Leaderboard

This will be the last entry for our self build blog. Our plan We originally commenced a self build as there was no affordable housing for us to get on the housing ladder. The approach for the self build, was whether we could build a better-quality house than what we could purchase from a developer for the same cost. This was later refined to achieving a lower mortgage if possible. For the self build we decided to split the project into three chunks. 1. Obtain outline planning, purchase of site – this allowed us to know that a build was possible. 2. Put in services, access, design – this was the first actual work and made an area of croft ground into a valuable plot for lending purposes. Commence the build over two years - using subcontractors and our own materials to eliminate any margins and ensure tight control over the specification. Doing this would allow us to complete the project and prevent us being stuck unable to finish it. What did it cost? The total cost for the project was just over £196,000 (net of VAT). This includes the land, services, professional fees, overheads and the actual build costs. I’ve summarised all of my costs into a pie chart below. How was it funded? · A small electricity grant £1,550 · We obtained a croft house grant for £38,000 · The final mortgage of £74,500 · The remaining balance of £81,950 was funded by savings from employment, which started when we were 23 and finished when we moved into the house in July 20 at 33. · Most of the work we carried out was decorating and general labouring, therefore contributed a small amount of sweat equity to the project. What is the final result? The surveyor provided a valuation back to the building society of £265,000. This was pleasing as sometimes self builds can be more expensive then the total project costs or just about breakeven. Prior to building we were aware of building cost being measured per m2. However, during the build process I realised that this method of reviewing the financial performance of a self build had room for error, as the calculation could be skewed depending on the quality of the finish. For the purposes of our project this would be £1,420 or £1,230 excluding (land, professional fees and overheads). I came to the conclusion that the best method for us is calculating the final cost per month (mortgage, utilities, council tax, insurance) to live in the house. I set a target of £500 per month and I am pleased that we have been able to achieve this. I feel this is a good measure as I wouldn’t want to live in an expensive house that has a huge mortgage. Often at the end of Grand Designs and other tv shows, the presenter asks whether they would do it again? For us I would say, yes, of course. When I look around, every single item in the house was researched, compared, purchased and gradually put together. The thought, time and energy that we have put into this build has created a much deeper connection to the property. Our blood, sweat and tears are in the very fabric of the house. The hardest part of the process was when we were focussing on saving as much of our income as possible to ensuring a low mortgage. We made many sacrifices to ensure we reached this end goal, but we knew these relatively short term sacrifices would have long term gains for our family. For the actual building of the house, we chose a two year build schedule from starting on the foundations. This allowed us planning time between build stages and made the build process more manageable. It also allowed us time to do some jobs ourselves such as fitting insulation, interior decorating etc. We enjoyed taking time to do the jobs we were confident in doing well ourselves. Perhaps we could have taken on the more tasks, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it made more sense to work a bit of overtime and pay a contractor to do the work well, rather than us doing a job slowly and at a reduced quality. In the future, we would consider another self-build, perhaps in thirty years when I will be semi or hopefully fully retired. So until then… See you next time and thanks for reading.

I've just realise that I just barged in asking loads of questions, so I reckoned I'd better introduce myself... ? I'm Marcel (as you might have guessed from my username), and my other half (Joanne) and I have been in the lucky position to be able to build our own house in Orphir in Orkney. ...well, I say we built our own house, we had someone do it who has more experience at this game than either of us does... We moved to Orkney 5 1/2 years ago after falling in love with it on a holiday a number of years before that. In 2014 we were both made redundant from the jobs we were at (don't worry, it was voluntary), and we had always had the dream of one day building our own... During the design and build stages, we've stayed in a few places, but we moved in in September. This is the result of our little project, minus the portaloo. It's a 2 1/2 bed ICF built larch clad bungalow, with an Air to water heatpump and MVHR. (edit because I hit Post before I was done... ?)

For anyone interested in how this panned out... After ~15 months we've finally agreed the finer points and have last week signed Deeds of Easement awaiting registration with Land Registry. It has been a very painful experience and one I didn't expect to drag out for so long, but the good news is that we held firm and got what we wanted in the end - albeit at a financial cost (my legal fees clocked in at around £5k + VAT). The only thing I couldn't get a contractual answer for was a date to implement the under-grounding works (the DNO cited Covid as the primary reason) but I think if push comes to shove I can now serve notice on the Wayleave which should at least force some action within 6 months or so. We can now breathe a sigh of relief and get on with the good stuff, engaging with an architect and getting our build off (in?) the ground!

