I don’t really like my house very much; it’s not that it’s a bad house really but it is over two-hundred years old and it is not really suited for modern life or the environment that it now stands in.
It is cold because it is poorly insulated, draughty and because the central heating system is also old, was badly fitted, and uses a lot of (now very expensive) gas. It uses a huge amount of electricity for many of the same reasons. I do have a wood-burning stove which offsets some of the power usage though. Don’t even get me started on the plumbing or the drains!
The other thing that I don’t like is the fact that my garage (or big shed really) is built as a separate building and when it is raining (which it seems to a lot more that it used to) I get wet getting anything from it.
Cars (or coaches and horses) have changed unrecognisably in the last two-hundred years so if my house is really ‘a machine for living in’ it is in desperate need of an update.
So what realistically would you change about house design given the technology that exists today?
By: Flygirl - 15th March 2011 at 19:00
I would go with Geothermal heating.
By: Creaking Door - 15th March 2011 at 17:17
I’m very interested in those solar panels that you lay on your roof instead of roof-tiles; apart from the fact that they look a bit shiny and black you’d have difficulty telling them from slate tiles. If your house was properly designed with the roof at the right angle and facing the right direction you could generate quite an amount of electricity, and, if your house was properly insulated, probably more than you could use. The trick here is that you send the power you don’t need (during the long Summer days) into the grid and then you take some of it back out when you do need it.
I reckon with a wood-burning stove, solar panels and some modest underground heat-pump central heating it would be entirely possible to build a house that generated more power than it used. It may even be possible to generate hydrogen with the surplus power to run your car on!
By: tornado64 - 15th March 2011 at 11:37
wood burning stove with backboiler and pump connected to your central heating / hotwater , if possible keep gas boiler connected for emmergency only
By: Flygirl - 15th March 2011 at 11:18
I used to rent a house here http://www.lowermillestate.com/ I used it as a holiday home. I have to admit, I have thought of buying one to let.
By: Sky High - 15th March 2011 at 10:48
Picking up on youir first paragraph. Yes, I could probably accept the merits of internally modernising an old house, as I suggested in my earlier post. But building new to look old is an anathema. One of my least favorite housing projects is Prince Charles’ jumble of designs and periods outside Dorchester. It is a mess. If you want the attributes of 21st century living either modernise your old house or build modern using 21st century design and build technology.
I like the thought of new houses having cellars – that had never occurred to me.
By: Creaking Door - 15th March 2011 at 10:41
…I would probably take this route.
That’s more of the sort of thing I was thinking about; there is no reason that modern houses cannot be built incorporating modern technology, especially energy saving technology, and still not look traditional.
By: Creaking Door - 15th March 2011 at 10:37
…a brand new 21st century modern house. Friends live in these houses and I just find them cold and dead.
Yes, appearances are one of the major factors in house ‘value’, especially round here, but I was more interested in how a modern house should function given that you could build houses to look like older houses (or actually convert an older property).
For example, given that space is a major factor in the cost of any house, why do no new houses have cellars? A friend of mine is lucky enough to be building his own house and the only builder that would even consider building a cellar had to come over from the Netherlands with the ‘cellar’ on the back of a lorry!
Has this ‘technology’ really been lost in this country?
By: Flygirl - 15th March 2011 at 10:30
I love my house it’s home. But if I could afford a second home, I would probably take this route. http://www.designandmaterials.uk.com/eco-house-design.html
By: Sky High - 15th March 2011 at 10:09
After 35 years in a lovely old Georgian farmhouse, which we restored, with outbuildings, of which one became a garage, and a Granary we “downsized” to a much newer more practical detached house with cavity walls and double glazing etc etc. It is more practical but has no character and given different circumstances we might have stayed put, where we were.
Given the choice I would prefer an old but internally modernised house to a brand new 21st century modern house. Frie4nds live in these houses and I just find them cold and dead. Buit that’s a very subjective judgment, obviously.
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March 15, 2011 at 9:55 am