Episode 14 Building Dream Homes

Across the nation architects are building,

designing and transforming the homes we live in...

One day I'm going to live in a house like this

and not just do it for others.

We're following some of those leading the way

in groundbreaking design.

Their jaw would drop if they saw that.

I can't believe it.

We'll be with them every step of the way as they battle with builders,

blue prints and the clients who hire them.

You've got a very strange understanding of the word "today".

Whoa, whoa, whoa!

LOUD CRASH

That's not good.

-It's like working with the Chuckle Brothers.

-Ho, ho, ho!

We're with them as they draw on their seven years of training

to solve everyday problems...

Quick word in his ear, make sure there's no more mishaps.

He's come in on an angle and ripped up the road

but he's now ripped his exhaust pipe off.

Oh, man!

I've said many prayers.

That's amazing!

That's a pretty incredible difference, isn't it?

The fixings alone cost 17 grand.

All in the name of making the properties we dream of a reality.

Today, architect David Blaikie designs a room with a view

as part of a Midlothian house extension...

This sort of wide format window like that captures it rather nicely,

-doesn't it?

-Yeah.

..but a tight budget...

Every penny we can save.

..and an over-enthusiastic owner proves problematic.

And the whole lot just came crashing down.

And in the New Forest, strict regulations

are not the only challenge for architect Wendy Perrin.

The bespoke mobile home she's designing,

turns out to be less mobile than anticipated.

Oh, gosh, it's sliding all over the place.

Ten years ago, Jacqui and Kenny Lorraine

fell for the charm of this former railway house

in Howgate in Scotland.

They love the rural setting of their home,

but since they've had two kids,

they've discovered a snag with the house.

For the two of us it was all right,

but as soon as critters started arriving...

It's just too small. It is literally just space.

This house didn't come with one cupboard, closet,

anywhere to put anything.

I've got no love for this house as it is at the moment.

If I could have knocked it down and started again I would have.

They want to increase their living space

and make the most of the stunning views on their doorstep,

so they've asked architect David Blaikie

to design an extension.

What's sort of extraordinary about this project is that the

original building is a tiny little two bedroom, two-roomed building

that used to be a stop on a railway line.

It wasn't a station - it wasn't big enough to be a station,

so it's called a stop.

In the 1960s, it was extended at the back.

Very, very poor quality,

no insulation in it whatsoever.

We're then coming to the kitchen.

So a much bigger kitchen,

a nice sufficient horseshoe of kitchen units across here.

And then we're giving them a new sitting room which is on

the southwest side of the building, it looks out into their garden.

It's a bigger room than their existing sitting room

by quite some way, but it's just going to focus on the garden

with the sunshine coming in. It's going to be beautiful.

David's planning a radical modern extension that will double the size

of the house and contrast with the original old stone.

It will give them a large new kitchen-diner and living space.

The build is scheduled to take four months

and they aim to complete all the work for £90,000,

which includes the cost for a new kitchen and architect's fees.

Jacqui and Kenny are calling this an austerity extension.

They have a tight budget and big ideas,

so compromises have had to be made.

An example would be the glazing that had been put down in the plans.

It was all going to be timber-framed,

aluminium-clad windows and we were getting quotes back for that.

To do the whole house, some of them were about £18,000 to £20,000.

Uh, and when we started having these discussions about how can we

cut the costs back down, we found out obviously if we did the glazing

in uPVC, our windows would come down to £6,000 to £8,000.

So we're going with uPVC.

With all the details of the budget ironed out,

the build gets under way.

Head contractor Stephen starts to put together the timber frame

on top of the foundations.

David's design starts to take shape immediately.

While work to create the extra living space

is forging ahead outside,

life indoors with two kids and two dogs,

next to a muddy, noisy building site, isn't easy for Jacqui.

The kitchen is basically halved with the partition

and obviously we've lost the family kitchen table

so we can't sit down and have a meal. We can't sit down in here at all.

The washing machine and the dishwasher were never in here.

They were in the utility room which we don't have any more.

Erm, so yeah,

it was everything we had just has been dumped into this area.

I have had smaller kitchens,

to be fair. I have had smaller kitchens but not quite as cluttered.

There won't be anything pokey about Jacqui's new kitchen.

