Square Feet

Hey everyone. I've been a forum member for a number of years as a renovator of properties in Scotland. I joined with the goal of one day building my own house but as happens to many, this has been postponed and pushed back many times. In the interim I have really enjoyed reading your blogs and posts and I have learned an enormous amount about self-building. I am now at the point where my ducks are sufficiently in a row to embark upon my own self-build, which is scary but very exciting. I've found a plot I want to buy, which has brought things into sharper focus. As ever, I have a million questions and decisions to make to ensure I get this right. I'm aware that some of this could be questions in various different forums ie design, planning etc but I thought it would be easier to start this blog from the very beginning in case it helps others by keeping everything in one place. So here we go..... The house I want to build The house I want to build is c.150sqm, two storey, passivhaus standard with enough eco features so that it is as off-grid as is practicable. I currently live in a top-floor flat that has been extended into the attic - a 'double upper'. It feels like a house when inside, but lacks the amenities such as driveway parking for my EV, private garden etc that a house would bring. It's also in a town and I want to live in the countryside. My flat is 150sqm in size and is costly to run. It feels like a good size, albeit with a rubbish layout. So I'd like my new house to be similar in size but with a better layout and good insulation, eco heating etc. Downstairs would be the usual - kitchen, dining, living rooms plus a small office/spare bedroom with downstairs shower room for guests or future proofing. Upstairs would be two/three bedrooms and the main bathroom. I'd like a separate garage/workshop. This would perform a lot of different functions and hopefully keep a lot of the mess of my work and hobbies out of the house as this is a problem currently in the flat. The plan The 'back of an envelope' plan is to buy the plot, move onto it in a touring caravan and first build the garage/workshop. This would be fitted with solar panels and a battery, inverter etc to generate electricity for the build and to charge my electric van. It would also house a small basic kitchen, lunch room, toilet and shower room which would operate as the welfare facilities for the build, plus a small site office for delivery notes, plans on the wall, etc. If allowed I would sleep in an attic floor above this, but if not then I would continue sleeping in the caravan. If needs be I would remove the welfare facilities after the build in order to not create a habitable building out of the garage. I would then build the house while living on site, with the main goal to get it wind and water-tight as quickly as possible. If funds have run out by that stage then I will have to earn some more to finish the inside but it's absolutely imperative that I can get a sealed house before that happens. The house The house will be around 120-150sqm, 3/4 bedroom, near-passive house. It will be stick-built on site. I would like it to be 150sqm but might only be able to afford to build a 120sqm house. I would like a two storey house, but planning might only allow a 1.5 storey to fit the local vernacular. I like wooden finishes but I have heard what has been said in here re timber cladding and insurance etc so I am aware that some of it will need probably need to be render externally. The plot I am going to be deliberately coy about the plot at this stage as I haven't yet signed on the dotted line for it and don't want someone stealing it out from under me. Plots don't come on the market very often so I have been shopping for one for years. These were my criteria: In a specific Scottish rural area which I love and know well (I work there and have lived there in the past). South facing for passive solar gain and solar generation, also a sunny garden. Rural outlook Space for a separate workshop/garage building Space to park my EV and charge it at home I also had the idea that I wanted to find a plot with planning consent for more than one house so that I could build a second one to sell on to help pay for the house I keep and live in. This may change however as I know there's complications with this! I have now found a plot that ticks all these boxes. It has planning for two 4 bed detached houses with a separate detached garage building shared between them. The planning lapsed over 10 years ago. It is south-facing, in the area I want to be and has an outlook to die for. I can afford it now if I just buy one plot (the sellers are willing to split) or I can buy both plots together if I sell my flat quickly or get creative with finances. The budget After buying the plot I should have around £1,500 per sqm for the build. This includes the workshop. I'm very aware that this isn't a great deal, which is why I have opted for stick-built on site for the construction method. The plan is to do as much of this as I can myself, with the help of unskilled labourers, plus skilled trades only where absolutely needed ie spark, plastering, heating engineer etc. I have an idea of how I want to do this, but I haven't seen anyone else do it yet! So I am not sure if it's a brilliant idea or a really stupid one As I said above - the main focus is to get to wind-and-watertight within budget and I can figure out the rest from there. I've waited over 20 years for the chance to do this so if I have to wait an additional couple of years in order to get it finished inside it won't be too much of a hardship. The first issue to make a decision on: Do I buy both plots or just one? My finances are tight, so it would be better for me to buy just one, but buying two ensures I can control who my neighbours are to some extent and ensure I get the best bit of the land. I could build the first house and sell it and that would give me enough money to build the second one for me to keep and live in with less need for compromise. I would also have the opportunity to learn a lot by building the first house and could put these lessons into practice in the second (keeper) house. All of which sounds good, but it means a lot longer to wait until I am living in my own house. I might be completely done-in by the time I've built one house and not want to go ahead and build another. There may be CGT, VAT implications etc which would make things unworkable. There's no CIL in Scotland but my area does have a railway contribution that developers need to pay. If I have to live in the first house for 3 years before I can sell it this would stretch the whole scheme a bit too far into my old age (I'm 55) and would impact my ability to cope with build 2. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

