously been the changing room benches from a school. Chiseling 50 years worth of hardened chewing gum off the bottom of each plank was a surprisingly nostalgic olfactory experience.