Background and beginnings
Entry posted by Crofter
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This blog was originally begun over the now closed eBuild forum. I will be transferring most of the my blog posts over here in due course and taking the opportunity to tidy the blog up a little and fill in some of the gaps along the way.
In 2013 I became the owner of a house and croft on the Isle of Skye, and set about looking for ways to make the most of this opportunity. In particular I was keen to set up some form of income generation to supplement my earnings.
The first idea was to erect a wind turbine- we went a little way down the road of costing out the installation of an Evance 5kW unit. This would have cost about £32,000 and generated a predicted £2000 a year in FiT plus whatever savings we could accrue on our own electricity bills. However with the FiT rate about to take another cut we would have had to move quickly, and decided that we had simply not had enough time to fully evaluate the idea. In addition, as newcomers to the area we felt it might be a bit un-neighbourly to immediately stick up a wind turbine within a few weeks of moving in!
The second, and far more exciting, idea was to build some form of holiday let. I was reasonably confident that we would be able to secure planning permission for a house on the croft over the road from us, as neighbouring crofts had done so, with one house in the process of completion as we were moving in. This would be a more risky project and almost certainly a more expensive one, but I was confident that the returns would be considerably higher than the wind turbine could produce.
Quick costing up led me to realise that we were not going to be able to afford to get a builder in to put up a house for us, even a very small one. However I had accrued some building experience before, having fully renovated our previous house and converted the loft. I was confident that with enough research and patience, building a small and simple house should be within my capabilities. But this meant going truly DIY- I would be doing everything from designing and drawing, submitting the various permits, through to actually pouring concrete and building the timber frame, all by myself.
At around this early stage in the project, I stumbled upon eBuild (the forerunner to BuildHub)- and ever since I have felt that I have been in good hands, with a wealth of advice and guidance available to keep me on track. From a slow early start, the build has progressed well and at the time of writing I have four walls and the structure of the roof all erected.
Stay tuned for more updates, and feel free to comment or ask questions. I have learned so much in this project and would be glad to be able to pass advice on to others.
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