MOT type 1 - I knew it was some sort of aggregate, but always wondered what it meant. MOT Type 1 stands for Ministry of Transport Type 1, referring to a specific, high-quality granular sub-base material used in construction. It is a crushed aggregate mixture (40mm down to dust) approved by the government for creating sturdy foundations for roads, driveways, and paths.

I wonder what the council would do if you put the caravan inside the outbuilding

Did you seek permission for this or are you just 'camping out' there on the QT?

This is part of my plan to be off-grid for electricity. Instead of a genny in the winter I plan to use my EV to top up the house batteries if/when needed. Doing it with V2L is the ideal, but is still very tricky at the moment as the above posters have said, but if nothing else I can run a 2000W inverter to the vehicle and power/charge the house battery off that. It's pretty much how many electric campers work atm. Youtuber Glyn Hudson for example powers his ENV200 campervan that way - a 1500W inverter off the starter battery, which is kept topped up by the traction battery as long as the ignition is in the partially on position. So it would need to be in a garage or some other secure location obviously. The other way to do it is just via a DC/DC charger off the starter battery, which is a lot easier to work with (being 12V) than the 400V traction battery. If needed I can just go to the rapid EV charger down the road to recharge my car and bring back power to add into the house system, which would be no different to going to the petrol station to buy fuel for a genny, just a lot greener.

Did you ever get any further forward with this idea @mads?

As a former photographer I would say that the image above is AI or photoshop created (which was around a lot more than people realised for a lot longer - IKEA catalogues for example). They haven't correctly adjusted the perspective on the sockets and it just looks 'wrong' to me. So I wouldn't spend too much time thinking about how it has been done in practical terms - because it hasn't. It isn't real.

I just watched this video of how to properly fit a Velux window, including the insulation kit. It's a good one to watch even if you don't intend fitting your Veluxes yourself as it will allow you to make sure your carpenters fit them properly - including the insulation kit, which is supplied in a separate box and apparently just gets thrown away by a lot of joiners/roofers who don't know what to do with it 🙄

I've been watching these two channels quite a bit. The first one is a chippie doing first and second fix on construction sites who gives very clear directions on framing, joists, hanging doors, architraves, skirting, dormers and Velux installations etc. Robin Clevett - a chippie from Kent. https://www.youtube.com/@robinclevettcarpenter The second one is a cabinetry joiner who would be of more interest if you were wanting to build your own wardrobes, kitchen etc. Peter Millard - London based cabinetry joiner. https://www.youtube.com/@10MinuteWorkshop/videos

This was a fantastic blog, I've really enjoyed reading it and learned a lot. Your house is beautiful. Congratulations and thanks for taking the trouble to write such a comprehensive and detailed write-up. Is it rude to ask roughly what it all cost in the end? You know - just for people like me who have entirely unrealistic expectations 😂

I watched this today and thought it was interesting as I seem to spend massive chunks of every day on procurement of materials to keep things moving. He references some US shops but the experience is pretty universal I think. https://youtu.be/FHuJYuZTa7o?si=OBurUR4CxRG3xkfN

According to this, yes.

External insulation on top of SIPS is the standard I have found when reading up on this.

Yeah I follow them too. They are good fun and likeable people and it was interesting to see how they built their temporary home and what it cost (although the figures on the screen didn't match the total!) but I felt they are a bit trapped in the influencer cycle of having to constantly churn out content, when there isn't that much going on in their project just now.

