flanagaj

The currently approved planning application on the land we are in the process of purchasing is for a chalet style property (image below) as you can see the upstairs is not very spacious and as things stand it's basically a 2 bed with a box room. I am trying to see what options are available to enable the small room to be increased in size and I wanted to ask what experienced forumites would do. The options I see so far are. 1) A new planning application to make the upstairs the same size as the ground floor. 2) As above and also change the planning application so the stairwell (spiral stairs) are inside a column which moves the stairs outside the main footprint. Hope that makes sense The issue we have though, is that there is quite a lot of history already on the site regarding planning. The image shows the originally passed design (dotted line on drawing) and then it was subsequently increased in size. The property can be moved closer to the road by a meter and a new architect we met on site said the pitch of the roof could be shallower and there is scope to sink the house lower. So 1 and 2 are possibly viable, but if not then I am struggling to see how space upstairs could be increased? The upstairs internal floor size scaled off the drawings is 8.5m * 5.72m

Wow. I wasn't expecting 12k. I assume that is also not VAT exempt.

@Bitpipe I appreciate this will vary according to the works required, but the sort of questions I still would like to answer is 1) What if anything can you do on the site if you haven't exchanged contracts and the current 2 storey building plans are just slightly too small for your needs and the basement is a must. Even if it was just 50% of the footprint? 2) What is a ballpark figure for the surveys / SE. The footprint of the property as it stands if the basement was the size of the house is 9.5m * 7.5m so quite small. 3) When people talk about the m2 costs of building a basement does that cost include excavation, footings, floor, cast concrete walls and tanking up to ground level so that the next step of the build process would be putting in a beam and block floor? 4) What are current estimates for a basement. I appreciate that is difficult to answer? Thanks

We have sold our property and have had our offer accepted on a building plot. The plot price is reasonable for the current market and we obtained a price that we were very happy with for our house, but inflation is concerning me. I feel the 2% inflation figure is actually way off and if you take inflation with regards to building materials / costs it is running higher than 2%. My concern is that build costs and construction costs are going to push the build costs way in excess of our budgeted £1000 - £1300 m2 Are other self builders seeing that their build costs are now beginning to spiral?

Good question. Sorry, but I just assumed BC was local area. For £150 that is definitely worth doing.

Currently contemplating adding a basement to to a new build. Only reason is that the site is quite small and the current plans cannot increase the footprint of the building nor to add a garage. Apologies, if this is a daft question, but I read that before even considering having a basement you need to find out the water table for the site. Does this simply require bore holes to be drilled on site or can the information be obtained from known geological surveys that may have been done in the area?

Thanks for the replies. Given there is a house next door that was recently built, will BC not be able to provide a very good indication as to what depth and width the footing need to be or can the makeup of the ground be very different from one plot to another?

Sounds as though you did exactly as I would be planning. Good point regarding the architect. My main motivation was just to ensure the smooth running of everything up to plate height. I don't really understand of have the inclination to be dealing with groundwork related issues ... and was hoping that by using an architect it's a crucial part that I could sort of forget about. That decision does however depend on how much it adds to the cost if I used an architect to manage that aspect of the build. I suppose using a single building contractor for the whole stage, does help simplify things considerably.

Not wanting to get ahead of myself, but I am struggling to contain my excitement as after 20 years of wanting to do a self build the planets look like they may have at last aligned. Our house sale has been agreed and is going through and our offer on a building plot has been accepted. So fingers crossed. Having been a cabinet maker in a previous life and refurbished numerous properties I am planning on doing most of the finishing work myself, second fix carpentry, bathrooms (inc plumbing) and the kitchen. I also have a brother who is a roofer and I know an electrician and carpenter for the roof. So as to get things moving quickly I was planning on using a single building contractor for groundworks and taking the structure up to plate height before then taking over and managing the remainder of the project. If I go down this route can I save quite a bit of money or would you need to project manage every stage yourself to save the most money? I also want to understand whether I would need an architect to manage the builder up until this stage? Thanks

I have identified a small plot which has planning for a 3 bedroom detached house. It's quite small and there isn't really scope to increase the footprint of the property as the original plans have already been slightly increased. So unless there are services running underneath the property which would make a basement tricky, would adding a basement be a possibility so as to add the required extra space?