SarahG

Thanks @Wumpusthat is very helpful. I will update my spreadsheet to 10% for now. How much detail did you need to give for approx building costs? Did you need to supply a full builders quote? We plan to use estimators online to give us an idea of a baseline cost, before using that to get quotes from builders. I wonder if I could get an AIP with just the estimators online quote, although it's probably sensible to speak to a few of our perspective builders in case the costs are way off for our area.

@bmj1 I've not decided yet, we thought we needed to make a decision for our BR drawings, but luckily we don't yet. I think probably having got a reasonable amount of quotes we will go with bi-folds, as we are on a tight budget. I did see some the other day that had panels at the top, which could be an option if I can find a supplier. I think we need to wait and see what u-value we need to achieve, most of the ones I found were 1.0 for the glass and then 1.5 overall. I don't know if this will achieve the current BR though. We will see what our architect has put on the spec doc when we get that through.

Just thinking about my self build mortgage, whilst I wait for BR drawings to be completed and interest rates to go up I will probably go ecology as they seem pretty good, just wondered if others that have used them what did you need to provide in terms of contingency. I seem to read differing opinions from between 8-20% of the build cost, which is quite a big variation, 20% seems pretty huge! Just wondered if anyone wanted to share their experience? We are very low risk as our build is very simple and the amount we want to borrow is about 50% of the cost of the plot on its own. We are both in long term employment, however we will most likely need to borrow the maximum we can in order to afford the build. We already own the plot and have savings of about 10-15% to put towards the build.

Wow, that is bad. Got what they deserve in that case! Even if you are 100% sure you have nothing worth protecting I still understand that someone who is a professional must check and sign it off. I don’t know how it works for your local council but ours make you do pre planning before they will tell you the exact reports. They sell the planning as a way to find out exactly what you need. Therefore they are not likely to offer the knowledge over the phone for free. Hopefully yours is different and you can give them a call, or your architect can…

I would find out the exact wording of the survey you need from the council. We had to complete a preliminary ecology appraisal which included a bat roost assessment. We found a local guy who was well priced at £488 for a combined survey. I found him on the https://cieem.net/i-need/finding-a-consultant/ website. I would personally go for a small local company and have a chat to them first to make sure they sound reasonable, otherwise you can end up paying for other unnecessary surveys. Make sure you read up on this forum if you need to complete a bat roost assessment!

I had a quote for some Heritage Aluminium french doors last year which was £4468, I have just had a revised quote which is now £6400. I was of course expecting an increase but now I am wondering if there is a cheaper alternative we can use. We are worried about the costs spiralling so trying to keep them down as much as we can. The dimensions are 4448w 2600h so I think potentially bi-fold doors are not possible due to the height, the French doors we had planned have a fixed panel at the top. Just wondering if anyone has any suggestions of alternative patio door we could look at for these dimensions? Or even any suppliers they could recommend.

From reading other posts I think Estimators Online is good "as a starting place". It's a shame they missed items off, if they were included on the plans you would think they would be included in the quote. I think we will still go ahead and use them as a base, but only once we have our BR drawings. We are firmly set on masonry already anyway. Just seen your other post. Some really interesting insights. We could potentially get close to £3000/sq m, if a lot of things go in our favour (that would need to be second fix though). Good luck with your plans. It has also taken us a year to get to this stage!

Correct! 🤦🏻‍♀️

@Indyhow did you get on with estimators online? Our plans were approved a couple of weeks ago. We had a meeting with the architect you recommended and he is going ahead with our building reg drawings. He seems very knowledgable, so thank you for the recommendation. We are pretty nervous about the cost, once we have the drawings we will use estimators online too. Architect suggested a cost of £3500 p sq ft, which is a bit terrifying! We are hoping to get to first fix for around £2000 p sq ft, then complete the rest ourselves, he seemed to think that was doable.

I wouldn’t be asking for advice on the forum if I thought the architect knew it all. Although I am confident he has a good understanding. Going to do my own research now!

Perfect, it definitely sounds like it isn't more expensive than radiators and probably easier too. Gives me something to go back to OH when he starts complaining about costs! I've made a note of the suppliers suggested. Agree we need to make sure we are well insulated, it would be great if we could ditch the rads upstairs completely- like that suggestion. Also useful to know about keeping the whole downstairs on the same zone, all sounds completely doable. We are in between architects at the moment so once we sign up with the new architect we can discuss this all with them. Feeling a lot more confident about it now. Been told plans should be approved this week, so fingers crossed! Great blog @Thorfun your house looks like it is going to be fabulous!

Debating if we can afford UFH or not.. we are about to start technical drawings and ideally I would like UFH for all downstairs and then rads upstairs, powered by ASHP. OH thinks that UFH downstairs is going to be too costly as we are on a tight budget. I think if we are having an ASHP then I don’t want the whole house on rads. I also really don’t want a gas supply to the house, installing a gas boiler in a new build just seems crazy when they are looking to ban them soon. Oh the house will be two storey, 4 beds, approx 195 sqm. Am I looking at a much higher cost for UFH / ASHP vs gas boiler / rads?