Thanks for all the replies and reassurance, it's strangely comforting to know I'm not completely alone in this ☺️ It's also good to hear your stories, the similar issues and experiences with the whole thing. We also took this route because of finances (but something in me also strangely really wanted to do it) as we got some designs done by our architect who knew from the very start what our budget was and not at any point did he raise any concerns about whether we could do what he designed for the money. It was only once we got planning granted and spoke to builders we found out the reality of the situation (there is also a local premium in building we weren't aware of when we bought the original house). From a financial perspective, luckily for us I'd already decided to take it on when we found out that the build wasn't going to be a simple 'remove and raise roof on existing dwelling, and add a new floor,' but actually demolish a large percentage of the existing dwelling, thus doubling the size of the project. We then found that the existing house needed a lot of remedial work to make it good for the additional 1st floor. I still remember the day when my wife came home from work to see most of the ground floor gone only to ask - 'didn't our architect say this was all staying in place?' There were also silly things like the new steel columns were supposed be installed inside an existing wall but the arichtect got the dimensions wrong by 100mm so yet another wall had to come down! So in essence the project went from a large scale loft conversation totalling 100sqm to a 200sqm almost new build. When the BCO visited to inspect the pad foundation trenches I'd dug he looked at it all and asked if we shouldn't just have demolished the whole thing and started from fresh. We did seriously consider it for a moment but couldn't bear the thought of taking it all back to planning etc. Blimey, I've just reread through that paragraph and it already sounds like a proper drama from Grand Designs or something, resonating with those warnings from books like the Housebulder's Bible and Self-build simplified of why you shouldn't do it all yourself!!! ? It's taken me just over two years so far when I started to prepare us and the site for the journey ahead. Then in January 2019 I had a small team of builders in to build the walls for a ground floor infill extension. It was after having them in as potential builders for the whole thing that I made up my mind to do it all myself so started in earnest Feb 2019. It feels like an age since then. Re dealines and timelines - oh, yes, I'd put those in place along with my building schedule and project management chart - that lasted a whole few months after which I threw it away and just got on site and did what I could each day. I think one of the worst things is when people constantly ask how the build is going and do we have a move in date; when will it be finished? Overthinking has definitely been my problem too. I managed to find a way to avoid it when building up the walls and timber frame, but when it's come down to more detailed and important stuff I slip right back in there with that. One of the things I've found to be both a blessing and a curse is the flexibility of doing it myself. We can make and change decisions as we go which obviously does have ramifications. However, it pays major dividends like when I came across how all the steels were designed to sit inside the walls leaving major cold bridging issues - I simply moved all the walls so the steels now sit inside the external fabric. This has also paid dividends when I've had to switch big tickets suppliers like the whole insulation system and the roof cover due to supplier problems. I do have to admit that despite doing some difficult and challenging jobs in my career so far, this is up there as the hardest thing I've done yet. As you've all said, despite the grind it's all going to feel great when it's done and there are also the the many intermediate moments like yesterday when I took down my kwikform scaffolding from the front of the house to see the newly clad facade - it good to see the ugly billowing tarps gone from the walls. Gotta keep the perspective. It's actually starting to look like a house ?

@recoveringbuilder it is, yes. The one we've got is a Duo Plus https://www.omnitub.co.uk/products/omnitub-duo-plus and it's 750mm in its narrowest part. HWMBO actually drove 3hrs out into the depth of Somerset last year to their warehouse and sat in each bathtub they had on display, and could not pack him back into the car - he was so enjoying himself.

We went for a Japanese soaking bathtub (I was very opposed at first, but...), and I SOOO love it! It's roomy. It's exceptionally easy to get in and out (with problem knee that's important). It actually covers you up to the neck with no bits sticking out and getting cold. Will never go again for a standard long bath in my life black or white

Having full time jobs and two kids at the same time as project managing the build and doing a lot of the work ourselves in evenings and weekends. Managing cash flow has been one of many factors. Wouldn’t change a thing (it’s a good day today so I can say that!) but it has taken 2.5 years and we aren’t yet done though at least we have moved in. We have learned a lot, including about ourselves, and the pride we have has a value we can’t measure.

The inability to sell our old house. A house is an illiquid asset and don't always assume you will be able to sell it in a timely manner, or for a price that you find acceptable. It's still not sold having now been accidental landlords for 4 years..........

You can get attic trusses with EasyJoist bottom chords so you can run services through them. You cannot otherwise drill any part of them without written agreement from the designer.

I've just got to the point where the superstructure and drains are nearly done and with a lot of advice from you guys, I'm changing to self PM and subbies. I don't quite qualify for rolling my sleeves up completely, but I'll do my best. I feel quite relaxed now and I will be able to control the budget and over think to my heart's content.

