Kelvin

The key thing I read on the other thread is someone bought a kit from a German company and it was subject to Escrow. It prompted me to ask my wife’s uncle about his German kit house and it was also subject to Escrow. He built it 15 years ago.

That’s much easier when you’re acting on behalf of a company which is what he’s describing. When you’re a self-builder doing a one off build it’s not so easy plus you have next to no leverage. I even took their contract to a solicitor to get their opinion and they said it’s typical for the industry, very much favours them, and, as it was written, she wouldn’t sign it. I could have paid the solicitor some money to try and vary the terms but decided against it. Believe me I tried every which way to reduce my exposure with HH from very early on but it was either accept the terms or walk away. We very nearly did walk away but decided to plough on and accept the risk. HH understood there was a risk as they suggested other clients were raising similar questions. What I don’t quite get is those clients building with a mortgage as I can’t believe the lender would be so relaxed about the exposure.

I’ve bought a few of those expanding water barriers as a temporary flood defence for when the odd heavy rainfall is forecast. They worked perfectly for me.

That wouldn’t work with Heb Homes if you also take their planning and warrant service. They way they operate is you pay 10% of the total kit price before they start on the warrant pack. Another 10% at completion of the warrant. 20% to order the windows (still 13 weeks minimum to kit delivery). 40% to commence kit fabrication. Then 17.5% just prior to kit delivery with the final amount after kit erection. You’re exposed to a minimum of 40% of the total cost for at least 4 months. In our case it was almost 8 months from the first 10% payment to kit delivery. To make matters slightly worse we didn’t get the final kit price until 5 months after we had paid the initial 10% due to delays in getting the SE design pack. The risk is entirely with their clients. To make matters slightly worse they sub out the kit fabrication who they pay in arrears (according to the owner of that company)

With stick building you own all the materials when they are delivered to site. The only risk is theft or damage. Stick building ought to be slightly cheaper. You’ll have more flexibility in sizing the kit and insulation options. Timber kits are hard to adjust and are typically SIP panels. I don’t think you quite understand stage payments. In my case we had paid 92% of the total cost by the time we got to 2 weeks from the delivery date. The first stage payment was made 6 months from the delivery date. We were financially exposed for all of that time until it was delivered. During that period there were two timber kit companies that went bust that I know of. The supposed advantage of a timber kit is a more accurate kit and a quicker build time for the super structure. However, in my case the kit was manufactured incorrectly and their 4 week build schedule took 9 weeks. There’s nothing wrong with timber kits per se, my view is coloured by my experience. But I’d never build a timber kit again if there was the same level of financial exposure.

Dunno. Call them and ask. This is ours.

Getting through to Home Energy Scotland is a complete nightmare right now and they don’t respond to emails.

Velux here. My understanding is they can’t fit flush and need a minimum upstand. If they were flush wouldn’t rain run down the roof and across the window? Ours are opening and fiited on a standing seam roof so it might be different for fixed rooflights on a different roof. Ours are fitted direct to the roof deck and the frame provides the upstand which is 90mm. There’s a flashing around it and another over this so the rain runs down and around the window.

Yes would be interested.

Digger yes, done by a skilled digger operator. I couldn’t have done it. No Klagester. Architects always seem to specify those. A Graf One2Clean. Search the forum as there’s a lot of info on treatment plants. The general consensus is you don’t want anything that’s spinning mechanically inside the tank. These can and do fail and it’s someone’s job (yours probably) to get down and dirty. Many on here go for the aerobic kind that bubbles oxygen through the effluent in various stages and bacteria works its magic. Clearly Klargester Biodiscs work fine as folk use them successfully enough.

They all vary but we were 13 weeks from final off until it was delivered. To some extent this was driven by the windows as we got those from the kit supplier. Bear in mind that most kit suppliers want stage payments up front. In our case our kit supplier also did the planning and warrant application so the first payment (10%) was due just prior to warrant application, then the next payment once the warrant was granted, then on window order, then just prior to delivery. I don’t know if you have a short list of kit suppliers yet, if so phone them and ask what their build/supply/erect schedule is. There’s some timing you need to align if you are taking care of dealing with the groundswork. I allowed a month contingency between groundswork finishing and timber kit arriving and we used three weeks of it. There are a few threads in here about timber kits and the financial exposure they can open you up to. Worth reading. We didn’t do ours with a mortgage so it was our money rather than the banks. If doing it again I’d probably do stick build.

