lizzie

Our slab was like the Himalayas as some of you might recall. The eps was put down ok but the concrete was a nightmare. I dont know what they floated or levelled it with I could have done a better job myself...and I cant even ice a cake. In fairness the slab/frame company once alerted paid for rectification to flatten it out but we had to get a fixed cost from floor layer and it ended up with it costing more than agreed so we had to stand that. They had erected the frame on the undulating slab without levelling the frame so our frame was also out and we have had to compensate all over the place for this or the house would look lopsided. Thank god we have a carpenter who is amazing if he had not been capable of doing these ‘invisible’ mends to straighten up the look of thing I dread to think where we would have been. Even on our cladding which is absolutely beautiful and perfect he is having to make compensations for the frame being out. We didnt realise the problems with the frame when we were sorting the floor problems. Behind us now but has cost money and time and a lot of stress.

I didnt want a ‘normal’ box or I would have gone and bought one and saved 2 years of stress and a considerable amount of money. I wanted something ‘outside the box’, I wanted it to reflect us and our values and also to be an energy efficient cost effective place to live into old age. I know all the money we have spent on insulation mvhr etc etc will never be repaid in our lifetime but that was not a factor for us. A warm comfortable home that says to us (couldnt give a fig about the opinions of the outside world) this is an achievement and what 40 odd years of hard work has enabled us to do. For all the stress and the over budget runs and the cashing in the pensions it will be worth it. It is our house as individual as us and no developer box could ever have given us that. I dont think you will find many people on this forum who will have set out to build a basic developer box. Innovation, experimentation, pushing the boundaries (literally in some cases) of convention all these things are what people here are doing every day. Throwing money away for no good reason is not one of them but I would think almost everyone here has spent more than they hoped. Buy a developer box and spend 5 years upgrading and putting it right or be one of the very lucky ones and get to have your own house that sings you from every wall. Costs probably not too different in the end. I know which one I would go for. Folks we are blessed to be able to build our own individual homes, I feel lucky, poor but yes definately lucky and I have learnt so much on thsi journey. Still a way to go too! Celebrate your out of the box homes and leave the cost cutting boxes made out of ticky tacky to those who are not as lucky as us.

It varied but average 10 days I would say. One or two never bothered at all and a couple were really quick. Depends a lot on time of year and if quote dept is busy with spring coming or if they have exhibited at a show recently and picked up a lot from that.

It's height that is the bugbear for planners really, there is a de minimus tolerance usually circa 100mm on walls but over height tends to make them squeal and if they do 9 times out of 10 there is a neighbour complaint at the back of it. I have recently celebrated OH getting a win on enforcement for a client....client took a flyer, had built a good metre higher, got an extra habitable level with that extra headroom. Enforcement said roof off building lowered, evil neighbours had complained, happy result (not for neighbour) was eventually arrived at with planners.........we are building to tolerances on our own house he says he doesnt want that hassle at home!

@Hecateh feel for you and you have to live there too! We have/had tolerant neighbours not too many complaints save for the guy we bought the land from. It is his private drive we have to get down and to be fair he was ok first off but our groundworkers were a nightmare chewed up his verges left mud on the drive messed up his field where we had permission to put our spoil, ripped out his hedge ‘in error’ chewed up his newly laid lawn, damaged a beautiful tpo’d yew tree, I could go on. Last year before we realised the true extent and incomptetence we paid thousands to them to clean up and rectify the -as we were told- ‘unavoidable’ mess and then we found they had just made it worse in their attempts to put right their mess at our expense. We now have a somewhat tetchy neighbour and face a bill of many more thousands to get it all sorted.....will we get any money back from groundworks company who knows.... No moral to this story other than we tried our utmost to be good neighbours and it has not worked through no fault of ours, we employed ‘reputable’ local groudworks company had professional project management overseeing but the buck is stopping finally at our door. I find myself dodging our soon to be next door neighbour as I cant face it any more. Its not his fault really I would probably not have been as patient but with all the other many problems with the build the last thing I want to face every day is a griping neighbour. You have done your best and can do no more. They are fortunate to have a considerate builder/neighbour. Probably some deep seated resentment of your build at the bottom of it. Chin up! xx

There are very big differences. An Architects cert is only ref the workmanship and regs it is also only as good as his insurance if he packs up goes bust etc in a year or two then your cert is worthless in the event of a claim unless he has run off cover which is compulsory for some professions but I think not for architects. You could only have a go at him if it turned out he had not properly supervised the job. In essence the architect is only certifying that in his opinion the work has been done to the required standard he is not insuring you against failures in materials or probably poor workmanship. We know someone who's roof failed after about 8 years. The builder was no longer around and the warranty providers funded a replacement roof. Took a lot of sorting but they paid up more than £12k. No architect cert would cover that eventuality.

