“I wanted to use a rainwater system that blended in with the rustic woodland setting and also looked functional and yet interesting at the same time.”
Were just some of the reasons given by selfbuilder and antique shop owner Chris Ostwald for specifying Lindab’s Rainline for his beautiful West Virginian style home set high in the Chiltern Hills. The house, featured on Channel Four’s Grand Designs programme, takes its design inspiration from an unusual place, a 1920’s Watermill in Glade Creek which Chris first spotted on a side of a yogurt pot!
Together with his architect Brian Johnson, Chris designed a similar building to be constructed on a steel platform cut into the chalk hillside of a rural site he had owned for over 20 years, situated in the Chiltern Hills in South Oxfordshire. The house, featuring an external façade of traditional cedar cladding attached to a structural framework of Douglas Fir, was supplied to Chris’s specification in kit form by Timberpeg, an American timber framed home specialist based in Oregon, New Hampshire.
With the occasional help of friends and work mates, Chris spent nearly two years working on his ‘dream home’ which was finally completed earlier this year, although landscaping and internal works are still ongoing.
Chris says, “Working alone on the house most of the time meant every job dragged on for weeks rather than days, except for fitting the guttering, which to my surprise was so easy, it only took me and a friend one day to complete!”
In keeping with the materials used on the building and its unusual design, Lindab’s Rainline was the ideal choice for the gutters and downpipes.
“The Lindab Rainline system was a real pleasure to work with and I think the more bends you can use in the downpipes, the better it looks” said Chris.
Over 30 metres of plain galvanised Rainline guttering was used on the project. By utilising the latest advances in manufacturing technologies, Lindab can offer Rainline at a price point comparable to a mid range plastic system, thereby removing the perceived notion that steel is more expensive than plastic.