I am exactly the same and the amount of money I have saved is amazing but also the pride of knowing I have done the vast majority of it myself.

Yep, in the last year I have had one man on site for two days, that’s it nobody here apart from me. Today i fitted 125 kg of staircase, I did stop a few times and wondered who I could get for a couple of hours to give me a hand. But all in now. Painfully slow but I think I will be £200,000 in front by the time it’s finished

We didn't build a house but we took on a 1960's house, tore it back to a shell, renovated most of it, extended it, built garages and demolished old buildings and now on the final push to complete it all with the final parts being renovated now (parts that directly adjoined the extension). Been a hard 5 years so far, I'll be glad for it to be over if I am honest. I go through periods of what seems like total inactivity but you must remember that planning and material procurement and decisions are progress in their own right, we have recently broken the ice on about a 2-3 months period of more or less no or very little progress, but then on breaking the ice suddenly the project takes a leap, I have a JCB turning up later to dump hardcore over a wall into our garden, I have flooring arriving tomorrow/Fri, I had a painter in last week, I made some decisions and plans which then let things move again and I just need to be bold and go and buy lots of materials and hope it all works out OK! In 5 years I have had help from professionals on my site for about a cumulative 4-5 weeks, that includes a joiner for a day, a brickie, general builder (dry dashing the house), gas man, plasterers & painters. The rest has been me on my own or with limited help from friends and family. I overthink things, sometimes it pays off, sometimes it just creates issues and stress, I have actually been feeling a bit off for a few weeks now and I am sure it is stress. I pondered over the silicone job on a window sill for about 2 days at the beginning of the week deciding it let the whole new kitchen down... apparently it doesn't but because I paid too much attention to it I stood and stared at it and fiddled with it and wasted more time. I have also decided that if I do something now and I am not happy, move on, don't think about it and if at the end of it all, I still look at it and think no that is not good, then redo it, assuming it is a job that can be done in isolation obviously! Don't worry and don't you or anyone else set targets for yourself, you will not meet them and you will feel demotivated and then stress and rush and then you will step back and go, wait, I made that deadline, there isn't a deadline and suddenly a huge weight is lifted off your shoulders.

Like Grand designs, in sloooooooooooow motion. That's the whole first episode, they have started to dig a pond, they have drawn a few plans, and only just applied for planning permission. Gosh this is going to be tedious?

I have a black bath (black on outside white inside) , black glass whb in a white gloss vanity unit, white wc and white sparkly tiles, I think it looks smart.

I've got nothing. Sorry to disappoint.

looks awesome.

There is already a way to sell back to the grid, but you have to have an MCS installation. This, at the moment, makes it not really worth while.

I think it's 2 metres for stairs and landing.

Not sure what all the fuss is about, we have lived onsite in a static for 18mths now - missus, 10yr and 9yr old girls who share a pokey little room plus 2 cats. Nothing hard about it, its like being in a small flat. We have curtains across lounge entrance and leave heater on in there overnight so the lounge area is warm in morning. I built a side extension to house white goods. Worst bit of van life is the summer when it turns into a hot box - solution to that is go outside?‍♂️ Reckon we have another year to push living in it, will be strange moving into a house where the hallway is bigger than the van! Spent 4k on a 30ftx10ft two bedroom job straight off a site. Wouldnt spend more than that as it will be worthless when done. If you buy a van for 12k who do you intend to sell it to for that sort of price when done? There's no market for it other than self builders and you'd struggle to find one willing to spend more than 5k? Side note: my gas and electric is approx £1600 for the yr.

An ASHP will not heat DHW much above 50 degrees. If you heat a UVC to 50 degrees, you can then draw hot water from it and you get 50 degree hot water up to the point the tank runs out. If you heat a thermal store to 50 degrees, you will get 50 degree water out to start with. But because you are not actually drawing the water off, you are merely extracting energy from it, by the time you have drawn say half the tank capacity from it, the water will be coming out a lot colder. So it is generally accepted you need to store the water in a thernmal store a lot hotter than your desired water temperature.

We spent 18 months in this, during the winter with the "beast from the East" That picture was when it was first delivered, it was boxed in around the base and of course had steps to get to it etc. The best thing I did was fit a cheap wood burning stove that hardly went out from November to March. Keeping up with the wood to feed it was challenging, we burned coal overnight. We chose that one for it's unusual layout with the living room in the centre and a bedroom at each end, which fits in better with it's next life when we turn it into a studio, workroom and store room (it is staying on site) The "highlight" of the winter was a frozen pipe underneath due to mice eating a section of the pipe insulation and me spending half an hour underneath it during a blizzard with a hairdryer thawing the pipe. You simply can't beat being on site. No rent, band A council tax and everything is sorted. You get all your stuff, utilities, telephone, banking etc etc moved to your new address and there is nothing to change when you move from the caravan to the house, except the council tax.