The foundations for it are already down and architect David has come

to site to explain how his design will keep their build on budget.

Did I tell you about the overhanging detail

that we've got on the building?

The point of it is there's less foundations, less brickwork so

it's cheaper down there and you've still got this bigger room up above.

-How does that sound?

-Yep.

The other thing it does, because it's dark brick

and it's underneath a sort of shadow line like that,

it's going to make the timber clad and the zinc parts look as if

they're floating off the ground so that's playing a wee sort of game

against the stone building which is sitting heavily on the ground.

-Yes. Very good, yes.

-A bit of fun there.

I should have told you about that before, shouldn't I?

You're the client, aren't you?

To get everything they want from their home whilst staying in this

dream location, this enterprising family have come up with

a creative solution to help them save cash.

Jacqui and Kenny have got quite a restricted budget.

We knew that from the outset.

So we spent a bit of time with the preferred contractor, Stephen,

looking at elements of the project that Kenny

could actually carry out by himself.

Kenny is an enthusiastic amateur,

I think you'd describe him when it comes to building works.

And he's certainly not scared to get his hands dirty, which is great.

It's the first time I'll have done anything like that,

certainly even in terms of knocking down a wall, I've never done that.

I'm hoping I'm not going to learn by too many mistakes.

Saving money is one thing,

but when owner Kenny and a group of his friends decide to take

on the demolition of the old kitchen wall, things go very, very wrong.

For the past 20 years, Mel Matthews has lived on a stunning five acre

plot of land in the heart of the New Forest in a mobile home.

It can get very cold at night in here,

so I'm not relishing spending too many more nights here.

She's had enough of this draughty way of living

but she loves the plot so much, she doesn't want to leave.

The trouble is she's only allowed to replace her mobile home

with another mobile home.

Undeterred, she's asked award-winning architect

Wendy Perring to produce plans for a bespoke two-bed structure

that will comply with strict New Forest regulations.

The Mobile Homes Act is very, very strict.

It's got to comply with certain dimensions.

Wendy has designed a mobile home like you've never seen before.

Because of the site, we went back to complete, total and utter simplicity.

It is a box but it's a very beautiful, simple box.

The building has to be built in sections

and the last act has got to be the coming together of the sections.

We've tried to replicate the wood.

And we're doing something quite unusual here

in that we're putting oak on the floor and oak on the ceiling as well.

It will give the building a very solid, crafted feel

and for Mel, this was very important.

This is a truly mobile home,

so architect Wendy has also had to decide on and design the kitchen,

bathroom, floors, fixtures and fittings from the get-go.

Not only that, Wendy wants the project

to be as energy-efficient as possible.

We are going to try and achieve Passive House certification

on this building.

Now that's something that's incredibly hard to do.

There are hardly any buildings in this country that are Passive House

and there certainly aren't any that have been built in sections

and joined together because one of the things that you have to achieve

is great air-tightness.

A Passive House means lower bills,

it's more environmentally friendly and much more sustainable.

This is the ultimate eco mobile home.

It will be 65ft long and have a large kitchen-diner,

a living room, two bedrooms and an office.

Mel has a budget of £350,000.

It will take 12 weeks to build in a factory in Yorkshire,

before it's transported to site, complete with windows, doors,

floors, kitchen and furniture.

It's early December

and the foundations for the new mobile home have gone in.

Wendy, colleague Ricky and Mel are heading to the Yorkshire factory

to check on progress.

Generally we just need to check, you know,

that everything is as we, you know, envisaged.

It's Wendy's first visit to the factory

and she's keen to see how her client reacts to the scale of her design.

-Wow! It's big, isn't it?

-It is, yeah.

It's no wonder Mel is bowled over.

Her new home is comparable to the size of a Victorian terrace.

It makes a big difference, seeing it now with the windows in.

Huge difference.

It's starting to look like a house.

But unlike a traditional home, the modular units can be picked up

and transported anywhere in the world.

This is one side and this is the other side,

so this is one unit and the other unit.

As just one join can affect the energy efficiency of the house,

and knowing that it has tough criteria to meet, Wendy is keen

to ensure that the insulation material she's ordered will deliver.

-So this is the eco bright?

