NEWS

The house that was built in four days

The house built in four days

05 October 2005 06:57

Building your own home from scratch is a long, painstaking process - unless you can get it done in as little as four days.

And Pierre and Rosalie Guerin can say they managed just that with their new property in the centre of Downham Market.

All the pieces of the prefabricated four-bedroom Huf house were designed and shipped over from Germany, then put together in less than a week.

The retired couple are now the proud owners of the house, which is the first of its kind in Norfolk and the first Huf building in the UK with solar-powered heating.

"My wife and I have long had an ambition to design and build an autonomous, energy-saving house," said Mr Guerin, who moved to Norfolk from Twickenham six years ago.

"We did a bit of research and found the Huf house company on the web, and we really liked what they had on offer."

He visited Germany twice to take a look at the firm's work, which was featured on Channel 4's Grand Designs.

It took three months to do the groundworks, with the help of Suffolk-based firm J Breheny and T A Millard, of Norwich, before Huf workmen arrived with the home on the back of several huge trucks.

"The logisitics are amazing," said Mr Guerin. "It took something like four days. The ground floor went down on day one, the first floor on day two. On day three they started parts of the roof and on day four they did the garage and car port.

"It was all totally designed in Germany and it's all moved over in parts and all pre-prepared. Most of the homes built in Germany have solar panels, but ours is the first in the UK with a solar heating panel.

"It was fantastic to watch. A week today they started on the site and we're now walking around it."

He hopes to fit the house out so they can move in before Christmas.

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