Indy

I don't disagree with having a large master suite, and in fact - that's exactly what we've done. Ours stretches across the back of the house and we've managed to carve out an extra study/part of the snug on the 1st floor from the area. The 2 rooms in the front are then divided equally for the kids bedrooms. And we only have a 1.75 storey house so the loft will not be high enough to convert to habitable space (1.8m at its highest point in the middle). One of the compromises we made as its replacing a bungalow and a 2 storey+loft house would have been quite a stretch (pun intended!)

This. A million times this. If I was to pick only 1 reason to go down the route of building our house from scratch versus a refurb or buying a pre-built house - it's exactly what you've described below. There's usually a very clear decrease in room sizes as you go from Master Bedroom to Bedroom 2, then Bedroom 3 and beyond. I don't think I've EVER seen a house which had been designed with 2 kids in mind (i.e. identically sized bedrooms) unless you go into the super luxury homes upwards of £2m or so. It was also the 1st and most important instruction I gave my architects, to have them matching in size to the millimetre!

We're a long way off from spade in the ground or any build work. Application went in 2 weeks ago, and so far hasn't even been validated or registered on the council website yet(!)

I'm sure someone more experienced will come along shortly to correct me but I would base it off the total area, not just internal. A large chunk of the budget is going towards creating the shell as I see it. As for other costs, the norm is to include everything including utilities - apart from professional services (architects, surveys, planning etc)

I will take you up on that offer for pricing, but have you managed to work out a cost / sq metre using the main builder route?

My wife suffers from a mild form of solar urticaria, where her skin will break out in rashes and hives if exposed to the sun for too long. Its manageable if she uses sunblock when going out, as long as its SPF50 and blocks out both UVA and UVB. I'm in the process of researching glazing options for the new house, and wanted to understand if there are certain films/coatings/types of glass that we can specify that would do some level of filtering already. This would mean not having to apply sunblock even while inside the house and enjoy the light streaming in.

MBC timber frame seems to get a regular mention on here. I’ve spoken to them on the phone, quite responsive to my queries though I’m still waiting for the official quote to arrive.

From the discussions we've had so far, the 3 build systems all end up costing roughly about the same. This is not from personal experience, but having spoken to at least a dozen different companies in the last 2-3 months which included traditional builders, TF and ICF suppliers. The shell of the building is only about 20-25% of the cost, and they will all roughly come in at a similar level. Where parts are cheaper, it will be balanced out by higher labour costs (brick and block), and where parts are more expensive - the speed to put that up is higher and hence labour costs are cheaper (timber frame). ICF seems to sit in the middle for both though the advantage with TF and ICF suppliers seems to be that they are willing to quote from planning drawings rather than wait for building regs drawings.

I've had my first quote come in for a sort of full turnkey service on a timber frame building - coming in as £3372 per sq m. Had to do a double take to make sure the figure wasn't wrong! They've made a number of allowances in there for 2nd fix items like £30k for kitchen+utility, £45k for glazing, £6k for their design service (which we don't need) - all of which seem very toppy to me but I guess this is the number to start with and work down from. No way we can afford that number and like you Sarah - we're aiming for somewhere as close to £2k as possible.

Not exactly what you asked for in terms of dealing with contractors, but I have another thread bookmarked which I found very useful It's a list of what to do and what not to do generally, when undertaking the next self build.

No change since the last time I posted (couple of weeks ago), and no MAJOR change to the original design (apart from the brick exterior being changed to render to tie in with the contemporary design). However, I do agree that the revised colour scheme lifts the design and makes it look fresher and lighter.

Isn’t pouring of concrete on site for any form of ICF considered in-situ? Trying to understand what the difference was in your approach so we can avoid the same.

That's good to know that it can be done with aluminium. What U-value should I be aiming at, which is at that inflection point between cost and efficiency? Not really fussed about reaching true PH levels, as long as I get good performance out of them.

In the process of speccing out a new build which is being built to a higher level of thermal efficiency than our current one. Most likely ICF and SIPS roof, and one of the areas we're now looking at is glazing. On the initial designs that we have from the architect, she has recommended powder coated aluminium windows. Speaking to a friend, that would be a bad choice as they are not as thermally efficient as timber, alu clad timber or even UPVC. What should I be looking at? Is there a clear favourite? Obviously funds are not limitless, but Ok to spend more to get better quality and looks are also important.

No comeback to that ? I would be interested to hear more about your experience and why you don't like Durisol that much. Does that extend to all woodcrete products or is it durisol only?

Not an expert so I will take the salesman's word for it, at least to begin with. And then come to a forum full of experienced people to understand the best way forward. I'm still in research mode so not fully decided on a system but this was the first session I attended so have nothing else to compare it to. One thing I did find was that airtightness would be an additional step, so looking at systems that somehow incorporate this to remove opportunities to get it wrong?

If that offer is open to others, I would be quite keen to have a look at the build in action Steve. Let me know and I can send you a direct message. I did also attend the Durisol training course at the NSBRC yesterday and one thing became really clear. While its really DIY friendly (much more so than the EPS type systems with reduced need for bracing), the language they were speaking versus what I understood means its beyond my ability to DIY any sort of system. I will be looking at getting a specialist builder to do this most likely.

Overall, I'm happy with the service received and they were the best value when I looked at the initial quotes, plus didn't charge VAT. It did however creep up from the initial £400 for the PRA, to over £1k in the end which included the 2nd and 3rd surveys. Whether those would have been avoided by going to another firm, I don't know but I've read some real horror stories about costs involved for bat surveys and licences required - so in the grand scheme of things, getting away with it for about £1100 doesn't seem that bad.

Undecided and the training course will help me figure out whether I can take on any elements of the work on a DIY basis. In all likelihood, its going to be done by a main contractor as I wouldn't have the time or expertise to take on the whole build.

Thank you all, been reading this subforum with a lot of interest and have taken the comments onboard. Trying to understand the difference between Woodcrete and EPS solutions, though there really doesnt seem to be a single definitive source that compares and contrasts the available solutions (maybe a task to take on!) I've also taken the advice to book myself on the training course and have so far been in touch with Durisol, Nudurua and Insulhub (ISOTEX) so will see how that goes.

This is exactly what happened in our case. Even though the preliminary assessment indicated a low likelihood of the bats being present (mainly due to misaligned roof tiles), the ecologist still insisted on 1 follow up survey which turned into 2 dusk surveys. Luckily there were no roosts in the property though it seems to be used as a 'resting route' to the green belt land we have opposite our plot, which meant that we'd need a licence (the cheaper one) to begin work.

I'm seriously considering ICF for my build and started looking at the different systems. So far I've spoken to Beco Wallform, Nudura and Durisol and they all seem to push the plus points of their product over the others. Any recommendations on how to go about choosing one over the other - are there any online guides or videos that would make it easier to understand? Most likely coupled with a SIPS roof.

The porch design is what took us the longest to finalise. Settled on having a double height porch with some sort of light feature in the entrance area. Dropping it to a single height looked a bit odd to us in the renders so we decided to stick with it.

We wanted to fit some down lights, so it was made slightly bigger to accommodate those comfortably.

Agreed, these are the placeholders for now but we’ve replaced the arched style for a more contemporary sliding gate to be reflected on the drawings. Design and colour will be finalised later.