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Hi - it seems you need to really tap into the internet and gain a much clearer picture of what the costs are when it comes to embarking on a self build project. For me the basics would start with the plot - how much is it likely to cost in order to get the services connected - Search sites such as @nod suggested or the local energy suppliers. Then what type of build material are you looking for - TF - ICF - SIPS - Block work etc - Then you need to consider the external finish - render - brick - stone - cladding? For a starter take a look at this site via this link - https://www.fleminghomes.co.uk/self-build-resources/cost-calculator/ There are other companies available, so I am not endorsing this company as such - it's just a pointer for you to start gaining a fuller understanding of what the costs are likely to be etc.

Good point here from the_r_sole. It's hard to compare designers prices. You can get a set of BR regs set of drawings and calcs cheeply, but that is all you will get. Just enough to get your approval. You can get them really cheep if you are happy with saying say.. ,x ,y and z will comply with clause x, y and z in the regs.. very few drawings or supporting info required. You'll have your approval but the info you have will be very limited..trouble ahead if you don't have significant experience of building and dealing with individual contractors. It will then be up to you to develop and communicate the detailed design information to the contractors ect who are pricing unless you are really doing it all yourself. The less info you give them generally the more heavy they will be with the pricing pencil or build in caveats to allow them to charge you for "extra work". It will also fall to you to take on the liability / responsibility if you get it wrong, BC come to inspect and say. NO! Put it this way. A good skilled trades person who will also keep you right on a DIY build (maybe by saying.. are you sure you want to do this?) may cost £250 - 300 / day as an average UK price. £31.5 - 37.50 / hour. Now chuck in some plant / van tool costs and so on. Just say 40 quid per hour = £ 1600 per week. That is just for one person. For two.. £ 3200 per week. Now an experienced Architect or designer can easily save you this and more. Go cheep and you risk getting bogged down trying to resolve buildability issues that crop up because you are just relying on the drawings you have use for regs approval, trying to source different materials that will still comply with say the U value requirements and so on. The test when comparing fees is to ask this of the designers. 1/ Your fee is this. It is higher than the others so can you convince me that this extra fee will result in an overall saving..mitigate the fee? Tell me how you are going to do this. Explain to me how say you have thought through the buildability aspects so it's easy for local trades persons to build and thus they will be less heavy with the pricing. Are you sure that the materials can be easily sourced and on time to avoid delay on site? Where is the risk in this project to me, can you tell me where the risk lies so I can make an informed descision? A good designer will think about all these things but that "thinking time" and experience comes at an upfront cost. 2/ Your fee is this. It is the lowest! Can you convince me that I'm still going to get the same service and effort of design thought on my build/ project? Can you assure me that you are giving me enough information so that a contractor is not going to get free access to my bank account while at the same time my job is not going to go off progamme, I'm not going to get into trouble by inadvertantly by doing something that may breach the regs.. go for the completion certificate and get knocked back.. ? If your designers don't like these types of questions then.. keep looking. As a last thought.. a washing machine repair "Engineer" may cost £ 60 per hour.. this is your home. While the professional fees may seem a bit steep initially, once you look at this in the round and if you don't have significant experience then a responsive and supportive designer can be a good route to follow.

We've had nothing but good experiences with Ecology since first making initial enquiries, through from the application and subsequent drawdowns. Many others have retold this same experience so there's no doubt we're not the only ones. Thought I'd throw a bit more perspective on how they operate from our recent experiences. We recently agreed an easement with a local developer to put a storm drain through our site to a discharge point at the Burn behind our house. The solicitor advised us that in most cases the mortgage company would retain the land payment. Not Ecology. "Work away lads, the cash is yours. An no, it doesn't affect our valuation or your loan entitlement." Score! Secondly, we went to planning and amended the design. Informed Ecology and advised them of the change of design, anticipated value increase and also our increased costs. No bother again. "If the value goes up from the surveyors report, you can access the retention sooner. And if you need more money, you can make a further application with no legal fees." Sweet. And throughout this we've been able to pick up the phone and get through to our account manager who doesn't even need to look up our details on the computer or ask us a million questions as she knows her stuff inside out. And only extra fees we've been charged is the £250 valuation survey. *I have not received a gratuity for this post from Ecology, quite the opposite in fact ?

