Kelvin

Internal floor space. £3000/m2 is a very healthy budget so with a nice simple design some careful buying, and negotiate well you should manage it for less than that.

An obvious question but why have you waited so long to do this?

You’re not going to upgrade the cable obviously so it is what it is. 3 phase complicates the electrics a bit but for an extra £300 it’s worth doing. You are unlikely to use all that anyway.

Thanks for the feedback. Good to know it looks as if it’s getting back to a reasonable timescale.

You can resize them from within the forum. On my iPhone when I add a picture at the bottom of the screen it says show selected, click that and it now says actual size. Click that and select the re-sized picture. It will apply the resize to each picture you add automatically in that post.

It’s not a straightforward decision. In my experience of one timber kit company we were 90% into the process before I got the final price which was £10k higher than their estimate 6 months earlier which was £20k higher than their initial finger in the air estimate. If you get it architect designed and keep it straightforward and minimise steelwork then you have more build routes available to you. Most timber kit companies will have a selection of standard designs so if your plan is to build something similar they should be able to give you a reasonable idea of cost. Ours was £30k dearer because we made it bigger by 35m2 and changed all the windows to 3G.

Post up some pictures. It’s always easier to comment when people can see what’s happening. But as already suggested for water damage it’s strip right back to blockwork, let it dry, rebuild. Our friend’s self-build had a roof fire shortly after completion but it was the water that did al the damage.

Loss adjuster as suggested above. It’s what they do.

You need to keep at them as they are trained to start with no and keep saying until the customer gives up. You need to not give up.

Yes it’s all a bit of a game. Some insurance reinstatement companies charge over the odds whereas insurers want to pay bottom dollar.

There are companies that specialise in insurance reinstatement. Have you searched for those? e.g. https://sdm.group/who-we-help/ I have no knowledge of this company it’s just an example of what I mean. Covers Scotland.

I misunderstood your comment about their preferred contractor being taken off the job.

There are professional loss adjustment companies out there who can manage your claim for you to make sure you get a fair payment but it seems you have already agreed a payment and work started then stopped?

I’m not particularly fussy (other half would disagree) but I wouldn’t accept that. 30mm out is mistake not a tolerance unless this is their standard detail for some reason given you’ve suggested it’s 30mm elsewhere too.

Defo selection bias as all the self-builder friends we have simply agreed a fixed price with the builder and let them get on with it. They only made decisions about bathrooms and kitchens and even then it was a choice from a list.

Standard real estate line as well.

We have done stages 1-5 with the timber kit company although stage 5 is split in two with them doing all that for the kit build and erection and me doing it for everything else including groundworks. I organised some of the consultants myself as part of my due diligence when buying the land.

How big and complicated is it? Ours is two square boxes and no complex detailing or foundations despite being on a slope. Consequently I felt confident to manage it all myself and so far so good. The kit company pushed us to employ their QS but his fees were horrendous adding another £15k in cost for something I could and have done myself but then it’s a kit I’m building so a third of the build is done by others. The approach we’ve taken is I am PM and my other half is the client. Clearly I have a stake in the decision making but this approach has meant I’ve been able to create a bit of distance between the problems that have cropped up and the decisions to make. That is to say we hit a problem, I research it and present my client with some options with pros and cons. However despite us both getting on with each other very well it has still led to the odd row 😂 Ultimately you know yourselves best. The more control you hand to other people the more you’ll need to accept they’ll make decisions about your house. Neither of you sound as if this is something you’d be happy with.

Your problem is you didn’t save the handout you gave him so it’s now down to what each of you can recall from the conversation. As I am learning with our house build it’s really important to check what work is being done at each stage and ask for an explanation on what they are doing and why. I didn’t do this with my headworks chamber because I was away and it was built incorrectly. A thing I learnt at work was to get whomever you’ve given instructions to about a task to repeat the task instructions back to you to make sure they’ve understood what you asked.

Skirting can be filled too or replaced with two new pieces cut to shape. If you value the friendship I’d tread carefully. I agree with @ToughButterCup If you don’t provide exact drawings and dimensions things can get mixed up. Just because you think you explained it clearly doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what he heard. I’ve fallen foul of this myself just recently. I had the brickies to build me a headworks chamber for our borehole and provided a picture and an opening size. I had to pull what they built down. This time around I’ve drawn it exactly how I need it with full dimensions and detailing for the tricky bits.

Post up a picture of what you wanted. Personally it looks fine to me. I guess you could finish it off by filling it and once painted you’d not notice it. It’ll be a reasonably big effort for him to change it and if you’re otherwise happy with it I’d leave as is.

There was quite a good episode of GD on last night on a difficult site with piled foundations that ran into problems.

I checked Companies House again today which has been updated to say the accounts have been filed and are being processed and will be available in 10 days. The company is Ashley Ann kitchens.

We are the other way around. ICE car for mucky dogs locally etc and the EV for long journeys or when we don’t have the dogs. 425 mile trip from here to where we go in England every 6 weeks or so. Two charging stops that take about 20 mins each charge. Enough time for a loo stop and coffee.

Exactly. It’s all a game unfortunately.