-Yes.

So you're then taping that to the window frame.

This is taped to the window frames,

so you get air tightness and a vapour barrier.

The next big feature on the check list is the windows

and Wendy discovers a serious problem...

This particular window here has arrived

and it is 183mm, so that's about that much too short.

It's a huge impact because it means the cladding

can't be finished on the outside,

but importantly, the walls can't be finished on the inside because

the weathertight and the airtight membranes have to be sealed

to the windows in order to maintain the integrity of all those

so they cannot air test.

They can temporarily seal it but they can't do the final air tests,

they can't finish the walls, they can't do the decorations,

the client can't live in the house so it's pretty major.

The factory have said it could take months to get a new window -

disastrous news for Mel.

I think if we had an eight-week wait for that window,

that would be quite a problem.

Especially as she's still living in a freezing caravan

in ever decreasing December temperatures.

Near the Pentland Hills in Scotland,

the timber frame for Kenny and Jacqui's extension

to their tiny two-roomed railway house has been expertly erected

by contractor Stephen.

But before the builders can crack on with the next stage of the build,

an old exterior wall must be demolished.

It's a small job for a specialist builder, but to save money,

owner Kenny and four of his mates have taken the job on themselves.

-Oh, my God.

-Morning, Jacqui.

Good morning, Greg. Are you OK?

It's all happening.

What is happening?

Kenny's destroying my house!

Destroying the house. I know.

Jacqui, go and throw the dogs in the house.

There's dogs, children, builders!

It's an exciting day for five-year-old Max...

They're building our new kitchen.

..and mum, Jacqui.

As much as we can do, we're going to try and do ourselves because

the whole thing is obviously just costing a fortune

so every penny we can save.

To demolish the wall, each of the lintels must be carefully removed,

but wearing no hard hats

and with little respect for health and safety,

the lads use sheer brute force.

Their gung ho attitude ends in disaster

for the newly built timber frame.

That's a bit of timber broken.

Just the weight of the lintel, obviously it was another big one,

it just came down when the single brick that was holding it up

and the whole lot just came crashing down.

It was supposed to be a cost-cutting exercise.

But now the timber frame will have to be fixed.

It's Monday morning and Kenny and his friends are at work.

The wall has been cleared and architect David has arrived.

Head contractor Stephen has had to repair the timber that was

damaged while he was off-site.

It was a lintel from here that dropped and smashed all of this.

Oh, really, wow.

So we've managed to get it back up.

-We've put another timber at the back of it.

-Uh-huh.

Wow, so it just sheared the timber.

It's not going anywhere now.

With the timber reinforced,

Stephen and the team continue with the build.

David is keen to hear what client Jacqui thinks of the space.

So is it as big as you want?

Marvellous!

And David reveals his inspiration.

When we were designing this, a long time ago now,

I was thinking about Jacqui peeling potatoes.

Scrubbing the children's clothes in the sink.

Shampooing the dogs.

As they admire the swans. That's always just been our favourite view.

Incredibly picturesque with the pond in the foreground

but this sort of wide format window like that just captures it

-rather nicely, doesn't it?

-Yeah.

Just from the edge of the trees there,

over the field at the back there.

-It's gorgeous.

-I could peel potatoes...

You can come round and peel potatoes, that's fine!

For the final stage of the work on the fabric of the building,

David's design blends two textures,

larch wood and zinc.

Owner Kenny plans to apply the zinc finish himself,

but after the lintel mishap,

David is keen to keep an eye on his client.

I'm going to have a word with Kenny and just make sure that

when he does his final part, he's a bit more careful about it.

Have a word, quick word in his ear, make sure there's no more mishaps.

But with overzealous owner Kenny determined to get his hands dirty,

David needs to be firm to make sure the next phase goes smoothly.

Architect Wendy Perring is designing a mobile home

like you've never seen before for her client, Mel.

Not only will it look amazing, it will be the ultimate eco house.

Wendy specialises in sustainable architecture

and today she's on her way to one of her previous designs,

a house which achieved the coveted Passive House standard.

-Wendy!

-Hi, Liz. How are you doing?

-Hello, darling. How are you?

-I'm good. How are you?

-Come in, come in.

-Thank you very much.