I thought this was spot on: – Person 1: Why do we build houses like this? [Picture below] Person 2: Can’t resist taking a shot to see if I can do it in 5 tweets or fewer (as follows) … Tweet 1 1066 - William I establishes a system of land ownership that gives incredible political & economic power to landowners, giving land incredible ? value. Tweet 2 1948-1961- We regulate development but still end up allowing landowners to capture most increases in land value, even though that land value is created by everyone. Tweet 3 1970s-2000s This creates a biz model: 1. buy up potential development land. 2. wait / negotiate for LAs to award planning permission. 3. capture the sudden ⬆️ in land value by ? cheapest (facsimiles of) homes & n’hoods you are allowed to, then sell to the mortgage industry. Tweet 4 2000- Successive policies put ever-increasing pressure on LPAs to award planning permission, compromising on quality in order to prioritise quantity. Meanwhile the land value capture industry is also heavily subsidised because Gov believes we rely on it. Tweet 5 2020s Side-effect: we all end up living in the financial assets left behind by this industry. Even though they were never really designed to be successful places to live (I.e good social, economic or environmental infrastructure). That wasn’t their purpose. – From here:

I must try them for a comparison and back check, I would be surprised (and annoyed) if the Murdock price is beaten. We run north of 1m a year through them at work and I have been promised an at cost price or as close to it as they can do... He has advised me to hold off for a few months with the order yet as they anticipate a price drop on timber toward the back end of the year, and to be honest it will be circa November before I'll need them on site

Who are you getting a price from?? Try Quinn's in ardboe, ATS in Portadown and Murdock's. I used ATS and they where great.

@Thorfun Thanks. I'll post the outcome.

Council’s and planning have no rhyme or reason for their actions. I wish you all the best with it all.

5.5

And little work was done. People often forget that supply and demand is governed by demand. Now while a few people will pay over the odds to get something finished, most won't. If this was not so, we would all be infinitely cash rich with unlimited wealth.

Could you not approach the land owner with an offer that is "conditional" upon you receiving all the information you require. Thereby effectively "ring fencing" the land until you are either ready to proceed or pull out depending upon your findings? In addition, if the plot is well sought after, you may wish to agree some sort of "deposit" to secure it during the research period?

The alternative is worse: no development. While I agree that building poor quality is unnecessary, housing people is more important than reducing new housing energy losses. Let the power generation companies clean up that sector and then the problem goes away. No point diverting resources to where it is ultimately not needed. Or just ban combustion technologies. Problem sorted.

We also used the very best materials and over insulated ie Thermal boards on every external wall Double sound block on every ceiling German kitchen and bathrooms Over 300 m2 of top quality Italian tiles More than 30 expensive sash window We could have easily have cut our 815m2 down if we had used standard quality materials and our costs would have rocketed if we had had a builder buying materials in just so we didn’t have to pay the vat upfront Dont be put of by some of the turnkey figures You could make a saving by employing individual trades rather than handing the job over to a builder Most builds are very easy to manage

@flanagaj Typical council So it has to conform with everything even though there’s an entire mix of building styles . We had exactly the same issue . Firstly ignore the fact that the neighbors will object ; (expletive deleted) ‘em My solution to this was a design that took ‘elements’ of neighbouring properties I.e a nod to them . Similar roof tiles for example to ‘ blend ‘ it better . You have a nearby house with stone . Perhaps integrate that as a feature . Of course this is really for the architect to come up with .

People like us - the putative self righteous self builders and their chums who may think of ourselves as somewhat better than most would never seek to live in such a place. Pride cometh before the fall.

Who are your current insurers @WWilts..? Most if not all of the major insurers have a householder minor works clause in their policies and it defines what they mean. I think your insurers may have got the wrong end of the stick here. Also beware of this : That could be deemed cancellation by the insurer and that may go on the insurance database as such and you will need to declare you have had a policy cancelled. Home Protect do insurance with cover up to £20k works not notifiable so I would expect this would work for you assuming you don’t need higher cover. I think that a discussion with your insurer is the first stage, then insure the plot for the build.

