kingostar

Luckily design fees should be much of an issue...the architect is one of my mates and we've agreed a very favourable fee and I'll be doing the M+E design myself.

Aye well with the new Building Regs Part F1 and current energy costs I'll be looking at ASHP, MVHR, PV & Battery. I've seen quotes recently for a full renewable package including battery for houses which are 3 times the size of my anticipated build and tbh the figures were not that frightening, given what all was included. The knotweed is a killer here..if we can't design it out as it sits Insitu it will probably but a spanner in the whole project. I roughly measured the size and its something like 40m2...could only see it on the south part of the site though. Reason for the survey is to make sure it's nowhere else and have a management plan there incase future lenders ask for one.

Hi All, Nearly a year down the road and not much has moved forward as of yet as Himalayan Knotweed has been found on the site. We have an ecologist coming out in the next week or so to complete a survey / management plan. Our hope is to keep the knotweed out side the boundary of the plot and then if necessary deal with it over the years as a cheaper option. Hopefully if this is doable then we hope to proceed with our architect on drawing up plans. I sat down with the architect and he asked me to do a list of rooms we would want in the dwelling and if I wanted put approx. sizes for each of these. I work as an BS Engineer so this wasn't much of a task. One thing - I was down on site (job related) and speaking to a contractor to does residential / light commercial - he said to me at the moment for a self build rough figures are £180 per sqft on a ground floor and £90 per sqft on additional floors. To me this sounds somewhat a bit much - but certainly not unrealistic to achieve. Would anyone have any comments on that - or is the contractor feeding me lies. I have attached my high level list and approx costs. Cheers

@nod is that £815 per sqmt? I'm under no illustration that it will be that cheap. Hoping for it to come in at around £1300. Of course all speculative. We don't envisage the build starting until summer 23 or maybe later...so fingers crossed the materials market will have settled somewhat by then. Utilities should be okay - houses near by with mains water connection from the main road. Electricity is close by as well....these could obviously pose significant risk as well. If I was to rank my construction methods it would be 1) ICF 2) Masonry block 3) Timber Frame

I am not completely fixed on it - I mean if there is only one contractor who has experience and willing but putting the arm in them I'd be happy to explore other options. At the same time I don't want a builder doing it for the first time at a more realistic price and be his guinea pig.

Hi everyone. I have been lurking on the site for the past few weeks and have decided to introduce myself as we have started to get the ball rolling on our self build. We are in a lucky position to have been gifted a site and one of my best friends is an architect, who visited the site with us yesterday. We are hoping to get a PP application submitted in mid 2022. Our site has a wee old stone house on it with an obvious fire/chimney and windows - so we are confident of obtaining PP on the basis of replacement dwelling. I have scarred the Internet and asked friends in the trade for approximate prices per sqmt and have heard anything from £1,000 - £3,000sqm. That is obviously a massive difference and depending of the specification. We hope to build a very air tight house with ultra efficient u-values and MVHR and oil boiler. I did a detailed payback analysis for PV, battery and ASHP and it just does not make sense to go this route - payback came out circa 33 years. In terms of Superstructure build I am hoping to go ICF - is there a market for ICF construction in NI? Concrete first floor is also a desirable. As this is very early doors I believe we can afford a budget of £300k for a house size circa 230m2. In people's humble opinion is this achievable or am I living in La La land? Attached are a couple of photos from the site. Thank you - looking forward to contributing in the future ?