Ferdinand

Western Red Cedars (which may not be the exact one you are thinking about) go woooooossshhhhhh like a Roman Candle, and nearly as quickly. Ours did, anyway. I'll leave the detailed species comment for @PeterW. I like the sound of the engineering - in 500 years they will think it was an unfinished mini-Motte-and-Bailey castle.

I believe the more usual number has been 10000 hours. That is the equivalent of 5 years full time work on that single skill.

Just read the story of the demise of Holman's ... a local company with a couple of thousand people asset stripped, if the account is correct. Ouch. F

If it is a common house type in your area then a local surveyor or your council BCO may have some knowledge of similar occurrences having happened previously.

I've been struggling how to call this one. 1 -Your proposed financial feels high risk, intricate and too-easily derailable. Needs detailed assessment. Operating so heavily from borrowing is very fragile. That personal loan could knock a huge hole in your mortgage capacity - from here it looks like 3-4k a year repayments. It feels as if too many stars have to align successfully for it to come off. 2 - My gut feel says that your cost allocation needs to be more like 30-35k plot, 75-80k build and 10k more on your contingency because of the riskiness. 3 - And yet ... and yet ... you clearly know a lot of the stuff and this type of project *can* work. I would have confidence in your ability to self-build at some time, and question the wisdom of doing it this way now. My concerns are around: 4 - Expenses and risks that you may have missed out or have not yet appeared - eg several k to hire or buy scaffolding, or if there suddenly turns out to be 10-20k of work underground that you have not yet found. 5 - Which says that should you go ahead attention to detail and completeness need to be your top priority. 6 - Have you got the practical skills at this point substantially to build your own house? If forced to recommend I think I would suggest a need to find a lower risk path, at least for this time round. I would suggest a conventional mortgage on a renovation to which you can add value (best street, worst house, room to extend or into loft etc), ideally with a potential plot in the large garden. Then I would suggest a renovation project first, and plan to self-build once you have a more absorbent financial base. My opinion. But the best of luck whatever you do. Ferdinand

I would check the maximum allowed width of a cross country mobility scooter and a tricycle.

You will lose things like the depth of drainpipes and posts off the width of your finished accessway. If you are building you want space to put your scaffolding on your land comfortably, or it gets potentially more complicated. Some regulatory things also kick in for widths of under 1m from the boundary. And exact measurements require you to know exactly where the boundary is to make sure the measurements are exactly right. If it is next to the boundary next door can measure where it is with a ruler, so you need to be correct and your measurements defensible. My dad was an architect and on one occasion someone was trying to build the side wall of a bungalow 300mm closer to the bungalow he had built next door than the plans allowed, and as they were close together it was noticeable, and he made them move it. The problem was that they had made their bungalow a little bit too wide for the plot by undermeasuring the plot, then set out starting from the other side and kept it the same size. And in the small space a relatively small error became significant. Personally I would leave about 1.2m to the face of my wall to the boundary even at the risk of a slightly smaller room (build a thinner wall), because getting it wrong can be a real problem. 1.2m would be enough for a 1.5 tonne mini digger to get through with a.margin.

PRobably quite significantly dependent on neighbours and their attitudes. Were you to follow @Pocster's 1m higher next door to me, I might not let it go, or similarly if it was detectably closer to my boundary ... say 2m not 4m away compared to the Planning. If it was inconsequential and I could not see the difference I would probably let it go. If I thought you were taking the P out of planning I might do something. The last one I asked them to enforce On was.a high density room by room landlord who was ignoring his Planning Conditions and creating parking havoc in a congested area.

TIme for a serious comment, @Vision Of Heaven. I am surmising that your house is perhaps 3500sqft if it is Victorian and 14 rooms. I am not clear what you mean by Complete Refurb - are you replacing all th windows, taking the walla back basically to brick, and digging up the floors to insulate underneath or put floor slabs down? IF you are, on your own this is a 2 year full time, or 5-6 year part time project, and you are facing a total bill of perhaps £100-150k. Unless you mean something different to me by Complete Refurb? If you are paying someone to do the work it will be quicker but more expensive. JUst a new set of windows will be perhaps. £15k in upvc or £30k for 3G or wood. IF you are looking at greenish heating systems, that will add another 10-15k over something conventional, though you will get most of that back. The most important thing you can decide now is the quality of fabric you put in. You need to decide whether you want your future energy bills to be £1000-1500 in 2018 money, or £4000-5000. TO achieve the former, you need to renovate your basic structure to a standard substantially superior to that required by building regulations as applied to refurbishments, and need to start asking those questions. I have just renovated a 1966 bungalow to a standard where energy and water bills should be about 55% lower than before. IT is not difficult, but you have to decide early on There is not much point going green unless you are going for a highly efficient fabric for your building, Once you have put finishes on your floors and walls or boarded them out to a lower standard it is too late. Looking forward to your comments. Ferdinand

Whatprice repointing page may be helpful. http://www.whatprice.co.uk/prices/building/repointing.html#axzz55sQrvmru

Expensive sister :-).

One final thought is would I buy one of the houses I have seen built here? The answer is some. I would buy Grosey's because it is relatively simple. I would not buy Jeremy's, because while superb it is also far more complicated than I would care to take on ... and that is an artefact of Jeremy's technical guiding knowledge and skill set being far deeper than mine in areas that relate to the particular house. For me such a house would be too complex to live in.

I think your builder is worth his weight in marble. Get him to pose for a garden statue like Michaelangelo's David .

That would have complexities around Easements that will need exploring and finessing.

THat should not prevent exports . Just think of all that Guano production which would be avoided

Does this mean you can export pigeon pie? Welcome.

I would say the amount it is complete minus about 20-30% of the total project budget, subject to provable build quality and adjusted downward by X depending on desperation of seller. ie Seller will be taking a financial bath almost regardless. I cannot see this being affected by makes conditions, but perhaps southern self-builders know betterr on that point.

Why not sell him something ?

Solaredge is good, but he is being snake-oiled. Perhaps their business model is creaking? As a marginal benefit on a new install it can be a significant benefit at maybe £25 per panel if eg shaded. Plus the inverter may cost a bit extra over the equivalent. That could be a good option. As an aftermarket wonder product. No. Would this impact on his existing payments?

It is also one of the ,most creative and worthwhile things you will ever do, of course. Seriously, there is something remarkable about living in the house that you built.

CSH has gone - except that it lurks like a tar-pit captured brontosaurus in the manuals and policy docs around Energy Performance. CIL is alive and implemented and waiting to bite you in the backside if it is in place in your area and you miss a trick. The blogs here are light relief

A warm welcome. As a starting point, read Grosey's blog a good project which worked quite well in most respects And Jeremy Harris's which covers many aspects in detail http://www.mayfly.eu/ Both will repay an evening with a pint and an end-to-end perusal.

YOu now need to dig a hole in the middle of the green bit, and put up a sign worded Money Pit.

There might be something to be said for eh painting it in vertical strokes with a sweeping brush for a texture.