Looking at the drawing the bungalow looks more like about 85m2 rather than the 150m2 you mentioned in your first post. This will reduce the cost a great deal and you may well be able to achieve this within your proposed £200k budget.

Goodness how useful are these little beasts! Not the cheapest tool in the box, but I bought a Hti-Xintai HT-201 and really happy with it. Obviously will be useful for checking insulation detailing (although, best used on a cold night in winter), but my immediate use case was to figure out the source of an intermittent low level plastic melting smell coming from my AV cupbaord. Source turns out to be the 48V PSU for some spot lights -- internal temp getting to 110ºC but the majority of the case remained cool to touch. Pointing the camera in the cabinet and turning everything on, it lit up bright - instant diagnosis. For anyone doing a DIY home automation / tech / electronics install it seems a great idea to check for weak connections or other hotspots. Also highlights which of the little plug in wall warts run hot etc, can highlight any cables getting warm due to being near over current, trace out heating pipes, UFH loops etc. Nice little tool.

As you already have planning permission a lot of the professional fees will already have been paid for. However you there will be more especially if the architect has not provided drawings for building control. We are currently building a 160 sq m property (200 including garage) on a slightly complicated site in that it is built into a hill and we are looking at £1875 sq m cost if we are lucky, to a high standard using ICF and lots of insulation. We have builders on site but they are not expensive in comparison to many even here in the North West. Our costs could be lower if we had compromised on build materials but this is our forever home so these details for us are important and worth paying for.

Your design lends its self to cheap build cost Especially if ground conditions are favorable Looks like a nice home

if you contact GEC or Crown energies They will give you an exact quote for all three

The short answer is no, the budget will not be enough. You will need at least £300k.

So not on title but insurers be happy. What kind of fence will you get away with heras?

We've just bought a bungalow with PVs and ST installed. Both of the previous owners unfortunately died last year so it was a probate sale. We found out various bits of information from the LA Building Control office and the executors. The good news is our PVs were installed in 2012 so attract a high FiT rate and the bad news is they are registered with SSE who are very slow at transferring them into our name.

A quick answer is £1500 to £2500 per square meter. The best place to start is getting quotes/estimates from turnkey companies as TBC said above . "good reliable experienced builders" availability is going to be the main issue.

Yes - you can split the plot for insurance purposes and that’s what needs to happen here. Fence it off, give it an address of “Land adjacent to 42 Railway Cuttings” and then crack on.

Can you split plot on title without selling one of the dewllings or pieces of land to another entity @PeterW? I've had a ballache with this in the past

Jilly, thanks for the kind words. much appreciated. The main thing is that it seems like you are marching on now and hey, you probably got a load of stuff done before the material prices went daft due to covid.. so extra bonus to offset the stress. If you look at the cost of doing it now in this climate.. well you may well be in profit already! Jilly makes a good point here for all. If your designer turns round and says this is going to break the budget ask them why. You need to cut them a bit of slack but they should be able to explain to some extent and identify what parts of the job are causing the budget problem. If you just want a house too big for your budget then they should just tell you.. take the rose tinted glasses off folks and here is why.. On refurbs / conversions it's a different ball game and this is where a good designer should be able to identify the areas that are contributing to breaking the budget. Once you know this you can then look at finding a solution. Sometimes it's just not possible to convert say with the money you have, but at least you know why and be in a position to judge if the compromises you need to make may outweigh the benefits.

I think you’ve asked the wrong question of your insurers. Sequence should be : - Split plot and fence off. - Insure plot as self build plot. - demolition of garage and new extension Doing that most insurers would see the demo/extension on your land and plot. It sounds like your insurers think you want them to insure the self build on the same policy which they will not do.

The executors should know if he's getting FIT income. They can check bank statements etc. If you rent out your roof do they put anything in your title deeds? Incidentally I hear probate is taking a long time at the moment.

