Do a google image search for shipping container homes and look at the huge range of styles that have been created.
I’d love to put together a home out of shipping containers, being modular it wouldn’t be to difficult to extend later on.

Doubted it as an idea
Loved it when complete.
We need more interesting buildings.

Amazing location, lovely textures and colours but **** all to do with containers really.

Best Grand Designs I can remember. Stunning and cheap. Want one.

Great result. Should have had the naked carbon weave bath though.

…but could have been cheaper had he just stacked them as they were designed to be. Adding all that steel changed their essential character surely? Great looking in the end I agree.

I loved the episode. But for the basic price of the shell, I wonder if it would be cheap to build that in wood? Looked great at the end though.

Given that he already had the land was the build cheap really? How is it secured to the ground – doesn’t need foundations does it?

How is it secured to the ground – doesn’t need foundations does it?

I take it you didn’t watch the 5 minutes dedicated to the digging out and installing the concrete pads then?

No I missed the first half

That’ll be why then 🙂 He dug out some really tough stone (which he later used for the drystone wall) and put 6 or 8 pads in I think.

Liked the finished design although it wasn’t really such a bargain considering they had the land already and it was hardly a family home.

I think the shipping containers were just for a headline – by the time they had been altered I can’t help but think he could have made a bespoke structure (with for dimensional freedom) that used the same type of framework that made the containers strong. I’m sure it was a good investment for his architects practise though!

I think it was essentially a cheap build but really would be if you removed 50k of bath and kitchen and replaced them with normal examples

Maybe the use of containers got around some rule on a technicality – perhaps it classes it as an agricultural building and allowed the development?

I missed it last night, anyone know when its repeated?

Teetosugars – watch it on 4OD

Containers are great, they give you a nice strong(ish) structure and you can do all the awkward bits off site and it’s quickly watertight. Granted that in this case he made life a bit awkward for himself with the 90 degree stack but a bit of steel soon sorts that out. I think £20k for most of the structure was a pretty good deal.

Loved the finished building, especially the external finishes and his work ethic was incredible. I’d need a bit more space myself but thought the look was fantastic.

Questions I asked were:
It’s onto rock so why all the excavation? Was it leveling the site rather than putting the pads in as Kevin seemed to suggest?

How long until he gets bored of that bath? (a decent shower would be a much better idea IMHO)

£30k on a kitchen??!!!!!!! Did look nice though.

Does he ever just wear jeans and a T-shirt? Best dressed farmer I’ve ever seen.

Going to watch it tonight. Sounds good but I’m very dubious about his costs. I’ve just finished a container office building and if you discount luxury £30,000 kitchens and baths etc. the square metre rate wasn’t close to that.

I think cheers_drive has probably hit the nail on the head though. There are probably cheaper and more efficient ways of doing it, but where’s the fun in that. There is a certain amount of weight to the recycling argument too I guess.

Looking forward to watching it intermitently tonight as 4OD crashes at every ad break on the PS3 🙄

Well I was right about 2 things – there is no way it cost 130k and it took about 2 hours to watch due to the ps3 crashing. 🙂

I thought what he did was really nice in the end though. How I wish my family had an idylic site that I could build my house on for free.

Yea, agree about the cost. I’m sure Kevin made a comment about hard work and “good will”, I read that as free labour/work/etc.

I quite liked it. I makes my idea seem credible, of making starter homes from containers. I reckon you could do them cheap, would be quick, much of the work done off site, and with a limited set of required skills. Whats not to like. Just need to find the right plot…

I think Irish building regs being slightly more lenient in terms of thermal efficiency, DDA compliance and a few other things in comparison to Scotland probably helped in keeping the costs down slightly too.

I’d be pretty skeptical about containers being the answer to low cost housing. The only way to keep costs down is to do as little altering of the containers as possible and that would mean meeting space standards for low cost housing would be a problem. I do think creating modules off site is a good idea though.

Loved it, the bit where they made a big thing about ‘oooh are the containers going to collapse when stacked at 90 degrees’ was stupid though as it’s just a steel frame cube & beams and some pretty basic calcs. to provide support. Guess they needed a ‘jeopardy’ section to each programme 😉

So was the roof timbers falling from the crane in last week’s episode added for jeopardy too? 😀

Yeah Kevin had sawn halfway through the lifting pins 😉
and had told the other lot to build on fast erroding soil 😀

I’d be pretty skeptical about containers being the answer to low cost housing.