-How are things?

-OK. Come and have a look.

Can I just hang this up?

-It's nice and toasty in here, isn't it?

-It is.

-And the heating hasn't been on today.

-Really?

And the solar gain through the windows has been perfect.

Wendy started design of Liz's contemporary eco home in 2010

and completed it in 2013, at a cost of £800,000.

It's the perfect showcase of what a Passive House should be.

We've got quite large windows to the outside here which means

that in the summertime, this will get a lot of solar gain.

But most importantly, in the wintertime it will get...

When the sun angle is lower, the sun will stream into this space

and heat it up naturally.

And that's one of the quite important elements

when you're designing for a low energy house,

is making sure that the spaces face the right direction.

Liz and her husband generate their own electricity and hot water.

They recycle waste and rainwater

and it's all controlled at the touch of a button.

In here, we have some of the major bits of kit that control

what's going on in the house.

So this is the MVHR system,

which is mechanically assisted ventilation and heat recovery unit.

So there's pipe-work throughout the house and basically it takes

warm air from spaces like the kitchens and the bathrooms

and re-circulates that to cooler spaces, but mixes it with fresh air.

So it's constantly changing the air throughout the house and making

sure that it's fresh but it's taking heat that would otherwise just be

surplus to requirement and taking it to areas where it can be beneficial.

Wendy is passionate about creating low energy homes

but knows they come at a cost.

I think there's absolutely no question that the more

bells and whistles that you put on a building, the more expensive

it becomes, but one of the really nice things is that insulation

is relatively affordable and so we always encourage our clients

to think about the fabric of the building first.

And in terms of payback times, they're coming down

and energy prices are going up so there's no doubt about it

that it is becoming more affordable to build more sustainably,

but it is more expensive.

Fulfilling the criteria for a sustainable low energy home

is proving challenging for Wendy's current project

just 20 miles down the road.

The challenge with Rufus Lodge is it is a mobile home

so it has to conform to the Caravan Act so whenever you've got

a building that's only allowed to be 20m long by, you know, 6m wide,

you cannot go building walls that are a metre in depth.

So we've had to look at different ways of insulating,

different types of insulation

that achieve those standards without being terribly thick.

We've looked at the windows.

We've got amazing windows that are thermally efficient

and Mel's been absolutely fantastic at just encouraging us

to do that and she really believes in it as well which is really important.

Back in the New Forest, Mel's pioneering new mobile home

fell badly behind schedule when one of the windows was made too small.

Finally, eight weeks after Mel was due to have her new home delivered,

she gets news it's ready.

But then the worst winter in hundreds of years strikes

and hurricane-force winds and rain batter the site.

You'll notice a difference with all the trees that have gone.

-It's incredible.

-Seven trees in one night.

-One night?

The terrible weather has churned up the access road -

bad news for the cranes and lorries that need to deliver and place

the sections of mobile home.

So the lorries will come in.

Straight up onto trackways.

We'll lay trackways to protect the ground.

And they're worried about the length of it?

Is that why we're coming up a bit,

-cos they're worried about grounding?

-Yes.

We're going to build that up temporarily with those sleepers

-so they won't bottom out.

-Right, OK.

All we can hope is that in the next three weeks, it dries up enough.

After all this effort it will be an awful shame to get stuck in the mud.

Yeah.

Finally, after all the delays,

the day arrives for the delivery of Mel's new mobile home.

-Are you excited?

-Very excited. So the crane's all set up now.

-Look, you can see it behind the trees here.

-It's huge.

-Yeah.

So not long now.

The new house, complete with floors, kitchen and furniture,

is travelling 270 miles from the factory in Yorkshire in sections

and the first one has just arrived.

Mel's widened the road and laid tracking to give the lorries

enough room to access the site, but this is a 20-tonne lorry

carrying half a house and it's not going according to plan.

Oh, gosh. He's sliding all over the place.

The lorry can't move forwards

or backwards.

Oh, wow.

-That's what they weren't expecting.

-No. Slippage.

We've got a bit of a dilemma because the truck actually can't go back

any further because he's right on the edge of the stream here.

If the truck rolls back in any way then...

possibility of getting stuck in the stream

so that's not an option either.

