SarahG

Thanks, if I use one of the online estimators to produce the BOQ, presumably I would only be able to do this once I have the detailed drawings, and not the planning drawings? Otherwise it isn't going to be very accurate I would have thought. We have details on the basic materials to be used, windows, soffits and fascia boards, porch, roofing and brick type. We had to submit this as part of the application as we are in a conservation area. Our expectations largely depend on the cost, at a minimum it would be shell only, then PM'ing the trades ourselves to complete the build, alongside my husband completing what he can. Ideally we would like a contractor to get us to the stage we can move in and complete the interior ourselves. We will be living locally so would be able to be on site a lot of the time completing any jobs we can. If the council ask us to complete a Construction Transport Plan the working hours and timescales should be in that, if they don't presumably we can document this ourselves to share. I'm not sure about facilities (like portaloo's, access to fresh water etc?), there won't be any here, I assumed the builder would arrange for these as part of the contract. It's unlikely our scope will change, I know that can be costly!

Our plans are currently with the council. I asked a builder if he could give us an idea of cost, but he said due to fluctuations in the market he needs a full tender package from us once we have our planning consent (fingers crossed). I am trying to find out what is in the full tender package. I know we will need to get building reg drawings, we plan to use an online company like Arkiplan or Draw+Plan. We plan to part ways with our architect due to a large number of mistakes he has made. Should I also use an online estimator to draw up a Bill of Quantities? I guess this just makes the builders life a bit easier when quoting? What else should I be looking at? Our build is very simple and we are trying to keep costs to a minimum until we are sure we can afford to do it! We are not looking for a full turn key service, ideally we would want to get the house to the minimum state that we could live in it, so electrics and plumbing in and family bathroom and kitchen ideally installed. We would then complete anything that doesn't need a trade ourselves. Any advice would be helpful.

This is really helpful, are the costs incl or excl VAT? Sorry if I missed that. We definitely want ASHP, need to look in to the grant. Our kitchen will be a lot less! I’ve priced and designed it on DIY kitchens and will be around £8k incl VAT. Hoping contractor will install but if not we will do install ourselves as we did with our current kitchen.

OK now I am thinking I need to do some more research in to TF. Any recommendations on TF companies I can talk to? I've looked at Fleming Homes.

Ouch, that’s a lot. I think we may have to get a lot more involved with the build than we first anticipated. We had a quote (from an expensive Esher based architect) in 2021 for a full turn key service. It was £3017-3232 per sqm. I know prices have gone up but that seems a lot! Hopefully the next quote will be in the right direction… We will be using brick and block. Would like to get a rough idea before we spend more money on buildings reg drawings ideally

Absolutely, agree with that!

I certainly hope you are right! The issue is house prices in Elmbridge are one of the most expensive in the country, outside London. So builders can charge top whack. Which is fine if you are in it for the profit, but we are not. We are not going high end, but we do want a quality build and good materials. We have kept our build as simple as we can and saving every penny at the moment!

I could have almost written this myself, we are also in Elmbridge. We have plans to demolish our existing 2 bed bungalow and replace with 4 bed house. Albeit smaller than yours (195sqm). Our plans are with Elmbridge at the moment, but we haven't completed all the ecology surveys so it has not yet been validated. Once we are a bit further down the line in terms of the planning app we will start talking to builders, if we could get it for around £2500 sqm then I will be very happy, if we are talking £3000-£3500 sqm then we will have to rethink. Reading through this perhaps we need to talk to a QS or an SE first. We haven't had a land survey completed, the architect didn't feel it was worth it as our plot is a fairly straight forward. In order to keep costs down we will probably go for shell build, with electrics and plumbing in and ideally kitchen and family bathroom installed. My husband is very good at DIY and could pretty much do any of works. We did a complete renovation of our current house without paying any tradesmen, other than to sign off the electrics oh and a large area of plastering!. He would however rather not do too much work as we also have demanding jobs and two children (aged 3 and 1). Our architect told us we would need buildings regs drawings before a lot of builders will give us a quote. I am still keen to get some idea of costs, particularly in this area where I feel costs will be extortionate!

