mrmike

I liked your post, thanks for replying, but am sorry to hear of the troubles. Our initial online quote which set this whole thing in motion has doubled which was a real kick in the teeth. Would be interested to hear some of your hassles with them by PM if you have time. Exciting stuff though to be getting your kit in 4 weeks! Our initial full turnkey estimate has pretty much doubled by the time we got to a detailed cost from the QS which was a real kick in the teeth tbh. I think we're now just going to do supply and erect with them and use local trades for the rest. That's brought up the subject of needing a structural warranty in order to get funding, which I believe is easier to get with a single contractor doing it.

That's something we were talking about today actually, need to look at all the options!

We are at Helmsdale. I great up in the Highlands and lived in both Wick and Thurso so know Caithness and Sutherland well!

Just a quick post to say hello as we're starting out on our self build (hopefully) this year. I say starting out, because the last year and a bit has been doing the prep work. We've been gifted some land on the family croft and now have full planning permission in place after what seemed like a never-ending process and some very strange requests from the planning body. We went with a design from Heb Homes as its a modern take on the sort of crofting properties which were common back in the day. We've made a couple of modifications so that's all finalised. Next step is funding, so found this form when searching for info on structural warranties - next steps are to work on the final build costs with our quantity surveyor and then apply for funding I guess. We have a house we could sell to cover the costs but its going to be so much easier if we can stay where we are until its finished, then sell up. Biggest surprise so far (as I expected planning to be long and torturous) has been the difference in cost between estimates for full turnkey services and then the actual, proper build costs from them. We have access to some machinery so hope to be able to do some bits ourselves to save money and I'm looking forward to that to be honest. I'll have a look on the forum and start a thread with the build "diary" once we get going as I"m guessing that might be useful for others. Mike.