greenqueen

I will have a look, we haven't got the budget to pay twice for the structure, which was why I nearly ruled oak out but I've been open with the oak suppliers about budget they said we could use a partial oak frame and the rest sips (they install both) to keep cost down but taking everyone's advice on board here, maybe mixing the two isn't the best. Thanks for the cost, not much in it for you then. Maybe it's concrete prices too, I suppose when the price is high it makes the method that uses less more competitive

Thanks everyone for your advice, I understood most of it : ) still trying to get my head around the different foundation options, but the pictures and descriptions have helped. We're not able to do the foundations ourselves. I have looked at local groundworkers who seem comfortable with trench but not much else and I will also look at AFT and see if they are interested/available. I've spoken to border oak, oakwrights and a few others. If I can get the groundwork organised they will supply and install an oak frame and they will encase with sips panels and get the roof ready for tiles. I've seen a few passive oak/sips house case studies it seems like it's possible and most of the oak frame companies will offer to supply and install both. Prob not the cheapest and I will look into oak movement and how this could impact the airtightness of the sip. I will also look at TF companies too, as oak and sips may not be affordable anyway

That's a good point, I hear oak moves a lot, but I hadn't thought about how that could impact the sip encasement. I will have a look at advanced foundation tec thanks for the recommendation. Maybe oak isn't the best route 🤔 I do like the idea of an insulated raft buy also in two minds because of the cost, ease of finding someone to do it and the ground conditions are pretty good. Thanks for the pointers on comparison, it is hard to compare like with like. Trying to find the sweet spot between performance, cost and ease.

I will definitely have a look at this as an option, didn't even know this was something that could be done. Hahah well it's another question I need to ask at some point as well so at least I'm getting views on it too

Hi, thanks for the quick response. I like the look and feel of oak but don't want it every where because its expensive and also don't like the very traditional look. So we are talking to oak frame companies who have suggested building the house from sips and only using oak in areas such as the entrance hall, master bedroom, sitting room. So it would be sip and then oak in certain rooms encased by sip... not set on this build route though. Didn't realise there was such a big cost difference, if we can go with trench then maybe that's the way to go. We're not looking at passive house standard but would certainly like performance to be above regs and as goodbas our budget will allow.

Hello, I recently found this forum and am a complete newbie to the self build world and construction in general, although self build is something I've always wanted to do. We have land with an existing house we plan to demolish and rebuild (for long complicated reasons not going for a refurb) planning doesn't look to be a problem 🤞 I'm trying to read up as much as possible on everything, huge amount of knowledge on here so wondered if you could help please. We are planning on building a 300sqm, 2 story house which is rectangular, plus a 1.5 story garage. Build route tbc but possibly a hybrid oak and sips frame... although thinking on this keeps changing so we may not go with this route. 1. In your opinion what foundation type is best for sandstone rock and sandy soil when considering cost and minimising cold bridges? We have a budget of £2000sqm in total so really need to get the best cost and best performance we can afford. 2. If we are going to build with a combi oak and sips frame, how does/does this affect the foundation type? 2. I'm trying to estimate cost for foundations. Even just a ballpark. How much does an insulated raft cost per square meter verses a concrete slab for example? I get the impression that finding a groundworking team who know about insulated rafts and will do a good job could be harder than finding a team who can lay strip or slab foundations, don't know if that's true? The project is in the NW. We have trial holes and will get a geo survey done soon. I will use a SE but for now just trying to map out a provisional budget and also tap into the experience of this forum as I'm so new to this I don't know what I don't know or even the questions I need to ask. Any help appreciated 🙏