Agreed. They are a niche solution that can be used to create a cheap one off solution.

But if you are building a load of low cost housing the benefits of containers such as prefab and cheap materials can be accessed without the downsides of containers.

I do think the housing industy can learn a lot from the way containers are built though. Mechanisation and automation of contruction has got to be the answer with a better use of prefab modules made in a factory.

The German, Huff (sp?) house modular concept is a good one that has been used on a number of the previous builds.

I think automation and factory forming houses in modules is a good idea but the level of investment required is so huge that there isn’t a method that is particularly cheap at the moment. Whereas with cars generally everyone wants a similar thing ie. something with 4 wheels that’ll fit around 4 people and a dog in, with houses the variation can be much more significant and costly. Equally all cars are designed for standard roads whereas there is a huge variation in site locations and conditions. Our willingness to pay for good design and construction is completely different here also. Many people are willing to pay £50k for an Audi/BMW because it’s supposedly better designed/value than the equivalent Ford but then buy a poorly constructed Barratt noddy house with no design input whatsoever.

I’m sure we’ll get there in the end but by that time we’ll be 3D printing houses rather than constructing them manually. 🙂

The German, Huff (sp?) house modular concept is a good one that has been used on a number of the previous builds.

Yeah, if I ever get the chance to do a self-build I will be looking to one of those.

I think automation and factory forming houses in modules is a good idea but the level of investment required is so huge that there isn’t a method that is particularly cheap at the moment. Whereas with cars generally everyone wants a similar thing ie. something with 4 wheels that’ll fit around 4 people and a dog in, with houses the variation can be much more significant and costly

This is very true.

Building houses is much more akin to rapid prototyping than actual manufacturing. However this ispartly because this type of manufacturing technique is currently the preserve of the type of people who want one off bespoke design since it is easier to be “funky” than with traditional on site building methods.

Meanwhile Barrat and the like churn out identikit houses and people lap them up. If one of these large scale house builders was to invest in prefab they could utilise their comonallity to reduce costs.

OK, so maybe shipping containers aren’t the solution to cheap housing. But, what I don’t understand, is why someone hasn’t come up with a cheap pre-fab solution. Things like Huff are great, but cater for the opposite end of the market, with options to suit every desire. Surely there is a market for a basic house, no options, just a standard design. Doesn’t seem like rocket science to me, but guess I’m missing something.

Surely there is a market for a basic house, no options, just a standard design.

Better?

Hah – just seen this!

COPYCAT!!!!

Looked great to me though of course not original.

Budget was hugely suspect even without the bath and kitchen. Windows and cladding didn’t look cheap and 35 people on site at once? That’s a lot of cost even if just for a few days.

Likewise building regs – staircase, open window, insulation all looked suspect

End result looked great on the surface though

Yeah, if I ever get the chance to do a self-build I will be looking to one of those.

Doesn’t getting some German company to manufacture it, ship across from the continent and install it for you kinda defeat the idea of a self-build? 😛

Doesn’t getting some German company to manufacture it, ship across from the continent and install it for you kinda defeat the idea of a self-build?

Probably, but I am sure you know what I mean… 😛

Probably, but I am sure you know what I mean…

I do, to be fair the Huf haus would be pretty high up on our list once the lottery win comes in. Plus dabbling in the dream car link on here too 😆

“I think automation and factory forming houses in modules is a good idea but the level of investment required is so huge that there isn’t a method that is particularly cheap at the moment.”

Not trying to be difficult but look here

http://www.envirohomes.co.uk/

Mildly interested in that link. Any idea how much they cost?

Always a bit skeptical about claims of vacuum insulation. I used to think it was the holy grail. I now think it is the holy grail, and not yet discovered. I think all the panels leak over time, so not as environmentally friendly long term. Great for certain applications though.

Also, they are still offering individual bespoke buildings. Why don’t they do a standard one for a fixed price excluding ground works etc.

Kevin Watleys character in the last series of Auf Wiedsein Pet sold prefab’ homes from Scandanavia

I drove past a homes shop in Sweden Once

Kingspan are offering vacuum panel insulation now – “If installed correctly and protected from damage and penetration, can provide reliable long-term thermal performance over the lifetime of the building.”

They suggested it to me for use in a floor under concrete. Might just work there – would the concrete itself would be enough that even if the sealing on the panel itself failed it would still maintain the vacuum?