Lovely looking house Peter...cedar clad from the colour variations? Smart brick plinth too. For various reasons we left the brick slip idea behind on ours and used powder coated aluminium to match the windows. Heard lots of horrors about people having issues with install of brick slips and with all our other problems I didnt want another in the mix! We have tiled skirtings in the house and our tiler wanted a day rate not a metre rate for those as more fiddly than laying big tiles, maybe same applies on brick slips. Skirtings cost a fortune to install, think he really took advantage of day rate, so beware on that........he was good tiler but very bad news on everything else, overcharging, not turning up etc, had to sack him and get someone else in to finish and do bathrooms. What is wrong with British Workmen these days, good people are few and far between in my experience.

Thats a lot of bucks! Not able to reclaim Vat on scaffolding either I think. We were lucky managed to sort a deal with someone for a lot less than half that cost ........but we are a single storey......

I’m not in Northern Ireland but we too have built without a mortgage and hope to stay until they carry us out. However we have spent the £2k on a Premier Guarantee warranty as you never know what is round the corner. Its personal choice really, it gives an added layer of comfort in case anything goes wrong in the 10years (we know someone who had a claim for a roof 8 years in) and if for some reason you decided to sell it is a comfort to a buyer who may need a mortgage. No right or wrong answer its what best suits you.

I got mine from Buildzone it was the quickest and easiest for site insurance much more straightforward than via my usual broker where it is not their every day policy. We have a build warranty completely separate via Premier Guarantee the two are not connected in any way. My site insurance was about £650 for a year but premium depends on your plot etc One thing I would say is take longer than you think you need on the policy, renewals for part of a year are expensive. I took a year as we were programmed to take 9 months with the build, I had to take another 3 months at the end of last year and that short extension cost me half of the full year premium, we are still over running so I need to take another extension, hopefully I wont need the full 3 months but I have to take that, , expensive to keep renewing in chunks and 3 months is the shortest renewal they will do. I should have taken 2 years at the start it would have been cheaper I just could not imagine we would take longer than a year but patience is something I have had to learn...18 months for water! www.selfbuildzone.com

We have the Robbens Frankishe system and they are part of that although they will fit the same size pipes on any system. We have some flow things behind them inside the pipes that regulate the air. These covers are so easy to take on and off they are magnetic just pull on and off really well for easy access and cleaning we also have filters behind the covers on the intakes. Thats about the extent of my technical knowledge sorry!

Depends a bit on what you want spend really. I have lovely milky glass fittings for my ceiling holes (tech term LOL)but they cost a lot, I figured they were going to be there and visible for a long time so they had to look good. I just couldnt find any others I liked. Various different shapes and sizes available. https://www.fraenkische.com/en/Ventilation/Building-ventilation-for-installers/Systems/profi-air-starline-design-grill/profi-air-starline-design-grill-7228.html

Ditto!

Well I can’t be much help to you but welcome. I’m sure one if the wonderfully knowledgable and helpful bods on here will be along soon to pont you in the right direction.

But add to the 'cheap' price the 20% vat you will get back that you will not if you do it further down the line. Cheap + 20%.

Ask them why...seems a lot of money. Ours was a similar scenario at the end of a cul de sac cost us about £1k but we dug all the trenches bar the last metre as we were running down a private drive so even adding the cost of doing that it wasnt bad.. If its adopted/highways they wont let you do your own trenches Our gas cost us over £10k though but we wanted mains gas not ashp - the gas was closer than the electricity but we had a nightmare with the company, we changed gas suppliers from Nat Grid to Adroit as there were two in the area with supply pipes and we got a better deal with Adroit about £2k cheaper again we did do most of our own trenching. Ditto on water - the water hydrant to connect is within feet of the gas and electricity but it still cost us £4k with digging our own trenches bar the last bit and it took nearly 18 months to get connected. Cost us £12k to get into the mains sewers again we did all the work they just approved it. Our plot is part of a garden of a house that is 200+ years old and on the edge of the residential streets so not exactly isolated. With our own groundworks on trenches etc and all the fees I think its cost us about 30k, massive part of our over budget spend. They are complete rip off merchants all of them.