Agree that does sound reasonable in the grand scheme of things. Doing some research we were told around £1k for each emergence survey! I think I’ll go with them. Good to find someone in the area with experience - thank you

Thanks- that’s helpful. We are hoping to get it done in the next few weeks. As the council won’t validate our plans without it!

I don’t mind paying for a preliminary assessment as I agree there has to be a regulated body that validates if there are bats or no bats. I could even stomach one emergence survey if needs be. I will be really mad if I have to fork out for more though. I am 100% confident there are no bats and have never been any bats in the house. We also have no trees on our plot and I’ve never seen a bat anywhere around here. We will see!!

Thanks, have contacted them and they are pretty good value so think we will probably use them. You had a good experience?

Thanks. I tried Arbtech but they seemed expensive. I’ll contact Wenman and look through the database list.

Hi DevilDamo, thanks for the reply, we are in Elmbridge.

That sounds a very long time. We had to wait 5 weeks for our pre-planning application to be dealt with, we then had a site visit, follow up zoom call and the formal report all within about 2 weeks. We were told up front the exact times of delay. You are right to wait for the formal response, after our very positive Zoom call the report came and contained a whole list of changes they wanted which had not been mentioned in the follow up meeting!

Can anyone recommend a good company to carry out a Bat survey? We are in Surrey. We 100% don't have any bats and there have never been any, but just need a Preliminary Assessment for our planning app. Thanks

We are currently using a local architect to draw up our plans. It has taken a long time to get the sketches done and we have pretty much designed the house ourselves. In fact we may as well have done the drawings ourself. The architect is going ti draw us full plans and submit planning. Once we have this (fingers crossed) we don’t really want to pay him to do the building ref drawings. There are quite a few online companies that do this, I found one called Arkiplan. Just wondering if anyone had any recommendations or advice in this area? Thanks

With ecology we get approx 4.6 x income and with Santander about 4.98. I have factored in a 10% contingency to my budget, which is a lot more than the 30k difference. Do ecology ask for certain contingency does anyone know? That’s good to know ecology are one of the best, I have a friend who is a mortgage broker, so she will help us. I’m trying not to bombard her with questions as she is so busy at the moment! We are currently going through pre planning and trying to save as much as we can! At least we have 3 years once we get planning of we need to save more..

I was just wondering how reliable these calculators are. I used the standard Santander mortgage calculator and it said we can borrow £30k more based on our income than the ecology calculator for a self build mortgage. I wonder if it is the case that you just can’t borrow as much on a self build mortgage? Anybody know if that is the case?

Well we are Surrey/London border so if Surrey prices are the same as London prices then I guess we will! Our architect knows some builders in Hampshire, we will get a few quotes though as will be managing the build ourselves. We won’t be getting an expensive spec and plan to reuse parts of our existing kitchen in the utility room etc. We also have some things we have bought over the years on eBay we will use. We just want to get the minimum done so we can move in and do the rest when we can afford it. Hoping to get some quotes when the sketches are done but I don’t know how reliable they will be with everything going on at the moment. We would like to start next year but I guess we will see what happens when we start talking to some builders!

We are in the process of having sketches drawn up for our new build house, we will be demolishing the existing house. The existing house has a garage which is built right up to the boundary with our neighbour. We will be demolishing this garage and building a replacement one. We would like to avoid the need for a party wall agreement or give our neighbours any reason to object to our plans. The question is, can we build up to the boundary again or would it be better to leave say a 6 inch gap between the garage and fence which we would continue alongside instead. We already have a party wall agreement with our neighbour for their house, they have built a very large basement so the foundations for our single story garage wouldn't go anywhere near the depth of their basement (which is within 3 meters). Hopefully that makes sense! Thanks

We were lucky enough to inherit a small bungalow in a prime location in Surrey. We are now hoping to demolish the existing building and build a new two story house, approx 190sqm. Assuming we can organise a self build mortgage, our budget is £500k all in, including professional services etc. We are currently having some sketches drawn up by a local architect, it’s been a bit painful as we have very clear ideas of what we want and trying to keep it as simple as possible in order to keep costs down. He seems to be now finally listening to us. We are hoping to do as much work as possible ourselves, but with two young children and both working it’s not going to be easy. Feeling very nervous about the spiralling construction costs! Also nervous that prices will be extortionate in our area.