newhome

Time to chase or find the almonds then ?. I still don’t know what you’re stressing about. How hard can it be? Why do you have to cut the mosaics? To line them up with the floor tiles or something?

Start another room. Nothing like having chaos everywhere rather than doing one room at a time ?

She must have been shocked for a moment that you were heading towards the finish line. Back to reality now ?

It’s not a call for a night on the tiles then ?

You missed, get the neighbours inebriated so they don’t or can’t complain ?

Yep IT overspend is cringeworthy for sure. When I was in charge of the budget for this house I viewed it as my mission in life to keep on budget as the reality was that the pot was dry at a certain limit. No going to an internal committee and asking for more dosh as in the world of corporate IT. Keeping on budget came with some compromises here and I wish I hadn’t compromised in all of those areas but what’s done is done.

That was because how you chose to articulate what you are doing came across as ‘I won’t run into difficulties because I’ve done all of this’, ergo it sounded arrogant. That’s very different from a separate post started by someone showing us a milestone in their build that they are proud of.

It’s not just down to money. There is the satisfaction of having personally done some parts of the build such as the ones you list whether you could afford to have someone else do them or not. You cannot measure satisfaction purely in a monetary sense, it’s far more important than that. Pride, fulfilment, self-esteem et al. It’s all relevant. And in the event you have a wobble or an issue people are here to help, in the same way that we are here to celebrate success too.

There are a multitude of reasons why people self build and a multitude of ways of managing it. The only certainty is that you need to be on the ball and aware whatever route you take. For many it’s the satisfaction of saying I built that and having created a unique house that they wanted rather than having a house designed for the mass market. Plus many will want to oversee the operation and do as much as they can themselves. Just like self build houses we are all unique individuals bonded by a common goal and formed into a community via this forum. Self building can be a lonely place but it’s forums like this that help overcome the feeling of isolation. Whether it’s empathy, advice, hard messages or however you want to badge it, it’s the sense of community that makes this a great place to be.

Surely if you are paying someone to dispose of waste that’s then their responsibility. Or is that another minefield? I only had trades dispose of waste a couple of times but have to admit I never asked where it was going.

Yep, and this is done all the time where I work typically where the contracts are for 7 or 8 figure sums and run for up to 5 years. This is scheduled as a regular activity that benefits both sides. The time to do that however is not when issues emerge although sometimes that has to be the way forward if more informal talks aren’t productive. Far better to deal with issues without having to call in Group legal or sourcing as that’s then a tough gig for everyone!

@laurenco that sounds like a decent way forward and I would be camping out too. You may want to invest in a CCTV camera too to cover all bases.

Lol, when they look really miserable and you give in like we did then they will really have you sussed ?. Mine missed both the company and home comforts too and when the weather was bad they looked pitiful lol.

Nope, not if it’s done via relationship management rather than picking at contracts. I often get cooperation from my suppliers without needing any form of contract change. It works both ways though and I have to be prepared to give in return. That might be something as easy as acting as a reference site and meeting one of their potential clients. If the relationship is good I have no issue with doing something like that. A small thing for me to do but a big win for them if they secure a new client.

My dogs were in a run with kennels during the day and then in crates in the awning overnight. That was ok until the really cold weather came and then we felt guilty and had wet soggy dogs in the caravan. Thank god I was only there 2 nights a week!

I think if you work in IT like many seem to do on this forum the approach to managing work is much more disciplined than it seems to be in the building industry. Contracts are put in place if using a third party, requirements are gathered and signed off, design documents and test plans are signed off, build is completed etc etc. Does that rigour mean that things go swimmingly? Do they ‘eck as like! Those processes hopefully help drive down the risk of things going wrong but they never remove it completely. Life isn’t a box of chocolates, and sh1t happens and continues to happen. The “unexpected, could realistically never have been expected” things happen. You can’t mitigate every single risk so we have to accept that things will go wrong just as they do in nearly every project. In self building add into the mix the fact that for most people we don’t have full lifecycle experience of building a house yet many of us still decide to manage our own build. Even if you were to plan everything to the nth degree most builders won’t look at such things or even recognise a Gantt chart, so we can only do our best. As @recoveringacademic has found the response is often, ‘nah we don’t do it like that mate’. Sigh. I cover relationship management as part of my day job and one of the things I always say is that if you continually pick at details in the contract and fire those at the other side then something is wrong in that relationship. That’s not to say that never happens even when the relationship is mature and working well, but it’s a sign of issues emerging if contract gazing is the modus operandi. The issue is that it takes a while to build up a relationship and understand how each side operates yet for building there really isn’t a lot of time to mature the relationship as builders are in and out so it’s doubly difficult.

Lol @Christine Walker I can tell how annoyed you are and have visions of that annoyance allowing you to overcome your ladder phobia and storming up there to point at the dressing room ceiling and give them a piece of your mind ?.

Looks amazing!

If self building was easy, builders were amazing communicators, and everyone lived up to expectations there would be no need for this forum and I would be living in a parallel universe. I don’t think builders are not to blame in any way in these situations but who stands to lose? Not the builder in general so as always it’s a case of let the buyer beware. The only thing we have is the power not to pay them, assuming we didn’t pay up front so maybe that’s the way to negotiate here? The only way we can safeguard ourselves where scope of the work is concerned is to check, check again, and then come on here and ask for advice BEFORE something happens. And put it in writing. Often however that’s not the case and we have many more posters coming on here with issues. If you feel that people are shamed when they do so then that’s your opinion but I’ve had much help from here and never felt shamed. I don’t use the C word in posts either so we are all different ?.

Must be exciting to finally start! How come there was plot available on its own seemingly surrounded by developer built houses?

No one’s being shamed. We just learn lessons, all of us, not just in building but through life in general. I imagine that builders have a few tales to tell too. Like how they weren’t paid for the job they did, how some clients were a complete PITA picking at everything they did, or told them how to do their job despite knowing jack. If we decide to self manage, this type of issue goes with the territory really. I doubt anyone’s build is free of oh sh1t moments.

I assumed the wrong one then - this for the tectonite sink ...

This any good?

And therein lies the phrase "Assumption is the mother of all F ups" There are a multitude of threads on BH where people have laid bare their experiences. So; Write down what you expect to happen Go over it again and write down anything you have assumed Validate all assumptions with your supplier and be very clear about what is in and out of scope I wish we had done a lot more of that TBH. So many times assumptions have turned out to be false and led to the classic phrase 'not included guv'.