You can't (or at least will de disappointed if you do) keep the thermal store so you should factor in replacing that with an UVC. An UVC needs an annual service, more of a check that all the safety features are working rather than a service in the sense you would think of with say an oil boiler. It just requires a plumber with the right ticket and takes no more than 2 hours. So your challenge will be finding someone that does that at a fair rate. I would regard £150 as the absolute max for that personally let alone any more. An ASHP does not in theory need a service other than perhaps check the air intakes are not blocked with leaves etc. I would love to be a fly on the wall and see what someone does when they come to "service" it. I have an LG ASHP and you have probably read about the "issues" I had with it and the little help I got from the supplier, I really had to figure it out all for myself and devise work arounds as the root problem is still there. But mine is an old model, so I would not like to say if you are likely to experience problems or not with their current offerings. How long is the warranty of an ASHP with this annual service? You surely only need to pay that until the warranty has expired then just get the UVC serviced after that.

In my first floor bathrooms I like to think of this non-lagged pipework as UFH.

that’s why building control visit to make sure it’s done right. I still do not understand if a building is done to regs (or better) why another form of certificate is required.

I would say get the largest one you can if you want to work from home, to the point of a twin unit if you can find one. They will be cold, they are not renowned for insulation, so you want a good heating system and just accept heating will be expensive for the time you use it.

dont do it. trust me they are horrendous. They sell for peanuts after couple years. total waste of time, money and sanity!!!!! Save the cash and rent the cheapest place you can.

lovely location.

A 4" grinder and a steady hand. Mark the square neatly and overlap the lines a bit. Cut one side up to the corners, then turn the tile over to complete the cuts.

other option is an Architects certificate.

truss company was one of the easier suppliers to deal with I found. You give them the plan they provide you the truss and fixings to make it work to the drawing and calcs they have done for building control. Get the hatch yourself they cheap.

+2 to Osmo Hardwax Oil (Although its not like a wax or an oil). Ours has been down 13 years in a hallway with two kids that have just turned 18. Doesnt need recoating yet.

+1 to the above, really nice look.....

Three and a half years now and still 2 bathrooms, a kitchen and a staircase outstanding plus minors like all skirting, architrave, handles. Not sure I can honestly claim to have done even 51% of it myself but been here for and contributed to every day of work thats gone into it. 5 days of plasterer and 2 of electrician is the only paid trade in the last 15 months, ie since we moved in. Running out of cash and moving in before finished really slows things, any little job becomes a big slow job because speed and efficiency just means the expensive trip to the merchants happens sooner. Also the realisation living here that the temporary kitchen is kinda minimalist cool and functions fine, we dont need 3 bathrooms, and the temporary staircase gets us up and down 100% efficiently...i've become immune to its squeaks. The house overall is possibly more interesting now than it will be when fully finished. My other half would not agree!

Criminal painting white! Wax oil eg Osmo oil, incredibly hard wearing, 5 very thin coats on treads lightly wire wool and dust between coats then once every 10 years two coats

Spray the wall with Thompson’s Water Seal or similar, but you need to get the soil and vegetation away from the wall as that will be causing more damage than the water as roots will break up the join between tarmac and the wall. I have a similar wall and we spray for weeds once a month from March - October.

Definitely Aico all the time for me. Shop around and you can get them a bit cheaper.

Both are recognized by the major lenders We used Protec There Accessors are self employed Easy to deal with Normally just tell you to send pictures Ours spent less than 30 minutes in total at our build iIncluding the five minutes for the final inspection

Great wee story of your journey. Thanks for that.

Protek seems to be the cheapest and the go to here for being responsive. Thats who I will be using.

Yes. It's grinding away slowly. There are still good moments, but right now it's dragging. Last weekend I picked up a pack of roof battens in the roof shop (with one of the staff - socially distanced by 4.8m!) and put it on the roof rack of the Range Rover. I only wanted two packs, so didn't see the need to drag the big trailer out there. Big mistake. I must have twisted somehow and ended up getting SWMBO to drive me home to have a lie down with a bad back and plenty of ibuprofen. One fine weekend lost. It rained heavily the previous weekend so I did nothing particularly productive on site. I've used all bar 2 days of my annual leave from work and it gets dark really early. Opportunities for decent progress are limited. I am staying sat firmly at my desk all week at work - avoiding any threat of having to run trials or move equipment so I am fit for the next weekend. This is before I start mentioning all the supply chain woes! Not helped by being on an island during a pandemic and building something out of the ordinary for the IOW by using "modern materials". But I will be happy again by Sunday evening when I can cross a couple of things off the list and advance the progress bar on the Gantt chart. (Proper project management here! ) My only real deadline is getting the cladding and windows done before I have to pay for additional scaffolding time. After that, I'm planning on a break to play with some things with engines. It will all be worth it in the end.