Developers sell small sites on to each other privately all the time single plots or 2 or 3 house plots. Each time there is usually a small uplift, not much often just enough to make it a zero cost thing. There is nothing wrong with the plots it may just be they have banked them into their landbanks and need to move them on to release cash or whatever. It would be very unusual for one to sell on having started work it is more effective to build it out quickly and move it on. They rarely sell on to an individual, plots that individuals buy have usually had a once over by a developer at some stage and rejected before being offerd to the self build market. That tells you what they think about margins. If I saw a plot for sale that had work started I would immediately think the owner needed to get out of it and needed the cash pdq, why else would you start work and walk away. I would be very reluctant to buy a plot with things started other than perhaps services to the site (can be expensive), I wouldnt buy a self builders plot with foundations they had put down too much unknown and limiting. If you don’t think you will build it either buy it and try to sell it on into the private/self build market (profit unlikely) or walk away now. If you do start it do the whole build and sell it on (profit only likely if you can run the thing like a developer and keep the margin, unusual for a self builder). I think you need to be absolutely commited to your build to go into it. Whichever build route you take there will be guaranteed heartache and worry and sleepless nights. The reward at the end is your very own house built with love and blood and sweat and tears. If you cant see yourself doing this then walk away now would be my advice.

@PeterW wow thats amazing value! Looks great too.

Is that Made.com? I love their ethos with young designers. Have had one or two small items from them but nothing of any substance. Have just ordered some bar stools for our breakfast bar...copper legs! I think they have opened a showroom in Birmingham now so may take a trip in, thanks for the tip I would not have looked at them otherwise and price sounds a goodie for my nigh on empty bank account!

I’m sure she wouldnt regret it. I have Island 5.2m long and Bora is set into honed granite.....its a defininte WOW as well being brilliant piece of kit

The BFIU and yes it is very quiet. I'm open plan and its certainly good enough. We have tested a few things on it as kitchen is in and hob is working but we are not in yet ...we have no bathrooms! I am hugely pleased with it I wanted the funky ring in the middle and 'invisible' controls rather than slot vent and knobs.

@Bev I have had the bora fitted. Its a flexi induction and recirculation as we have MVHR. I was always a cook on gas girl until a year or so ago and in a rental house with induction, moved rentals and back to gas with a stonking great range 8 gas burners ugh I hate gas now give me induction any time. My bora is flexi so I can bridge zones and use the whole space. If you have never had or tried induction then I would say go to any kitchen showroom with induction hobs on demo (doesn't need to have integrated extraction), see how the induction with defined rings and the difference in how flexi works, you may find a flexi does what you want instead of the domino type you are looking at. I had some with gas. Don’t need them now I have the use of essentially the whole glass plate to cook on. It is really very different. I am exceedingly pleased with my Bora, the extraction is fantastic, its a brilliant piece of kit and worth every penny. Siematic showrooms usually had a good range of hobs on demo (are they still in business?). Enjoy your choosing.

Natuzzi is beautiful. They have one in their current range that I love but it would cost me nigh on 10k for the combo I want and its just isnt on at the mo. Huge Natuzzi envy here! Another Italian brand I love - have some of their chairs - is Calligaris. I’ll keep buying the lottery tickets!

I wholeheartedly agree with all the advice so far. A clean tidy site is not only better for working and health and safety but does much for morale and puts a marker down for how you see your build and your house, pride in the job etc. I think opening a trade account with a decent monthly credit limit (mine is £7.5k) at a good local builders merchants can be very beneficial. Essentially I get 30 days credit as I settle all on statement issued in the month following delivery so for example my December deliveries i am only paying by the end of January, also free delivery to site as and when you need it, plus makes vat invoice collecting much easier and mine will usually match internet prices and source specialist stuff not usually stocked if I give them the detail. Don’t do a trade account wih big boys - Jewsons, Travis Perkins etc they are generally more expensive. If you use a groundworks company for your dig out try and get your site toilet hire via them, it will be a cheaper rate and you will not pay vat (which is not reclaimable if you hire direct and pay plus vat) and arrange with them that you keep it for the duration - I pay £25 for my site toilet ex vat and including weekly clean the extra £5 vat would have added a fair bit as we have had a toilet on site for 9 months now. I managed to do a cash deal on my scaff too, much cheaper. A few hundred here and a few hundred there soon adds up ..... I think general labouring and very good organisational skills are the two most important things. Men on site with no materials is bad news, men not paid on time is even worse news. As soon as our garage shell was up and roofed (before house started) and we got power to it I got a cheap fridge and kettle and a load of mugs, spoons etc left industrial quantities of tea bags and coffee and sugar to start them off, I often take cake on a Friday. Good luck!

Ive had a few emails with ‘The Vatman Ltd’ Andy Jones.....his company seem reasonable on fees and have good feedback. Talked to one or two others but he seems the best so far. www.vat431.co.uk