Synergy 3-Bed A -Rated House @ €99,950 inc. VAT

“Cube” it – reduce the gratuitous ins-and-outs – add more bedrooms for similar money and

Lose the metal roof – fine for starter business units near housing estates.
Unless you know what you’re doing with metal roofs, you may find you have interstitial condensation problems.
Plus, the noise factor in a downpour will be significant.

Oh yeah, and those uPVC/Aluminium gutters [whatever they are]?
It’ll look decidedly less swish with a rake of downpipes hanging off the roof.
Either do overhangs with hidden gutters [a world of pain] or don’t and use standard gutters.

ONQ.

One observation.
These 2 designs are ‘goers’ by Wexford Co Co Planning Dept ?
If so, great for Wexford people.
No way would they pass in Clare, Cork, Kerry and other counties.

U value rated at 0.18 W/mK.
€77 per square foot.
Prior to tiling, painting & papering.
Is that remarkable pricing for today ?

I think the rating for a bespoke design [well, the first one would be bespoke anyway…] seems pretty good as does the price.

Remember its not too long ago that developer build 4-beds in Dublin were quoted at circa €200 a foot for the build cost.

As for whether I’d want to live in one given the room layout vs window orientation/positioning – the jury is out.

Still, at that price for the number of bedrooms, given the size of it? 3-Bed Semi all the way.

ONQ.

Aside from whether they would be go-ers in various counties, what’s good about these is it shows the public than an architect-designed and more evironmentally efficent house can be relatively cheap. That’s a big deal.

Leaving aside the 50 mile radius from Wexford (Steven’s mileage allowance maybe?), the plans appear to be just large versions of a duplex apartment. The new space standards for larger apartments have effectively removed the kitchen / living / dining arrangement as an option.

Kitchens should be accessed directly from hallways, dining areas should be in separate spaces, the kitchen should be large enough for a family table, there’s absolutely no storage other than the bedrooms (barring the tiny cloakroom), the lobby wouldn’t meet BS8300, – Dublin City Council, for example, would reject that plan if it was an apartment let alone a house

The new minimum standards for apartments – wouldn’t you expect the same in a house state that:

Single bedroom 7.1 sq m
Double bedroom 11.4 sq m
Twin bedroom 13 sq m

(All excluding storage). Assuming the schedule excludes storage all the twin bedrooms shown on type A are too small

Now – Sustainability – there’s a buzzword

I think we might be all missing the point slightly here. The whole point of A rated buildings is that they are energy efficient. In order to be truly efficient, however, they must also be efficient in their construction

One look at the spec on this thing and you can see exactly why it’s cheap

Fascias and soffits – PVC

Gutters and downpipes – PVC

Windows – PVC

Timber effect cladding – PVC

Roof – concrete effect metal tile. This only has a 20 year lifespan and attempts to download the data sheets prove, strangely, fruitless. It says there are no noise issues but I’d be sceptical there

This building is cheap because of the 3 letters prevalent up there. The blanket use of PVC allows cost to drop but the green profile of the building is, by association, poor. The blurb says that “it embraces the principles of sustainable construction” whereas it patently doesn’t

There are many alternatives to the PVC products above but there lies the rub – they ain’t cheap.

I would be curious of the rates and sizes/weight for building materials & labour

http://www.nordman.ie/pdf/NordmanTechnical.pdf

That links to a PDF on construction detailing for the Norman roof profiling.

The issue I found with this product is not so much its lifespan as the
unpreventable discoloration in the PVC coating due to the usual
u.v. light degradation effects.
I’d expect this to become noticeable in 5 years on a south-facing roof.
What recoating processes are available for this and how often it need
be done, I do not know.

wearnicehats agreed on the pvc which is why i used efficent rather than sustainable or similar.

Thing is we cannot all live in mud coated wattle and daub houses and to make inroads with the more standard-house-buyers you need to provide them with the usual expected building products. Small steps at a time and getting them to accept an architect designed house than should cost less to run is a step in the right direction

Paul – you used efficient but the marketing blurb doesn’t

If you’re trying to suck people in with “architect designed houses” then teaching people that “architects” think pvc is the be all and end all is entirely the wrong thing to do

There are myriad alternatives to pvc that are available to builders – I must go now but will post tomorrow

Okay it does look like a bit of a canine.

But don’t think that changing from uPVC to better materials will improve the design.

That’s a typical fallacy of modern designers.

ONQ.