ProDave

The overwhelming message I get from this thread, is there are some very good architects, and some very bad architects, and no doubt the vast majority lie somewhere in between. The "problem" I found is there are not many up here, and the ones I contacted all fell very near the lower end of that spectrum, and my "criticism" of them all was they estimated the build cost at nearly twice what it eventually cost to build, and based their fees on a fixed percentage of that build cost estimate. None were open to negotiation on their fees or discussion about what I wanted them to do and what I did NOT want them to do as a way of reducing the fees. As an electrician, most of my work now comes from recommendations. I don't advertise anywhere really. But I could not find anyone willing to recommend me an architect. What does that say. Mind you, the same is true of builders. nearly 20 years ago when we were down south I wanted to build an extension. I spoke to a lot of people who had similar work done, and NONE said they would recommend their builder. Eventually I found one and I WOULD (and did) recommend him to others. and the builder we have just used to build the shell of our new house I definitely would recommend again. As the the architectural technician we used to detail the present house, the individual was brilliant, the company he worked for had some "issues". I would recommend him, if I knew who he was working for now as he has left that practice.

I take Crofters comment "There is a shortage of housing" . NO THERE IS NOT. You only have to look at the number of houses for sale (yes including mine) and how long they have been on the market. Many for up to 5 years now, in fact I can think of a couple that were put on the market at the downturn in 2008 and still have not sold. The Highlands, like most of the UK, went into a house marker recession in 2008/9 and has NOT yet come out of that. And don't try telling me it's because prices are to high. Any lower and they would be for sale at less than the cost of actually building them. I can't afford to drop the price of my house by much or else I could be in the ludicrous position of selling the olf 5 bedrom house for less than it is actually costing me to build the new 3 bedroom one. It's lack of people WANTING to live here that is now the problem, be that children leaving, or incommers not wanting to come here any more, or both. That is what needs addressing to stop a terminal decline.

There are some interesting figures in there, some that I dispute. Like £150K to build it to 20 year old standards, £250K to build it to current building regs standards. There is nothing in current BR's to add £100K to the build. I wonder what figure he would have guessed to build to near passive house standards? Land cost does seem high there. I got our plot for £50K just a little below open market costs, though plots closer to Inverness do ask more. But what I do agree on, is at the moment if you buy a plot and build a house, you would be lucky to sell it on the open market to recover your costs. But hold on. has owning a decent sized detached house on a decent plot EVER been a "starter home?" I think not. It's something you aspire to at the top of the "housing ladder" (a term I hate) by which time you will have more assets and more cash and won't need to borrow to fund 100% of the project. Unlike other parts of the UK, real starter homes are still affordable. His "solution" build a CLT factory and churn out CLT kit homes as cheap as chips. I don't see how that's any cheaper than a stick build and while that build method has some good points, it also comes with some other complications. If you really want to build cheap, I think the "portable building" model should be used more. You can build up to about 100 square metres without building regs so the freedom to make it as good or as bad as you want or can afford.

Hi Lee and welcome to the forum. As well as lots of self builders we have at least two electricians (I am one of them) and a plumber on here so those trades are covered. Plus an enourmous wealth of knowledge about building in general. So you should feel at home here. We lok forward to you sharing your project with us.

Scottish regs says in a garage large enough to need vents, it needs two at low level and two at high level.

That is what we are planning. Hung on parliament hinges so they will open right round and fold flat against the wall if you want the house opened up. The purpose of them is mainly acoustic privacy if we want to watch, or listen to different things, we can close it off as two rooms either side of the hall.

You definitely need a fire door. In Scotland there is no option for a level threshold, you must have a step. A single garage does not need vents, but a double one will, I forget what size triggers that need.

Actually, what I am seriously considering for my house, is sheet the ceilings, sheet one side of each wall, and leave the floorboards upstairs loose, perhaps loose laying every other board. Put all services, wiring, plumbing, mvhr vents etc, and THEN lay the floor upstairs.

Yes, as an electrician, that would be my dream. Sheet the side that has the most switches or sockets on. When a "joiner" is doing a job, you just can't get them to do it that way. They insist on sheeting the whole ceiling before they even start to build the internal walls, which means you have to just leave loads of cables hanging where you think the walls are going.

The tapers just tape over them. To the purist, if you lay a straight edge on afterwards there is a very slight "bump" but that's all you can do without a taper edge. If the budget runs to it, our new house will be skimmed with plaster rather than just taped and filled, for the much better finish (providing the plasterer is good)

Simple. the joint does not have to fix TO anything, it must just fix the two ends of plasterboard together. We had this in several places. simple solution. Fix one sheet. Cut an offcut of 4 by 1 or 6 by 1 that just fills the gap. Hold it in place and screw through the board that is already there. This then leaves the overhanging edge for the next board to screw into. It might not be what the professionals do, but it worked for me.

The plot you have shown built on in the plans is definitely the best one "for keeps". If you do develop one of the plots to sell, then make that the other one. If you are going to do that, make the for sale house more modest, say 3 bedrooms, but designed so it can easily be extended. That will likely be easier to sell. And shave just a little of the other plot which combined with your keep plot, will give you vehicle access to the paddock behind them.

If you have all of the blue bit, you in fact have (as far as planning is concerned ) TWO plots. Are you keeping the second one up your sleeve for later? If not, I would be tempted to design a "straight" (rather than L shaped) house that straddles the "two plots" but designed in such a way that it could be later split into two semi detached houses.

