newhome

Not planning a third then?

My friends have stopped asking this as I turn into a demented mad woman (well even more than normal )

Dunno. I’m still trying to get finished, correcting things that aren’t quite right, dealing with things that are broken, 9 years on. I’d be glad just to feel that I’d actually finished and maintenance had begun!

I think it was @JamesP who mentioned that it had taken him 6 years to secure planning in DNPA.

Have you put the plans up on here @Cpd would love to see what you plan to do. There is some stunning scenery in Scotland and you’re right in the thick of it there.

I don't think the stuff I've got here looks very rodent proof TBH. Can't you wrap it with something like aluminium foil tape afterwards as a deterrent?

My favourite part is my kitchen / family room. I never actually use any of the other rooms, well apart from the master bedroom and bathroom. Hubby fitted the whole kitchen including the electrics and plumbing on his own and I think he made a pretty decent job of it. I also like the integrated blinds as they mean that I don’t have to be bothered with curtains or blinds, or better still cleaning them. Oh and the oak floors, staircase and skirting. I like those too.

Nope! Named by @Nickfromwales

The one from the garage. It is dusty as it was stored in the garage boxless but assuming it looks serviceable and if it’s any good to anyone I’m happy to pass it on, but it has no screws. I can’t even think where they were supposed to be used . There are also the cock controllers if anyone has a use for them (obviously now in a box, not on the wall!). They were only fitted for a few months before @Nickfromwales rendered them redundant.

So does @ProDave need both control boxes? Or do different types link together?

I found that one on top of the TS still in its box where I suspect it has been for the last 8 years before it moved abroad to Wales so should be BNIB.

@Nickfromwales do you want to pass @ProDave the one you have, and I’ll check out the one I still have to make sure it’s not nuked and will post it here if it looks ok and then someone else can have it.

I think there is another one of those in the garage as I nearly chucked it out last weekend in my endless garage clearout quest. Ran out of room in the car so it lived to see another day. It’s not in a box and may be a bit dusty but I will check when I get home and then that may also be going begging too if anyone wants it.

I’ve got many zones as @PeterW says but actually I mostly use the whole house as a 4 zone affair; 2 upstairs and 2 downstairs, split into ‘rooms I use’ and ‘rooms I don’t use’. For the latter I have set them to frost setting, keep the doors closed, and the other rooms run quite happily at a temperature that suits me with downstairs set to 20c and upstairs set to 18c. The zones I use are set to lower temperatures when I’m out of the house at work and then about an hour before I return home it heats back up to 20c so it’s definitely not cooking on gas (or in my case electric) 24x7. My system performed so poorly before it was sorted out I was very sceptical about how it could possibly work efficiently but so far so good!

Every day’s a school day . Happy to oblige

Lol, as this has been bumped up again I will give an update on the heating system. Both heating and DHW are working great. Heatmiser controller is doing its thing, and I've got to grips with it now as opposed to it being an ornament on the wall for the last 8 years! However it would never have worked properly with the TS all fecked anyway. TS is all good and no longer the device from hell, and taps deliver hot water when I need it, and enough to take a shower or a bath. So all good. The only outstanding issue is with the solar thermal that isn't heating the TS despite it 'running' as I can hear when it switches on and should be heating the TS. So new parts have been ordered and I'm trying to get a local plumber to sort that out (not that easy as apparently all plumbers round here are scared of going on the roof). @Nickfromwales and @PeterW think it's hopefully just air causing the glycol not to circulate properly so a change of automatic air vent might sort it, plus have advised that the pump should be changed at the same time as it's probably murdered itself after being in situ and not working properly for so long. A plumber is allegedly coming on Friday so have a look and give me a quote so fingers crossed! Would be good to get it working but not the end of the world if it doesn't really.

I like it too. Sort of New York loft meets family home.

We used Scotframe and found them pretty good. Since being on this forum I am told they are not the cheapest however. I just checked and the timber frame kit that included things like internal doors, coving, skirting and staircase, and including windows and doors, made up 22% of the final build cost. The kits always sound pretty cheap until you start adding on labour and other materials.

