Crap House of the Week

[Michael McNeil]

I couldn't believe that tosser narrating the Grand Design of the century this week. He fell over himself to tell the victim what a lovely house it was. The victim himself admitted it had been likened to a petrol station.

It did look like one too. One designed by a company that puts up council offices, employing people with a penchant for Pentecostal churches.

After 18 months of 7 day weeks they returned to see that it was as yet incomplete. The site agent/owner was supposed to be a wheeler dealer, yet he didn't have the sense to not accept a delivery. A c*ck up with the roof resulted in a ruined ceiling that was irrepairable so that should have gone back the day it arrived and a temporary roof put in place to enable the rest of it to go up.

Then there was a snag with the hideous steel work. Then there was another one. Then one with the glass. Then he rendered over the foam insulation to produce what appeared to be a giant toilet block.

All in all it made the German one last week, look great. But what is it with these rich bastards? A clinic, a greenhouse and a luxury council toilet of the future? If they can't use their bloody money, let me have it.

[IMM]

It was.

He had a sense of humour.

It didn't.

He sent choddy stainless back.

The house was SUPERB to look at. A fantastic modern refreshing design, a total welcome change from the pastiche Victorian looking crap we see. Brilliant!!! When the glass and scaffolding came down it really looked the part as ken MacCloud quite rightly mentioned.

I admire the man. He stuck at it and would not accept second best. The money obviously is not too big an issue with him. After the gardens have settled, when he sells the house he probably make a huge profit.

He probably didn't know that he could have had a similar design linking two Huf Haus', for a guaranteed price, and a fraction of probably what he paid.

We need more of this innovative houses about.

If I recall he has a web site on the house and you can ask questions too.

[Michael McNeil]

Where did he put it?

He sent a lot of stuff back AFTER it had been fitted. It shouldn't have been taken off the lorry if it was so obviously wrong.

There was some mention of his engineering the waste out of the price, had he been working for someone, that waste would have been quickly identified as the site agent and owner. And he would have been sacked.

I think it is an ugly building. I know the roof is a horror story. The man was a fool.

[Rick Dipper]

I agree, I would not have paid for it, give me the HUSS House.

[Julian Fowler]

Well, "lovely" is a qualitative judgement: I'm not sure that I'd want to live in it, but the architecture was nothing if not imaginative and innovative.

I thought "miniature airport terminal" myself. The gull-wing roof is somewhat reminscent of the main terminal at Washington Dulles.

Absolutely: the terrifying part of this programme was the suggestion that Tom had made enough money through his wheeling and dealing to be able to afford to take 18 months off from his regular work and to pay for a £1.5M (and rising) house without recourse to borrowing ...

Kevin did make the point in the programme: if you beat a supplier down to a price, what you finally receive will be designed/engineered/manufactured down to that price. The architect should also take some of the blame for the roof: who would specify any part of a building that is highly susceptible to weather damage and cannot be constructed/installed before the building is watertight?

In that respect the programme was excellent material for those who might argue that there should be an absolute ceiling on wealth/earnings :-)

Julian

[IMM]

Those with money, and are not scared to spend it, are the ones that innovate and experiment. The British are starange peopel. If someone has 2 million in the bank and leaves it, that is fibe. If some decides to spend this money, giving employment and creating a wonderful house that will be there for 200 years plus, they scorn this. We must be the only nation with this attitude.

I think this man was naive to embark on such an adventurous building knowing next to nothing about complex construction, although with a simpler house he would be totally capable of PMing the job. But his tenacity and not accepting second best is to be commended. I wish him well and his dream is virtually realised. He deserves it.

Note that most of the delays were the subbies and suppliers. The windows took and age to fit and they were well over time and they even got the glass sizes wrong in some cases. This programme and the one last week on the Huf haus, clearly highlight the pathetic British manufacturing and construction industry whicj Joh Prescot is trying get in order (hopefully with his left hook).

One thing about the series is that architects very rarely get a good word. They are usually thrown off site with the owner left to tie up all the ends.

I hope they go back and show the whole house, inside and out. the interior should be dynamite.

[Michael McNeil]

I don't mind them being rich. It's the stupidly rich I object to. I'd love to do a voice over on these things. Perhaps I'll collect the videos of them and put some of my own inimitable on them.

I wonder why everyone from the architect to ther bricklayers walked away all the time. A nice comment from one of the builders discussing a specification on camera:

"....and *** takes the blame!"

"Yes, *** takes the blame."

"Yes I'll take the blame."

Not only will he take the blame, he will have to live with it. If I had that kind of money I could take a suite in a plush hotel in the country. Any country.

[IMM]

Thank God he is not you then.

[IMM]

You are odd.

[The Natural Philosopher]

That sounds remarkably like Thatcherism to me.

[Harvey Van Sickle]

On 05 Feb 2004, IMM wrote

-snip-

I don't think that's true: most of the delays, as I understood it, were due to things like not ordering the steelwork soon enough and not monitoring quality control when stuff was delivered on site (rather than accepting it, sending it back, and then moaning about the delay).

In other words -- straightforward and inexcusable PM errors. The big delays struck me as being due to an amateur PM, not to subs and suppliers, and I'd call him an arrogant prat rather than merely "naive".

That may well have been -- we didn't hear the supplier's side of the argument, just what he *claimed* the supplier's argument was -- but what struck me as deeply amateurish and meddling was to see muggins the PM up there with a handsaw, cutting away styrofoam insulation in preparation for fitting the aluminium frames that were due to be delivered the next day. (Which he then sent back because they "didn't fit". What a surprise...)

We didn't see anything about the architect on this one beyond the initial design, which suggests to me that the owner didn't let him near the project at all, but just bought the plans from him.

I think half the problems are rooted in this: amateur owners/developers who think PM and design are a doddle that anyone wiwth half a brain can do. They don't like it when experienced project managers tell them what needs to be done, and insist they know better (in spite of never having done it before). The project then (unsurprisingly) goes off the rails; they sack all the people who know how to run a job; and then they whine about how they were left to clean up the project mess that was due entirely to their own hamfisted interventions.

Yeah -- if he ever does get it finished.

[Michael McNeil]

I noticed that none of the builders were interviewed. Most revealing would have been a follow up with the brickies in the pub one rainy day.

I wouldn't go that far. Perhaps handed over to a charity -a sports hall for the mentally challenged perhaps.

There's a bus station in Coventry he might be able to get for a song if he wants to move.

[Tony Bryer]

Do remember that lots of people make their living from the stupidly rich. The bathroom showroom below my office reminds me every day that (IMHO of course) you need to be prepared to pay £££ to get really horrible stuff.

[Julian Fowler]

I suspect that the programme makers probably tried ... but couldn't get any of the brickies to stop laughing for long enough to finish a sentence. I imagine that word spread like wildfire: "we've got a customer who hasn't got a clue what he's doing and has an apparently unlimited budget" :-)

[Owain]

"IMM" wrote | I hope they go back and show the whole house, inside and out. the | interior should be dynamite.

My first thought when they showed the cabling was that the building had been wired for dynamiting.

Owain

[Stephen Gower]

[Bob Mannix]

informative.

[IMM]

The house looks real nice. I would like to see the interior when it is finished. It should be superb.

[IMM]

According to his web site, he initially did consider a Huf Haus but thought it would not compliment the site. As Huf is a flexible system I can't see how he came to that conclusion. I'm sure if he did it again, he probably would go for a couple of Hufs.

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article , IMM writes

That's what the guy who built Greenside thought, and how long did that last? Seventy years; it's now been demolished.

8 will be seen for the monstrosity it is and demolished within 100 years.