Thedreamer

Crazy, some poor first time buyer having to carry that 'profit' as debt for the rest of their lives.

I found Jeremy's posts on build hub and ebuild to be very helpful and informative. In this strange year just glad to hear he is posting on other forums. His blog was an enjoyable read.

Yes did consider the Cabrio, but the cost and having a room in the roof design means we achieve the same idea. You get the same views with the windows shut! ? The West Coast of the Highlands has quite mild temperatures. Probably more wind and the rain than most.

@Olly P a random question. You see on the corners where the walls meet, do people use the same stones as the rest, but a mason would chisel the stone to make them more block like in shape, or do you have to buy special 'block' stones to match the existing stone work? Just always wondered! As others have said, that stone work looks great.

Is the glazing for those in now? If not look forward to seeing it in a future blog entry.

We almost put in a balcony, but realised we could achieve what we wanted with two large top hung velux windows. Opening it up for the first time, I stood out of the window and felt like king of the castle. It was worth the decade of waiting and saving.

Yes, search the forum for ecocent or exhaust air source heat pump, the general feeling is negative to them. Small heat pump, cylinder quality, Chinese manufacturing comes up a lot. It almost put me off using one, but glad we stayed true to the plans. Yes, if somebody is not going with underfloor heating and just need hot water they should be a consideration.

They are not popular here because of the quality of the cylinder. I have a joule aero with a good cylinder and it works a treat. I have heard comments before like they come from China, yes some do. If you watch the video, I am pretty sure this is Ireland or the UK! I also live in a soft water area. https://jouleuk.co.uk/complete-renewable-heating-solutions/ Mine takes the exhaust air from the inside and I've not felt any change to internal temperature. I know the science would probably suggest a lost of energy, but none felt! If we have the occasion bath etc I can leave the hot water in and it sucks it back into the systems. External air source heat pumps can't recycle heat like that. It can be geared to take from the outside as well. I think there was a scandal before with exhaust air source heat pump as they were installed in some old properties but in a new self build they work well. I have never used the dual immersion heaters in the cylinder and have no plans to! My total electricity usage for the house is around £1.75 per day.

Why not just use this for the concrete? https://www.cemex.co.uk/concretecalculator.aspx There are other calculators out there. Are you a brickie?

No, assuming this is a standard self build you won't need an accountant for the project. I would recommend that you do speak to your accountant about the self build. Purely from the point of view of financing, as depending on your circumstances you might need to extract some wealth out of the existing LTD company to finance the self build. This may have been what the solicitor was referring to. But being a public forum nobody knows somebodys financial circumstances! Best bet would be to keep the record keeping as simple as possible, I don't agree with using a business name, if you plan on using the DIY VAT scheme keep it all in your own name, as different names could raise questions. You really want this to go in and out with as little questions as possible. Some people use an accountant at the end for a DIY VAT return, but many don't. Open a few different trade accounts to achieve the best prices possible. Don't sweat the small stuff, but look around for big purchases. Depending on whether your going for a self build mortgage you might need your accountant to provide some information on your income to support a mortgage application.

On the roof, I can't remember if somebody else discussed it here or if it was a on TV show. But I remember the name for some reason. https://www.blachdomplus.pl/

Nice looking build.

One benefit of self building in a small community was that all my contractors knew each other and would know the standard of each others work. They also had each other's mobile numbers so could drop each other messages if any issues overlapped etc. This approach created synergies that would probably not have been achievable in a more urban environment. As this will probably be the biggest purchase of my life, an added bonus is that our labour cost went into the pockets of local contractors. As a chartered accountant serving local businesses this was important to me.

It cost £13k for the materials to build the kit. Included within that is £5k for engineered attic trusses from Pasquill. Labour was £9k, included within that was the time making the kit, erecting it and also the suspended ground floor. Other expensive items were a steel beam for the vaulted ceiling and three Kerto beams for the middle ridge part. I also had to hire a telehandler with a truss jib for two weeks that cost around £750. By the end of that we looked like this. Roof for the main part. Was £5k for the Cupa heavies slates and £4.5k for the roofer. The wee metal lean to roof was cost about £1.2k for materials and labour. Included within the roof is also some cast iron affect guttering, which was around £500 and £250 for labour in fitting. Yes I have included insulation, within 1st fix. We spent around £5k on insulation. Could add another £1.5k for labour as joiners did the rafters and service void insulation. We fitted the glasswool and the groundfloor insulation ourselves.

Hope that comes through ok! We did away with the wardrobe, WC and store upstairs. Now have an open plan living area for our children.

Lots of good advice here. I agree with others, go back to them, say you will pay it but when you receive your reclaim. This is positive for both parties. In the meantime they will need to pay the output VAT, but it worth remembering that they would have been able to reclaim part of the kit cost on the materials and other overheads. The company will need to therefore finance the gap for the remaining items (staff costs and profit margin), until your reclaim comes through. Do you have a budget/projections for your self build? Might be worth thinking about this just now so you will know the position of what, is not claimable, should be zero rated etc. Lot of info here on the forum. I think you can access this once you have ten posts. Check that your current invoices will be compliant for your future VAT reclaim.

