Having relocated to Cheshire with work and renovated a few houses along the way it's now time for the wife and I to move back to our roots (and closer to family). We've spent ages looking at property and find most of it over prices and uninspiring!! We viewed a property last weekend and the agent rang for feed back - told her it was a bland boring box (the plot was nice and the house looked Ok from the outside), with no sole and vastly over priced. She said she wasn’t sure what she would tell the vendors who are desperate to sell !!

Anyway we've now decided that the best route for us is to either buy another major renovation project or to go down the new build route, either way we want to do it right. So we had this idea of a bit of a 'works trip' to gather ideas, we've see that there are a few places that may be worth a visit, such as the Potton show houses, the Centre for Alterative Technology, the Alternative Technology Centre, the Build Store site and the Homebuilding & Renovating show etc.

Can anyone else suggest places to visit where we can look at the various designs of building, the latest technology and good eco design ideas are on display?

Posted By: Triassic Can anyone else suggest places to visit where we can look at the various designs of building, the latest technology and good eco design ideas are on display?

You might consider the Batibouw exhibitions in Brussels next spring. Not specifically aimed at green building but good place to see the sort of house designs they are building over there and the technology they are using. Make sure you take good walking shoes as it's many times the size of a UK show. Might even need two days to see it all.

http://www.batibouw.be/index.cfm?P_ID=6

Convinced us we wanted good detailed brickwork on our place.