Interesting discussion, thank you. I’m not looking for someone who is necessarily cheap, we want to pay someone who knows what they are doing and is going to charge us a fair price. I am more than happy to pay good money to get someone good. I just don’t want to pay for someone who isn’t that good or isn’t quite right for us. Ideally I’m looking for someone who has experience of new builds, understands the current building reg requirements and is able to produce good detailed drawings that we can take to a builder for quote and submit for buildings regs too. Whether that be an SE or an architectural technologist, I don’t really mind. It sounds more like I just need to find the right person for us, rather than getting hung up too much on job titles. We would also like someone to come out at each stage during the build to check the build quality, assuming the builder would be ok with that. I think that probably would be an SE. I think what I need to do is get on the phone and talk to some people and try and find someone who can work with us. This website looks useful, I’ll give a few a call in our area https://architecturaltechnology.com/

Ok maybe I need to look up some architectural technicians. We are going brick and block so will have to get the drawings done ourselves. One quote I had from an architect was £900 for the drawings, but the SE they used quoted us between £4.6k-£5.2k excl VAT. Which seemed huge, I assumed the SE was doing the majority of the work, but maybe not. Can anyone recommend any architectural technicians?

Plans are in, we hear mid June if it’s going to be approved or not 🤞🏻 Architect did our plans but it was so slow and painful we don’t want to use him anymore. Can I just go straight to a structural engineer and get them to do the calculations and buildings reg drawings? I’m not sure why we would go to an architect and then get them to get an SE to do the calculations. Seems like paying for two people is potentially unnecessary? Am I missing something? Going to give a few SE’s a call next week but thought I would ask here. Our build is very straightforward, we know what we want, but are not necessarily experts so advice is appreciated but we don’t need hand holding. Anyone have any recommendations for SE’s that might do this in Surrey area?

Think they are too old now to change anything! We just have to accept it’s not pleasant for us when we go round. I am confident I still want UFH here and that it is the right solution. Just need to persuade my husband that it’s their setup that is incorrect and not the UFH! Thanks for the tips all.

I’ve also been thinking about this. My in laws renovated their house and put in UFH. It’s hot and stuffy and we find it quite unpleasant. This has led my OH to think he doesn’t want UFH and wants to bring some of our old cast iron radiators with us and just stick with them. Which we like for similar reasons as others. We do however want ASHP and I’m not convinced this will work with radiators. We are going brick and block for our build.

Definitely just need to keep on at them. From my experience working in a NOC quite a few years ago now intermittent faults like these were often fixed by either replacing or resetting the line card in the local exchange.

Ah ok. Ours was submitted at the start of Feb, so about 2 months to get to the validation stage for us. I had assumed we were delayed longer as we were waiting for our ecology surveys, but perhaps not. Like you say there isn’t anything you can do but wait and spend the time researching the next stage. Good luck processing those quotes!

That’s interesting. I have had quotes from both. Arkiplan was very reasonable, Draw+Plan use a third party SE and their quote was quite high. I’m a little unsure what we should do next. It’s just a real shame our architect is no good. He has made so many mistakes and we have had to fight tooth and nail to get him to make any changes we wanted. We just couldn’t use him again, it would drive us mad! I don’t suppose you would want to share the architects you are using with me? They sound good?

Hi Indy, hope you are having a good break. We were told the waiting time at Elmbridge is about 5 weeks, so hopefully you will hear soon. Our plans have been validated, but we need to check a few things with them first before it goes live, but should be any day now I hope! I had a look at timber frame, but my husband is pretty set on brick and block, so I think that will be the route we take. Wow 46 pages, I had no idea there was that much to a quote! I think we are probably going to ask for quotes to first fix and then complete the rest ourselves, not ideal but I think the cost will be too prohibitive otherwise.

Just thinking about how we go about getting our tender docs completed and feeling a bit overwhelmed. I am thinking we have two options- a) Use an online company to draw up the building reg drawings, submit to online estimators to get our estimate, programme of works and BOQ, package this together with a tender invitation document ourselves and send out to our chosen builders Or b) Find another architect to do our drawings, presumably work with their own SE to create the tender package Assuming I'm not missing anything from the above, we are more than happy to go with option a) if it saves us money, but not if it might mean it costs us in the long run. I'm concerned if we use an online company is there something I would get from an architect that I won't from an online company? Is there anything I need to consider with option a) that maybe I have not thought about?

Hi @Shire2020thanks for your reply. I agree ideally we do not want to be managing trades ourselves, anything we can do ourselves we probably will. Would like a contractor to manage trades for work we cannot do like electrician, plumber, plasterer etc. I'm sure they are all very busy around here. Our road is blocked up with trade vans every day at the moment. We have one builder who is going to give us a quote, I know his wife and I would trust them. I think probably they are going to be expensive though. How did you find your builders? I know you are supposed to get local recommendations, but I'm not sure how to get these without knowing anyone who has recently had any building work done! I feel like each stage is a job in itself, I'm just trying to take it step by step, getting as ready as I can for the next one!

@Indy how are you getting on with your quotes? I contacted a friend of a friend who is a builder but he won’t quote us until we have full tender documents ready.

Thanks, it’s now making much more sense to me. Looking online, there is quite a bit of guidance and hopefully I can find some decent templates. I think this is something we can prepare ourselves, alongside the drawings and BoQ which I will do some more research in to. Initially I was hoping to get a rough cost per sqm from builders before we get our full tender documents ready. Our budget is around £2500 per sqm. I just hope this will be enough, as we will be paying top London prices here.