A Converted Brewery

The Red House, in the charmingly named Rutland village of Whissendine, started life in the mid 19th century as a brewery but had long since been rather timidly converted for domestic use, including a spell as a small hotel. Tim and Asia bought the place, all 600m² of it, for £275,000 in 1998 having decided to sell up and get out of the farming business. They had been looking at properties in the area in the £450,000 bracket but had not been able to find anything they liked.

"We took the place on in quite a naïve way," recalls Tim, "not really knowing what was going to be involved in the project or how much it was going to cost." The couple moved in straight away with the intention of decanting themselves around the building work as it happened.

"We knew instantly how we wanted the house to be," says Asia, "but we certainly didn't know how we were going to do it. There were no windows out on to the gardens at the back and there were lots of higgledy-piggledy, rather dark rooms. We were interested in creating an open plan layout with lots of light."

During his farming days Tim had employed an extremely resourceful architectural student, Stephen Lloyd-Loasby, to help on the harvest during vacations. Stephen was asked to come and have a look, which he was happy to do. He came up with four big ideas: to open up the rear elevation by creating an atrium to let in light and allow the network of small rooms and corridors to be replaced by some decent sized spaces; to create a new access stairway to the basement which would enable this area of the house to be integrated properly into the whole; to change the aspect of the entrance by creating a new drive; and lastly to expose the enormous tanks in the roof (relics of the brewery days) and turn one into a Jacuzzi, leaving a vaulted ceiling exposed.

"Tim thought it was all too bold originally," comments Stephen, "but he asked me to get involved. We started in a small way refurbishing areas of the house that required relatively superficial attention and gradually Tim and Asias confidence in me grew to the point where they were prepared to tackle some, if not all, of the more radical ideas."

Stephen was taken on as project manager and was paid a wage. Rather than have the project taken on by a contractor the decision was taken to employ direct labour and subcontractors where appropriate. "All the local contractors were very busy and we were keen to get straight on with things," explains Tim. "Also we weren't even close to having a definition of the project that a contractor could base a quotation on. The plan evolved as we went along and it would have been impossible to run as a conventional project."

So Stephen set up an office in the basement and started advertising for staff. What the Coultons had found in their architect was a very capable designer who was also extremely practical in terms of how a particular design feature could actually be constructed. His role was akin to that of the old fashioned master builder. Unlike some architects, who are comfortable at the drawing board but all too frequently lack practical skills and knowledge when the job gets on site, Stephen had spent several years doing practical work before eventually deciding to follow in his fathers footsteps and become an architect. Experienced self-builders will chuckle wryly at the thought of builders grumbling sourly about architects drawings and the lack of thought or planning as to how the design will actually work on site.

Work on the master plan gradually evolved but the planners were proving difficult, particularly about the appearance of the glass atrium at the back. The argument centred on permitted development rights, which allow the extension of a dwelling by up to 15% or 70m³, whichever is the greater, without the need for planning consent and therefore without the planners interference on the design front.

The planners reckoned that converting the basement to living space and renovating the pool house constituted permitted development and that the atrium would therefore require planning consent, as it was in excess of the permitted 15%. Stephen argued successfully that the basement was already part of the house, the pool house was only a renovation and that the atrium was therefore the only new addition, thus giving the planners no way of implementing their concerns.

When the way the Building Regulations were being interpreted threatened to compromise the design, this too had to be challenged. An issue arose about fire regulations and the potential hazard posed by the atrium stairwell which is open to all three storeys, including the kitchen. The Building Control Officers (BCOs) wanted the atrium blocked off below the third storey with fire proof glass, but Stephen felt this defeated the whole object of the design. They agreed instead to the addition of smoke seals to all of the third storey doors and the installation of a hard wired smoke alarm system.

"A lot of people misinterpret the Building Regulations," says Stephen. "They are meant as advice rather than as the only way of achieving a particular solution. They are therefore negotiable, particularly on a renovation project. Within the Regulations themselves it states that there are other ways besides the stated ones of complying, often related to particular British Standards.

"Fortunately, the BCOs at the local council were very open-minded about alternative solutions. I'd say its a good idea at an early stage to try and nurture good relationships with the BCOs. Because we hadn't fully defined the project at the time work started, we did this job on a Building Notice - this means that you start work without submitting technical plans for Building Regulations approval, although you still have to comply."

In order to open up the interior of the building to create larger rooms, some walls had to be demolished and steel beams inserted. A structural engineer was retained to produce a design solution and the necessary drawings and calculations. 25 tonnes of steel were used as well as some cast reinforced concrete beams that were fabricated on site. Load bearing walls, which had previously spread the load evenly, were replaced with steel beams that placed heavier loads at certain points of the structure. This meant that the foundations had to be underpinned in the affected areas.

A great deal of careful logistical planning had to be done to sequence each part of the job correctly. The swimming pool in the back garden which had been built previously had to be protected, particularly from the potentially impactful excavations required for the new basement stairwell.

"We had to leave the pool half full of water," recalls Stephen. "If we had completely emptied it, the pool structure would have been weakened and there might have been a risk of the excavation work damaging the structure." Making the basement waterproof was another critical task and a specialist contractor was used to apply the membrane.

A great deal of care was taken routing the services through existing chimney flues. Where new ducts had to be created they were made into special features with grills for access and sometimes feature lighting. In the basement, ducts were placed in the floor screed and covered with aluminium chequer plate, which contrasts attractively with the painted concrete floor.

"The use of plastic plumbing we used Hep2O, which is flexible and available in long runs without any joints made life a lot easier," says Stephen, who was keen to make sure there was access to all the critical areas of plumbing, drainage and electrical/telephone wiring for possible future maintenance.

Another technical innovation was the use of magnetic low voltage spotlight tracks from lighting specialists Green Island. There is no cable to the individual spots - they are magnetically attached and can simply be lifted off and re-attached. The low voltage current runs through the track itself.

Several months into the project Tim and Asia, encouraged by Stephen, decided they would have to move into a rented house and in fact spent a few months away while some of the major structural work was being done.

"The whole project took only nine months, from when we moved in without any detailed plans for the design to completion," says Tim. "The only disadvantage of working this way was that we didn't know how much it was going to cost and at one point I became extremely nervous that costs were running out of control.

"Now that its finished we're both delighted with what's been achieved and fortunately it does make financial sense. We paid £275,000 for the place and ended up spending £220,000, which was a lot more than we had originally intended. I reckon that on completion we just about broke even but a recent valuation of over £650,000 has made us feel much more relaxed about it!"

Further reading:

• How to Spot the Best Conversion opportunities
• Planning Approval for Conversions
• We Converted a Bowling Alley