There is noting unique about my type of build, though it is not yet common in the UK. This is the wood fibre board to cover the outside of the frame http://www.ecomerchant.co.uk/walls/insulation/ecomerchant-protect-ewi/steico-protect.html I actually used the Pavatex 100mm thick board rather than Steico, because my builder could get a better price on the pavatex, but they are essentially the same. And this is is the sort of render system that goes on it http://www.ecomerchant.co.uk/walls/insulation/ecomerchant-protect-ewi/steico-protect-system-wood-fibre-board-lime-render.html Again I used the Baumit.com render as that was available locally at a better price, and was what my renderer was familliar with. I have attached the vapor risk assesment done by my designer. It shows no vapour risk and also shows a long thermal time lag so the risk of overheating on a hot day is low. u-wert-berechnung (10).pdf With this information, there is no reason your architect cannot take on board what will be to him new ideas, and design your house using that sort of construction method. In my case thy also employed a structural engineer to specify things like beam sizes for the roof, racking strength calculations etc and foundation design.

Looking at the plans with the layout it all makes sense. do I take it YOU own the bit outlined in blue? A couple of comments.you have two "Bedroom 3's" upstairs. I will refer to the "master" one with the dressing room and en-suite as "bedroom 1" I would move Bedroom 1's dormer to the right (viewed from inside) so it's in the middle of the room. Otherwise I doubt you will get the full benefit of it. At the moment it's been positioned to look right from the outside. I think function is more important than symetry from the outside. Bedrooms 2 and 3 appear to only have roof windows. I think you will struggle to get those low enough to meet the means of escape rules of building regs. Can you get a window to each in the gable ends? Alternatively a dormer for each at the front would be a lot better. the large main landing upstairs may appear to be a waste of space, but with it's dormer would make a very good desk / work area up there. I have seen that done many times. The layout does seem to maximise the south aspect for living rooms and put bedrooms and bathrooms on the more northerly aspect. The utility room is probably the best place for the hot water tank. That gets it close to the kitchen and most of the bathrooms, but a bit far away from Bed 2 & 3's bathroom but with them split like that there will be no perfect solution. There will probably be enough usable roof space to get a usable wardrobe for bedroom 3, between it and bedroom 1's en-suite.

Can you do what I did, get a local building firm to make and erect the frame? It's relatively common for small builders or joiners to make and erect a frame up here. Then you would get the frame built as you want it. Mine is a 190mm frame with 100mm of wood fibre board on the outside and the entire frame filled with Frametherm 35. Same for the roof as well, using the wood fibre board as the sarking board. The "odd" bit being the OSB is then on the inside of the frame. Also, because there is no brick or block outer skin, the Structural engineer specified that some walls must be covered in two layers of OSB to give sufficient racking strength.

I would be interested to see the plot layout, what's around the house, which way is south etc. The point about being able to split the house is very valid. From what I hear, trouble selling large houses is not just a Highland thing. A regular customer of mine, their daughter has had a 4 bedroom house in Dunoon on the market now for 2 years. I would take that advice and design a house that works as one big house, but has a simple way to divide it into two semi detached houses. Having two staircases is a good start. The builder that built my frame built a large house for speculative sale about 5 years ago (I wired it, and that's largely how I got to know this particular builder) he has only just now got a buyer after a staggering 5 years. I asked him what he would do differently if he had known and without any hesitation "I would have built a pair of small semi detached houses instead"

I did look at this myself. I made the "mistake" of mentioning to one of the big TF companies up here about taking their standard product and adding to the insulation and air tightness. As soon as i mentioned than, they refused to quote me, saying "there is no synergy between what we offer and what you want" I am sure it is doable, just don't mention to the TF supplier this is what you intend. i am not sure how you would be with building control. Normally the TF company produce all the drawings for BC. You would be deviating from that and it would be interesting to see how BC deal with that. It may not be as simple as you think. My house in the end was properly designed by an architectural technician, and in order to mitigate condensation risks in the frame, the OSB racking layer is on the inside (I lost count of how many people told me I had put my frame up inside out) I am not sure how well a standard TF wold behave just wrapped in extra insulation.

I'll start a thread in th new year, see how many people want some, and see if we can strike a deal.

This is the one I have been using http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_odkw=air+tightness+tape&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xtescon+tape.TRS0&_nkw=tescon+tape&_sacat=0 The cheapest seems to be from Ireland, but the postage is somewhat steep. I may be asking if any of our Irish members might buy it and post it a bit cheaper?

What price did you get it for? I hope a lot cheaper than that link?

I don't believe we have a forum member form Shetland. Yet.

Hi and welcome to the forum. Most people here are "south" of me, but not all.

I remember, way back when I was a mere apprentice, one of the older guys I was working for had a new kitchen fitted. Within a few days he was complaining to the kitchen company because when he sliced a loaf of bread with a bread knife, it scratched the worktop. Even I knew then to use a chopping board to slice bread on. Having seen what tenants can do to a house, I imagine holiday lets could be the same, only they have less time in which to trash the place. At least doing B&B about the worst they can do is bring home a take away curry and spill it on the carpet. Perhaps stainless steel industrial worktops is what you should be aiming for? This os one of the reasons why keeping and letting our present house is really something I do not want to do. the thought of having to refurbish it top to bottom does not appeal.

Sometimes the answer to a problem is so obvious you can't see it.