This will be the last entry for our self build blog. Our plan We originally commenced a self build as there was no affordable housing for us to get on the housing ladder. The approach for the self build, was whether we could build a better-quality house than what we could purchase from a developer for the same cost. This was later refined to achieving a lower mortgage if possible. For the self build we decided to split the project into three chunks. 1. Obtain outline planning, purchase of site – this allowed us to know that a build was possible. 2. Put in services, access, design – this was the first actual work and made an area of croft ground into a valuable plot for lending purposes. Commence the build over two years - using subcontractors and our own materials to eliminate any margins and ensure tight control over the specification. Doing this would allow us to complete the project and prevent us being stuck unable to finish it. What did it cost? The total cost for the project was just over £196,000 (net of VAT). This includes the land, services, professional fees, overheads and the actual build costs. I’ve summarised all of my costs into a pie chart below. How was it funded? · A small electricity grant £1,550 · We obtained a croft house grant for £38,000 · The final mortgage of £74,500 · The remaining balance of £81,950 was funded by savings from employment, which started when we were 23 and finished when we moved into the house in July 20 at 33. · Most of the work we carried out was decorating and general labouring, therefore contributed a small amount of sweat equity to the project. What is the final result? The surveyor provided a valuation back to the building society of £265,000. This was pleasing as sometimes self builds can be more expensive then the total project costs or just about breakeven. Prior to building we were aware of building cost being measured per m2. However, during the build process I realised that this method of reviewing the financial performance of a self build had room for error, as the calculation could be skewed depending on the quality of the finish. For the purposes of our project this would be £1,420 or £1,230 excluding (land, professional fees and overheads). I came to the conclusion that the best method for us is calculating the final cost per month (mortgage, utilities, council tax, insurance) to live in the house. I set a target of £500 per month and I am pleased that we have been able to achieve this. I feel this is a good measure as I wouldn’t want to live in an expensive house that has a huge mortgage. Often at the end of Grand Designs and other tv shows, the presenter asks whether they would do it again? For us I would say, yes, of course. When I look around, every single item in the house was researched, compared, purchased and gradually put together. The thought, time and energy that we have put into this build has created a much deeper connection to the property. Our blood, sweat and tears are in the very fabric of the house. The hardest part of the process was when we were focussing on saving as much of our income as possible to ensuring a low mortgage. We made many sacrifices to ensure we reached this end goal, but we knew these relatively short term sacrifices would have long term gains for our family. For the actual building of the house, we chose a two year build schedule from starting on the foundations. This allowed us planning time between build stages and made the build process more manageable. It also allowed us time to do some jobs ourselves such as fitting insulation, interior decorating etc. We enjoyed taking time to do the jobs we were confident in doing well ourselves. Perhaps we could have taken on the more tasks, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it made more sense to work a bit of overtime and pay a contractor to do the work well, rather than us doing a job slowly and at a reduced quality. In the future, we would consider another self-build, perhaps in thirty years when I will be semi or hopefully fully retired. So until then… See you next time and thanks for reading.

Would love to have the french doors one leading into a secret study.

I'm anti stove in cities and towns. In the right circumstances and locations, stoves can work. I would say the timber is a bit less than that, prehaps 7.5kgs, sometimes we don't go through all of that just a few logs. My stove a Charnwood C4, is mid range UK built stove. There will be models that are more efficient but having the stove centrally place means it heats the entire house. Last night we took it 23c with half a trug and then in the morning the house was 21.5c. On the PV, during the day the sheer amount of solar gains from the south facing glazing provides heat. This is my free 'sun' energy. Overheating wasn't an issue in the summer, as generally a hot day here would be 20c compared to 30c down south. Lots of cross ventilation to ensure a breeze can be captured from any direction.

All of the trees are home grown spruces. The oldest and tallest are around thirty years old. These were planted by the father in law to provide shelter to their house, livestock and also a habitat for local wildlife. All the trees cut down have been replanted with native hardwood species such as oak, birch etc I will look into this. I don't think we can really compared a heat pump with a fridge, even if the technology is very similar. If my fridge stops working all that is needed from me is to order from Curry's etc and I plug that it. If my heat pump stops working I'm going to need somebody to come here and look and consider is a repair necessary, what component and so on. I like using the stove as apart from the annual sweep, it's all within my control. My mini air source heat pump for my hot water seems to be unpopular here but it works great. Your point regarding Russia and Japan is interesting. I think this is applicable to self builders here. My set-up which is dependent on firewood works because I have the space, the tools and timber but it probably wouldn't work for others on here. It certainty would not be sustainable if we all attempted it. My approach is more similar to somebody in a rural Scandinavia country, rather than somebody building in south east such as Kent. The efficiency of the system is of interest to me, but the savings must be factored with the initial capital contribution.

I really like the canal location. Is flooding a consideration? How often do boats go past?

In most my work and other aspects of my life. I don't think to much about racism, sexism, disability, because I have grown up with the expectation that everybody should be treated equally and I don't understand why anybody would treat an individual differently for whatever reason. However during the self build, as a couple it was a clear that my wife was treated differently. Whether it is emails always addressed to me, instructions to be passed to me, or contractors acting more aggressively or the hysterical woman card when I would be at work. Our joiner who was our principal subcontractor was a notable exception. He is never short of work and has a good reputation with everybody I have mentioned him too.

I'm on bulb, I think around 15 to 16p kwh, it went up slightly a month ago.

The weight might not be the best way to measure a trug of logs. As I could be attempting to burn wet heavy wood. The wood we burn is well seasoned and measured with a moisture meter, so tends to be quite light and provides an efficient burn. It tends to be spruce at the moment, so not a hardwood but it's free.

We are 140 m2 and have three bedrooms, bathroom and ensuite. Would I be looking at £5k, £7.5K or more?