We had a timber frame (not a basic package however), with blocks on the outside. Timber frame made sense to us for a number of reasons. Firstly most builds up here in Scotland are timber frame, secondly as novice self builders it gave us the comfort that it was all being designed and cut to spec, and the sizes were correct for every component, and as it turned out it all fitted together very well. Thirdly once it was delivered on site it was up and watertight with astonishing speed (a bonus as the weather can be iffy here). We also needed the house to be habitable pretty quickly and as it turned out we moved in once we had a kitchen, shower room and living space. The rest of the house took eons to complete but that’s a different story! We kept costs down by sourcing every component outside of the timber frame package ourselves, and all trades were on a labour only basis. The housing market was very slow when we built our house and mainstream house builders had pretty much stopped building locally so there were lots of trades wanting the work so we got decent people (well mostly, still ended up with a few knobs!), and they gave competitive quotes (labour only) as they really wanted the work. So if you’re building a 112 m2 house, doing much of it yourself, sourcing all of the materials yourself including recycled where you can, getting trades in as and when you can afford to, and aren’t in any rush at all it seems achievable just about. If you want a house built quickly, insulated to within an inch of its life with a very high spec and finish then it’s not but as with most things in this life you pays your money and you takes your choice. Please do blog! This forum isn’t going anywhere so slow doesn’t matter,, and your approach to your build is different from many so will be of interest and provide a different perspective.

The vision vs the reality

It would be really great if you could start a blog or write a few posts explaining costings as there seem to be many people who wish to build a family sized house for that sort of budget but not that many people on here who have managed (or aimed for) per square meter costs in that ballpark. I’ve been told that my build cost was very low but @ £760 per m2 it was still way over 100k for my 4 bed house. Out of interest what £ per m2 are you looking at, how big is the planned house, and does that include absolutely everything apart from the plot purchase?

Won’t they expect the contents in the garage to be things normally stored in a garage though? For example my contents insurance includes examples of things stored in the garage so (from my policy) clothes BBQ’s tools gardening equipment lawnmowers freezer contents domestic fuel and water I think you might struggle if you try to claim for pretty much all of your worldly goods in the event of a fire in the garage or whatever so you will need to be completely transparent that this is what you are doing. I had an issue getting insurance on my part built house when the self build insurance ran out and I couldn’t renew it. I rang endless companies including the one I eventually obtained a policy from with no joy. In the end I used the ‘Challenge QuoteRack’ section on the following website and within a couple of hours a broker rang me and sourced me a policy. A mainstream insurer but I couldn’t obtain the policy I took out without the help of a broker. Not the same as what you are looking for but worth a shot maybe. https://www.quoterack.co.uk/forms/BasicDetailsForm.aspx The other thing you may want to consider is weighing up the cost of storage vs a non standard insurance policy.

Hi and welcome. As a guide, the cost of the timber frame, windows and doors (supply only) was about a third of the total cost of my build. That was only my experience however so may not be the norm. We had the timber frame etc. erected by a local builder and then my husband did a lot of the internal work and we had local trades in to connect up and do the bits my OH couldn’t as needed. We managed the build for about £760 per square meter albeit the majority of that work was completed 8 years ago so prices would be higher now I imagine. That was for a fairly large 4 bed house (total cost 266k not including the plot). I think 100k will be a stretch for a 4 bed house if you are not doing substantial amounts yourself. The non structural things tend to eat into the budget quite quickly. By that I mean all the things that don’t actually contribute to the fabric of the house, so ensure that you have an idea of how much these will cost and budget accordingly. For example: Building Warrant fee Insurance Warranty Architect fees Structural Engineer Fees SAP calculations Plant hire Skip hire If you need a mortgage there may be requirements from the lender that are costly too. Do also check out how much it will cost to connect services to the plot. There have been some eye watering quotes for connecting electricity in Scotland and there are threads on those on here, with this recent one as an example:

I love watching fire. Last time I used the incinerator I stood out there for hours loading wood into it and watching it burn. It was hot, very hot! I must have been standing too close though as the fronts of my legs were sore and red afterwards like I’d been sunburnt, but it must have been a very low grade burn or something. Took about a fortnight to disappear! Got a lecture from the OH about being a bloody idiot lol. Nothing new there mind I’m going to give it another go soon I think but will stand further back this time!

I would be really peed off it I was charged a day rate for someone sitting on their arse. We had a few here who tried it on. Turned up at gone 10 and wanted to knock off at just after 3 having taken a lunch break too so they only worked about 4 hours. When they invoiced hubby paid them for half days and told them to GTF . They were inside workers too so no excuse re the weather. I was desperate to get to the end after more than 8 years believe me! There were some really great people here (a few) but I did feel that I was taken advantage of by some when I was here on my own trying to get things finished, especially during the long running heating saga. I also paid 1k for a joiner who was here for 2 half days fairly recently because I had agreed a price for the job. Had I understood how long it would take I wouldn't have agreed to that. He left a hell of a mess too that took me hours to clean up. 3 rooms covered in sawdust as he just sawed the stuff where he stood.