Northamptonshire

Water towers can make extraordinary and dramatic homes, but they can also be a nightmare to convert due to their industrial shape, construction and sheer height. Adam and Tassy have decided to take on one of the most intimidating water towers imaginable - a concrete column stretching over twenty metres into the Northamptonshire sky. Although built to supply water to a local piano factory and abandoned for almost forty years, they’re determined to turn it into a fun family home. Their radical design includes a concrete interior with curved walls, slides, secret rooms, a fireman's pole and in the tank itself a swimming pool and a sky garden. 

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The plan is to sell their terraced house and get a mortgage to raise £400k, then do most of the conversion work themselves – even though they have two young children already and a third on the way. It’s wildly ambitious and gets off to a slow start when a steel reinforced floor takes forever to excavate and they have to build a sound wall to reduce the hum from a nearby electricity substation. As concrete pours for their walls start to leak, it looks like their water tower doesn't want to be lived in without a concrete-soaked battle of biblical proportions. It’s David versus Goliath.