Finally, Mel's neighbour steps in and tries to tow the lorry.

ENGINE STRAINS

Can't get any traction.

-Yeah!

-CHEERING

Big relief, that's the first one in.

And now we've done a little bit of trimming

so the next one should be a lot easier.

With the first section finally on site,

the crane can lift it into position.

It's a precision job and every millimetre counts.

Right. I suppose positioning it is the tricky thing.

-They've got to get it just right.

-They've got to be exactly right.

I'm glad they're doing it, not me.

-Yeah, no, it's down.

-It's on there, isn't it?

Oh, it's really dark.

First glimpse of the bathroom, Wendy, look.

-Well, half a bathroom.

-That is so bizarre!

Seeing a house she's designed in sections gives Wendy a unique

opportunity to look at the very fabric of the building.

Within the floor construction in here we can see we've got the floor

finished which is this lovely engineered oak

and so you can see only the sort of tops, 7mm, of actually solid timber.

And we've got lots and lots of insulation so the heat

from the underfloor heating is again being radiated up through the floor.

Not that this building will need very much heat at all

because the walls are so well insulated.

They exceed current building regulations by three times,

which is incredible.

So basically you'll be able to heat this building by lighting a candle

and the body heat of the occupants, which is pretty impressive.

And as the first section settles into its new home, the next arrives,

just like a jigsaw they must fit together perfectly.

It's an anxious time for Wendy and assistant Ricky.

Placing each section takes all day,

but at last Mel and Wendy are able to step inside the mobile home.

Oh, it's fabulous. Much, much better than I ever dreamt it could be.

It's great and it's not even finished yet!

The final joining and finishing of the mobile home

will take another two weeks.

Thank you so much for the keys to my new house.

That's quite all right, madam.

Three weeks later, the build is finished.

Where there was once a draughty old caravan,

there's now a state-of-the-art home.

Wendy is back with colleague Ricky to see if Mel is happy.

Mel, it looks amazing. It's fantastic.

It's transformed, hasn't it?

It's incredible.

You would never guess this was a mobile home with its huge windows,

spacious sitting room and open-plan kitchen.

The bedrooms and bathrooms feel totally luxurious.

It just feels so big, you know, it's great.

And the fact that you can see...

-that works, doesn't it?

-It's lovely.

You can see the trees down the end.

-It's like having a really large painting that's alive.

-Hmm.

That's the new Muvman chair, yes. Muvman stool.

But your view is too amazing. I wouldn't get any work done.

Mel's old cold bedroom is no more.

-Wow!

-It suddenly opens up again.

-The bed! The bed is amazing.

-Isn't it beautiful?

Not only is this £350,000 mobile home beautiful,

but Wendy has achieved the ultra energy efficient

Passive House standard she hoped for.

In fact it is one of the most airtight houses in Europe

but it has taken a huge amount of work.

In fact, it's probably the most complicated build we have ever done

and one of the most time consuming.

When you think about the actual size of it,

how much has actually gone into it is huge by everyone...

Every single thing has been drawn

and probably drawn ten times.

And also, when we started the production process in the factory

it was a bit like being on a rollercoaster.

There was no way to get off.

So when we had a query come in, you had to deal with them.

There was no sort of, "Oh, well, I'll leave that till next Tuesday",

because by next Tuesday, they would have, you know, built something.

Not only is this mobile home eco friendly,

but it should also have longevity.

There's no reason why this house, even if it's not mobile,

will not be here in 100 years' time.

It has been a long battle and it's quite scary.

You make all those selections, it's all that planning,

as we've said, over years,

and then suddenly it's all becoming a reality around you.

Today has been great because it's the first day

when you see everything clean and sort of moving stuff in

and it's tidy and now it's really starting to look lovely.

Next time on Building Dream Homes,

will architect David have kept Kenny under control

as he gets to grips with the zinc cladding?

The zinc itself is soft and easy enough to work with

but you only get one shot at doing it and if you get the cut wrong

or an angle wrong, you can probably ruin a whole section.

And in Poole, the construction of an enormous home

falls behind as bad weather strikes.

It hasn't stopped raining,

which has obviously caused problems on the site.

I think delay-wise for the client,

would probably go to around about two, two and a half months.