Jeezo. £6k sqm! That's insane. I live in the Borders and I have been amazed at how cheap trades around here are - but the catch is that they are always busy and so very difficult to get hold of. There's a lot of very cheap properties around here in need of work and a lot of folk from other areas (mostly south of England) buy them at auction thinking they will just get some locals to do them up for them. They get a rude awakening when they realise how difficult it is to source the skilled labour to do the job. I have noticed that it is a lot easier to get a plumber, electrician etc to come out for a householder than for a rental or investment property and I have begun to suspect that there is a fair amount of resentment from trades towards those who are just looking to make a profit from property investment, so they chose to prioritise householders which is fair enough. I wonder if there is something similar going on with the Skye builders who perhaps aren't thrilled at all the rich second home/retiree incomers, and are basically pricing themselves out of the work. On my current renovation project I had to rewire all the ceiling lights which was an issue that I had missed at purchase (as did the surveyor). I tried for months to get a spark in to do this for me but they were all too busy. I think it's a bit of a horrible job that none of them wanted either. In the end I found one who was willing to let me basically be his mate and do all the donkey work under his supervision. So I cut raggles and ran all the cables and he popped in at the end of the day to tell me what I needed to do and where I needed to run the next ones and to check my work. At the end of it he charged me £210 which I can only think was 7 x £30 an hour which seems crazy cheap. It might have been 3.5 hours at £60 I suppose, but if that's the case then he under-billed me for his time. That didn't include fitting a new trip-switch box and making the connections at that end, but he will do that part later as he needs to do it himself in order to sign it off. So around here the trades are there and they are very reasonably priced, but devilishly difficult to get hold of.

£90k for the build? Wow. What's that per sqm?

I'm not an electrician or anything so I can't comment other than to say that with option two you need two additional junction boxes so more places for things to go wrong. Easier if the cabling comes off the sockets so you can access it more easily to check for problems in future.

When I have done this it has been treated as a sale for legal and tax purposes. I haven't done it for about 10 years but it was £1k in legal fees then.

They are bringing it in cos it is an easy win for them. It sounds like a jolly sensible policy but from what I was hearing (headteachers being interviewed last week) it really misses the mark. There's absolutely no way pupils will be allowed to sit there on their phones in lessons. That just doesn't happen.

The ironic thing is that EVs have absolutely ridiculous levels of torque. First time I floored it with my son in the car he nearly shat himself. 😂 If the boy-racer crowd ever find out how powerful these cars are we will be in trouble.

Mobiles are banned already from use in schools. The headteachers have taken care of that. It's the out-of-school social media abuse issue that is the problem. This new legislation is unneeded and won't tackle the main issues. It's just more hollow populist dross from the Westminster govt.

It's a good series - check the others out too if you have time. I love my EV but find myself constantly having to defend them from what I can only see as a twisted narrative. The right-wing climate denying lobby love to punt this sort of nonsense and the petrol-head Top Gear folk don't help either. They punted the idea that EVs somehow diminished masculinity and were some sort of joke and went out of their way to prove this by driving an EV round and around a town till it ran out of juice so it had to be pushed to the charger. Ha ha, how ridiculous these EVs are. I feel like I need to do my bit - not only to help towards limiting climate change but also for these wee kids that get asthma from living near main roads. With a range of 70-80 miles my 2013 EV isn't the most convenient vehicle in the world, especially for long journeys but it's fine for local use, which is where many people are exposed to emissions. Given that there's no road tax on EVs and they can be charged for 7p per Kwh overnight and also possibly make you money via a V2G connection, it doesn't seem daft to keep an old EV for shorter journeys. The new ones have 250-300 miles of range, which at 3-4 hours of motorway driving is about my personal 'toilet range' these days anyway. By the time you have stopped at a motorway services for the lavvy and a coffee your car will be topped up again and ready to roll onwards. I don't see that as an inconvenience at all.

There's a lot of memes and such going around where people seem suspiciously motivated to push this narrative. I wish more people would read this excellent series of articles by the Guardian - EV mythbusters. Here's the one on mineral mining. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/01/do-electric-cars-have-problem-mining-for-minerals

My Very Clever Friend who understands these things tells me that all Chademo vehicles have V2G capacity.

The one I am selling is not the original model, it's the next along one that was made in Sunderland - it has the bigger boot capacity for example. Mine has mostly just been charged via one of the slower connections (ie Type 2, 7kw) as this preserves battery health. It had 11 bars of health on it when I bought it three years ago but dropped down to 10 after I took it down south in a heatwave, charging via rapid stations every hour or so along the way. If you stick to Type 2 or even the slower 3 pin plug charging then it doesn't overheat and battery degradation can be massively reduced. It really isn't the sort of car that would be your first choice for a long journey anyway. It's fantastic for shorter journeys and city or town driving though.