Man Made Home

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[edit] General Information

Technology Documentary hosted by Kevin McCloud, published by Channel 4 in 2012 - English narration

[edit] Cover

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Kevin McCloud's Man Made Home Kevin McCloud wants to buy himself a beautiful piece of woodland, roll up his sleeves and build a cabin in the woods. He has decided that everything has to be made by hand from his woodland, and if it not, then it has to be sourced from somebody else's rubbish. Together with a hardy band of friends and experts, Kevin is going to reuse, repurpose and recycle almost all the materials for his bold building in rural Somerset. A place where he can unhook himself from the madness of modern life and live in a different way. Can a simple, more creative life make you happier?

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Kevin starts work on his hand made home by venturing into the bowels of London. With mains electricity and gas not an option for his bolt hole, Kevin hopes to make biodiesel for a lamp from the huge stinking 'fatbergs' that clog up the city's sewers. For the cabin's structure, Kevin cuts down two ancient oaks, and starts putting together the wooden shell of the building. He also experiments with a Wild West technique of splitting logs by gunpowder, and tries to make the whole cabin mobile because of planning regulations.

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Now that Kevin's cabin's glorious shingled shell has been finished, the next major task is to make it both habitable and magnificent. Kevin needs a solid, durable floor, a window to let in natural light and most important of all, the heart of the home, a fire for heat. As Kevin wants to reuse, repurpose and recycle as much of his building as possible, he decides to turn a 1930s heavy steel safe into a wood burning stove. But he has to use the dangerous tool of the 70s bank robber, a thermic lance, to do it. Kevin tries to build a cheese floor, an ancient Viking invention that uses milk. And then for perhaps his toughest test yet, Kevin attempts to make glass from scratch using sand. To celebrate the next stage of the building, Kevin's friends burn a wicker man, a pagan tradition, to scare away any vagrant woodland ghosts that might haunt the new cabin.

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Kevin's cabin is now habitable, but he has yet to add the vital furnishings to turn it into a comfortable home. And more pressingly, he has nothing to cook with. It's time for some fiendishly clever off grid solutions. With Kevin's cabin not connected to electric or gas, he examines a leftfield experiment in north Wales, where they're turning dog poo into methane. And as the cabin will be a place of rest, Kevin decides to make an armchair out of a 1950s tractor seat and also crafts a small lightweight bed from willow.

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In this episode, an old gas cylinder was converted into a wood burner to heat the hot tub. Channel 4 would like to make clear that converting gas cylinders in this way can be highly dangerous and can also be unlawful. It should therefore never be attempted by you under any circumstances. Luxury is the one thing Kevin hasn't yet got at his handmade cabin in the woods. It's an off grid marvel, but what he really wants is a hot tub he can relax in, sipping red wine and watching the setting sun with his friends. He heads off to find a unique solution for his hot tub at an airfield graveyard, while making a luxury bath robe out of alpaca wool and fashioning a 'drop down' veranda. At last, Kevin's wondrous cabin looks finished, but he wants to give everyone who has helped him a house warming to remember.