You can have it ready to go the day you start you just tell the insurer your commencement date. I did mine from the day before.

A question for the scaffolders. For a timber kit you typically get the ground floor walls up first, then the scaffolders put the scaffold up then the rest of the kit gets erected. I booked the scaffolders in January for kit delivery on the 17 April with the scaffold going up on the 20 April. The only aspect of the build that happened when it was planned to happen. They’ll likely ask for a scaffold plan so you’ll need to think about that but the kit company should supply this. Scaffold takes up a lot of space (2.5m from the house) so you need to think about in term of access etc For us it meant not having any scaffolding on the driveway side of the building as it would have restricted the telehandler access. Another thing to consider is how much hardcore to put down around your building. We put down 3m minimum perimeter all around the house. This meant the site hasn’t turned into a muddy mess that gets trailed into the house. It’s also helped with drainage and vehicle access.

My site is on a considerable slope so required a fair bit of cutting and filling. The £50k included the large garage foundation, all the drainage, sewerage treatment plant and retaining wall.

Maybe but not one of the 6 companies I contacted would estimate other than saying between £30k-£80k . I’d budgeted £50k right enough.

This is exactly how it ought to be done but few UK timber kit suppliers do it. I suspect most of the smaller ones have cash flow problems such that one build is funding the next or they are simply supplying to order one at a time. I’d never build another timber kit house in the way we did again. The financial exposure is too great.

Well done. First big step. Do you have an SE lined up? You’re about where I was last year. I applied for the warrant before I had the SE pack and then submitted that when I eventually got it. The SE pack took 11 weeks to get. Most frustrating. Most groundworks companies won’t be able to estimate/quote until you have a foundation design and drainage plan etc. I don’t know what your area is like but I really struggled to even get quotes. I contacted 6 companies and got three quotes back two of which took 3 months to get. This is in Perthshire about this time last year. Similar story with every other trade. Therefore I’d be researching them all now to draw up a long list. Once you have your construction drawings and timescales you can start contacting them for quotes and availability etc. I have found managing individual trades hard work to be honest. Trying to line them up at the right times is near impossible. For example I had plasterers lined up who are now only coming on odd days weekends so it’s really slowing me up. The work quality is excellent but at at very slow pace. Don’t forget scaffolders! A neighbour did then couldn’t get anyone to site for weeks. Held him up.

Was going to ask a similar question albeit my garage is already built. My garage door is west facing. The rain was from the east over the last week. 300mm overhang from the roof. Pretty good rubber seal on the Hormann door. Mistake I made is there’s no fall from the garage door threshold. I don’t get much rain coming under the door but it’s also not 100% watertight. Definitely add a fall. I’ll need to add a threshold of some type to try and fix this.

It’s a sad state of affairs for sure. My experience of our kit build self-build has been similar up until the point I took it over. Sadly too few people care enough about what they are doing. I have used some excellent trades but even there I’ve had to be on top of it to make sure it was either done right or the way I wanted it.

Few people can drill straight holes free hand. My dad taught me to make a drill block guide using two bits of wood to create a 90° angle. You then just place the bit in the corner.

I dunno. I just use a manual gun. Quick enough.

It’s a tank and a pump https://pumpexpress.co.uk/explaining-cold-water-accumulators/

Feels like we’re going round in circles. What’s the minimum cost to have a proper SW connection with you doing as much of the trenching and pipe laying as possible. I tend to try and follow the rules (rules are for fools etc) as while you might get away with it you might not which just creates a whole World of pain later.

Yep pretty dear. My garage was £24k.

Unfortunately we are right on the edge of it. 100mm forecast for us. I’ve been helping digging out culverts today. I’ve made up 25 sandbags and built up my problem areas. I also got some of those water activated snake things. I’ve moved everything that the wind might have picked up and secured it. Not much more I can do. Will head down to my site early tomorrow to keep an eye on things.