The dates of Google earth imagery are not always correct Round this neck of the woods the same image is shown for 3 years. The LPA have fallen foul on trying to use the imagery for enforcement and it has been shown to be unreliable

Nightmare I reckon you need broker to be properly covered. A lot of times best thing is to say nothing and keep fingers crossed.

What multiplier did they give you?

I would have taken the cladding over the reveals, not flush - unless the reveal slopes outwards like a cill

I found someone on 'people per hour' to do mine for £800 ish if I remember correctly. He's RIBA and is in Northern Ireland so cheaper than where I am in Cambridgeshire.

Made some good decisions & some bad decisions in my self building journey. Going with Ecology was one of the best ones for sure. Isn’t it great to be able to recommend a company without reservation. Especially one that plays such a crucial part of the self building process. That company will see some great success in the future if they keep going the same way,, I just hope some bigger company doesn’t take them over and make them just like the rest.

Yes, they are excellent. Gave me a fantastic income multiple. Slowest part of the whole process was getting a telephone appointment. So contact them early on. Should be everyone's first port of call for self build finance.

Agree, nothing but great service from them.

I think we may have the same account manager, excellent customer service.

All the wriggling needed to make your plan work....?

Pump, and flow switch, and a relay between the two. Items which need to be bought, items which consume energy, and items which fail. Every time a component fails, your perceived saving goes into the pocket of the engineer........and you know he will be back again at some stage Plus you'll have the extra, significant, associated losses of the external 'gubbings' and the cost of running the secondary pump which needs to run flat out usually. Due to convection, the external stuff turns into a waste radiator when the tank is static ( after being charged and the stat satisfied ) removing the heat to its surroundings. I get the knee-jerk attraction of part charging via the upper 1/3, but the whole point of providing low cost energy via the ASHP is that you can harvest the max amount of energy in the shortest window, eg the Go! tariff charges the whole larger cylinder once a day at 5p/kWh + the multiplication of the SCoP ( so DHW at ~2.5p/kWh on a good day minimum expected ). With that said, I have zero love for the Mixergy tank, and waaaaaaay less love for the PHE solution and additional costs / losses. Absolutely no sale there AFAIC. Folk get lost in an seemingly 'miserly' pursuit of maximised costs savings, and it's just a waste of time, effort and money. If you have cheap electricity and an ASHP, or PV and and ASHP, then you would surely want to maximise the yield and stuff the UVC full to the gunnels at each opportunity. These only lose a degree and hour max, so in 24hrs ( and with an suitably sized UVC aka energy buffer of 300-400L ) the numbers are far better eg that would be the most 'bang for the buck'. Telford stainless cylinder = lifetime warranty too, zero maintenance!!! This solution sells itself. On top of that would be the default of the immersion being used to convert PV into DHW directly, during the summer with the immersion only, thus not unnecessarily fatiguing the ASHP for the full 12 months of the year. That will promote reduced servicing and maximise longevity of the parts you least want to replace.

Me too - fun isn't it. Do you mean furrings! Firing seem like the right thing to do with the person that fitted the shower tray but ....

I actually don't mind them brick quoins tbf. Although I am common as muck. Just seems better than a plain elevation.

While many of us find that depressing for some people it will be aspirational which in turn is more depressing.

I think you can sum it up in the lyrics of this 1962 song, apocryphal or what! "Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky tacky,1 Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes all the same. There's a green one and a pink one And a blue one and a yellow one, And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same. And the people in the houses All went to the university, Where they were put in boxes And they came out all the same, And there's doctors and lawyers, And business executives, And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same. And they all play on the golf course And drink their martinis dry, And they all have pretty children And the children go to school, And the children go to summer camp And then to the university, Where they are put in boxes And they come out all the same. And the boys go into business And marry and raise a family In boxes made of ticky tacky And they all look just the same. There's a green one and a pink one And a blue one and a yellow one, And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same." (Malvina Reynolds; copyright 1962 Schroder Music Company,) Sad face! Infinite sameness - what statisticians would call 'regression to the mean' and mean is the word.