Grand Designs eco home owners raise over £15,000 after fire
Friends set up a JustGiving page after the Pembrokeshire house burned down
After the incredible Grand Designs eco home in west Wales burned to the ground on New Year’s Day, a close family friend has raised more than £15,000 on JustGiving.
Image: Malgosia Czarniecka Lonsdale
Last year Channel 4’s Grand Designs featured Simon and Jasmine Dale’s hand-built, zero waste eco home in rural Pembrokeshire which showcased a bespoke timber frame and eco-friendly credentials. With just a measly sum of £500 in their pocket, they started building the house as a real labour of love back in October 2013.
Sadly, less than one year on from their TV appearance, their home, labelled by Kevin McCloud as ‘the cheapest house ever built in the western hemisphere’, at just £27,000, has burned down in a suspected electrical fire.
According to reports, firefighters spent six hours trying to extinguish the flames but tragically, the house the couple worked so hard on, couldn’t be saved.
Jasmine and Simon Dale with Kevin McCloud outside their eco home. Photo: Malgosia Czarniecka Lonsdale
On hearing the devastating news, the couple’s close friends jumped into action and set up a fundraising page on JustGiving to help raise £20,000 for the family. In only 72 hours, the appeal has raised more than £15,000 and the total is increasing by the hour.
Jane Wells, who set up the appeal, explains, “Simon, Jasmine and their two children have been residents at Lammas eco village, Pembrokeshire since the start of the project. They have been working on their family home for the past six years.”
The Eco Home destroyed by the blaze. Image: JustGiving
“This beautiful building was featured on Grand Designs. Sadly, a fire started on New Year’s Day and their beloved home was burned to the ground.”
Kevin McCloud coined the family home ‘…the lowest of low impact houses,’ featuring all reclaimed materials, such as beautifully hand-crafted windows made from ash and sycamore trees, sheepswool insulation and a bespoke exterior timber framework made from the site’s felled trees.
We hope the kind donations keep flooding in for the family.