Oh, a new tool for me to look at ? any good?

Think @Carrerahill sums it up pretty well I reckon most of us here over think things. Original lockdown really slowed me down my second fix joinery delivery got put off for about 6 weeks. I could of got it somewhere else within a week at 20% more, was going to push the button but thought if I have to pay 20% for every item left to finish then i'll get the hump. Just moved on with other things and was generally inefficient. Anyway got the stuff in the end and old place sold quick once lockdown lifted so keep at it @SimonD one day it will all come together and jobs list will be done real quick.

look at your loadings on your truss spec, sure they will be okay

Yes we were in that boat, took us eight years. It's great when it's finished.

Have a look at Kingspan, yes the insulation people! They supply and install small pumping chambers in lots of different configurations, single pump, dual pumps, float on/off/high level warning etc.

Also bear in mind that when these fail the tank full of sewage is not all that bad. Maybe I have poor sense of smell but lots of it will be water from showers, dishwasher, laundry. Obvs a fair mix of floaters but the contents are regularly pumped away.

@Ferdinand The phase change freezer was essentially the answer to "How do I eat steak followed by ice cream in the middle of the Atlantic, while transiting in a 34" wooden yacht?". My father on law was a very clever chap who had the knack of seeing the very simple and obvious solution to a problem that everyone else had missed. When I tell you how it worked, it will be so simple and obvious that it won't seem impressive. It would be fair to say a sizable number of his ideas have been incorporated into my house design. It's a real shame he never got to see the house other than in drawings. The problem with sailing is getting power for use in "hotel services" as the RN call it. It was even worse in the early 90s when solar panels were expensive and pretty awful things. So you're limited to power sources like running an engine, towing an altenator etc to charge batteries (again, in the early 90s these weren't anything like we have now), so efficiency is key for long range sailing. He built a massively insulated top opening box with the best volume to surface area he could fit in the space, and pieced together a reverse carnot cycle freezer using parts such as an airconditioning compressor - because taking mechanical power from the engine was more efficient than driving an inverter. To minimise engine run time, he used a pair of aluminium plates with a "bag" filled with strong brine. The freezer oviously froze this in the cooling cycle, taking the box temperature to -20c or so, and it acted as a cold store for many days at a time provided the box wasn't opened much (and there's plenty of spare PCM sloshing around should the bag leak...). Thus engine runtime was minimised and used relatively efficiently (5 to 10 minutes every 3 days), there was no battery load imposed and he and the crew (a younger SWMBO) ate well. Simple solutions tend to work well.

Another mistake I made, attaching the UFH pipe to the top of the mesh. When you use 50mm mesh spacers and add 8mm mesh onto that you end up with just 34mm of cover in a 100mm slab. Something I didn't factor in - A292 is 8mm diameter, but it overlaps in a criss cross so actually takes up 16mm. Then when you chuck in the laps where mesh has to overlap, suddenly you only have 18mm of cover to the mesh. Put a 16mm UFH pipe there and you're buggered. These are are the sorts of things no one tells you to be careful with so you dont realise until too late. I spotted this issue as I was doing the mesh but it was too late in the game to change the plan. I considered running the UFH pipe through and under the mesh but that would have been way too problematic. So I ran it over the mesh avoiding laps where possible. Even so (and this is where it is relevant to your comment about running a rule over the edge - I thought this too), the concrete guys were concerned there wasnt enough cover so poured the slab 10mm higher than the upstand all the way across (it didn't really pour over the edge like you would think!). I got them to remove the bit over the upstand so I could then foam 10mm of insulation back in giving me my upstand back. A major pita, not difficult but just an unwanted job. This created another problem, where they had removed the concrete over the upstand it was jagged due to the stones in the concrete, I had to mix up some load bearing grout up and go around the edge pouring it in to give me a clean finish again. It worked, but there was a lot of unnecessary work created due to the way I put it all together. In hindsight, fixing the pipes to the insulation under the mesh would have saved a lot of work. With my job, I organised the boom pump and concrete and powerfloat, the guys came in and did the work. They were busy from about 8am till 12pm then nothing to do until the concrete cured enough. They started power floating at about 14:30 and finished about 20:00.