Re: Destruction of housing stock : Mon Apr 22, 2013 3:49 pm  

cod'ead wrote:

Timber frame houses are certainly not uncommon in Scandinavia and North America and have lasted decades without problems. The main difference bein: in Scandinavia and Canada, the timber used is red cedar, here and in the US, they'll use any old wainey-edged softwood shoite they can get away with

We don't know how to do timber frame in this country I'm afraid, usually kits made up in a factory slapped together by semi-skilled wood butchers.

Re: Destruction of housing stock : Tue Apr 23, 2013 8:48 am  

rover49 wrote:

We don't know how to do timber frame in this country I'm afraid, usually kits made up in a factory slapped together by semi-skilled wood butchers.

Saw a Huf Haus being erected on Grand Designs, well impressive that was.
Everything fitted perfectly first time.
When they finished they swept the house out completely and then cleaned out their tool boxes and the van ... and when everything was neat and tidy, they went.

Re: Destruction of housing stock : Tue Apr 23, 2013 12:11 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

Saw a Huf Haus being erected on Grand Designs, well impressive that was.
Everything fitted perfectly first time.
When they finished they swept the house out completely and then cleaned out their tool boxes and the van ... and when everything was neat and tidy, they went.

That was brilliant, wasn't it?

And they had neat little German waistcoats too.

Re: Destruction of housing stock : Tue Apr 23, 2013 1:28 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

Saw a Huf Haus being erected on Grand Designs, well impressive that was.
Everything fitted perfectly first time.
When they finished they swept the house out completely and then cleaned out their tool boxes and the van ... and when everything was neat and tidy, they went.

Had a client a few years ago who built one as a self build project, very nice.

Re: Destruction of housing stock : Tue Apr 23, 2013 8:31 pm  

My little daydream is: once I've got me Euromillions, I instruct a lawyer to buy a house that sits on the seafront at Beesands, South Devon. I'm not bothered how much they want for the house, I'll just pay the price. Once that's all sorted, I'll nip over to see Mr Huf and get him to design me a house. Then it's back to Devon to present the plans to demolish the existing shitheap and build me Huf. No doubt there'll be a few bungs along the way but it's nowt that good old Euromillions can't handle.

Huf not only build extremely stylish houses, they are also incredibly energy-efficient

Re: Destruction of housing stock : Tue Apr 23, 2013 8:41 pm  

rover49 wrote:

Had a client a few years ago who built one as a self build project, very nice.

I wasn't aware Huf manufactured for self-builds, I thought they controlled the whole process themselves

Re: Destruction of housing stock : Wed Apr 24, 2013 8:58 am  

Mintball wrote:

That was brilliant, wasn't it?

And they had neat little German waistcoats too.

It was shown again last night so I just had to watch it again.
Embarrassing when they had to wait for the British firm (Non-English-speaking Bosnian driver) to deliver the concrete late.
Good job that was months before the delivery of the actual house.

They had quoted one week for the actual construction, so it was quite funny when they finished so fast (4 days from concrete raft to watertight structure) that Kevin McCloud nearly missed it.

Re: Destruction of housing stock : Wed Apr 24, 2013 9:02 am  

El Barbudo wrote:

It was shown again last night so I just had to watch it again.
Embarrassing when they had to wait for the British firm (Non-English-speaking Bosnian driver) to deliver the concrete late.
Good job that was months before the delivery of the actual house.

They had quoted one week for the actual construction, so it was quite funny when they finished so fast (4 days from concrete raft to watertight structure) that Kevin McCloud nearly missed it.

IIRC, he was really sceptical to start with, but was won over by the end.

Re: Destruction of housing stock : Wed Apr 24, 2013 3:09 pm  

cod'ead wrote:

I wasn't aware Huf manufactured for self-builds, I thought they controlled the whole process themselves

OK, I had a client who bought a Huf house for himself to live in which was built on a piece of land he bought and we provided the inspection and warranty for it. The policy we flogged him was a 'self build warranty' as Huf are not registered in UK for warranty purposes and the guy had to have one for his mortgage.

Sorry for any confusion.

Re: Destruction of housing stock : Wed Apr 24, 2013 10:57 pm  

rover49 wrote:

OK, I had a client who bought a Huf house for himself to live in which was built on a piece of land he bought and we provided the inspection and warranty for it. The policy we flogged him was a 'self build warranty' as Huf are not registered in UK for warranty purposes and the guy had to have one for his mortgage.

Sorry for any confusion.

So a company that could rip the arse out of the vast majority of UK building companies can't get "registered" for warranty purposes?

Sounds sadly about right