'Eco-House', Chorleywood
The Construction Management undergraduate programme at Oxford Brookes University has an industrial ‘sandwich’ experience year. While others were polishing their shoes and gunning for top city jobs, I became aware that as a thirty something I was not really in the same game as the younger undergraduates. I had my dog to think about too, and sought a local firm for my placement year.
The boss of the family-run firm that employed me had promised a large house with basement to his brother-in-law. The house was to be prefabricated in Canada; the latest thing, and be hung with every bell and whistle of the environmental movement. Outline plans were already drawn, and the date for construction was set. The project was in the hands of a junior member of staff who had recently joined the firm. I was assigned to ‘help him’. I discovered that he was incompetent, incapable, and had not organised the slightest element of the project, aside from recording mileage expenses for site visits.
Every detail drawing in arrangement with Canada, international shipping and local logistics, setting out, planning amendments, building regulations compliance, basement design liaison, on-site oversight, client expectation management, reporting, warranty, finishes, everything including setting up a pump to drain the excavations, all in the hands of a student.
The house was constructed using the Canadian ‘Super E’ prefabricated insulated panel system, in this case manufactured by Kent Building Supplies on Prince Edward Island. The Canadian Government were promoting the system at the time, and I was invited enjoy an afternoon reception at The Canadian High Commission in Mayfair, London. The reception was followed by a formal dinner with unlimited wine at The Millennium Mayfair Hotel, across from the Old American Embassy in Grosvenor Square. I still have the pin-badge gifted by a member of the Canadian delegation who had carried me unconscious to The Audley public house around the corner, where I woke up on the floor in my suit to a cheer, and another drink.
The prefabricated panels arrived in containers to a nearby farm, where I had identified a barn and arranged for its temporary use. The stairs I designed with the client were already made, the steelwork I designed with the engineer was craned aloft, the house took shape. Even as highly insulated as the house was when it arrived, I undertook research for the company, making a large ‘hot box’ to determine if additional layers of foil insulation could further improve fabric efficiency.
I followed the project through until structural completion. In place of the old stood a brand new house, with 6 bedrooms, as many bathrooms, and a terrific family argument about how much it had all cost.