Self build costs - those who used their own labour

[rh2205]

I've been reading a number of really useful historic forum pages these last couple of weeks to try and get a bit more idea on high level budgets and per/m cost etc. As expected there is a big variation in cost between those who have done a lot of labour themselves vs those which contract it all out, however what I am after is a bit more understanding from those who have done a lot of labour themselves approximately how much time did you spend on it each week on average? I notice several regular forum users have kindly provided some very detailed costs but what I am not quite sure is how many of their own hours this required to keep those costs low - has anyone got a record of their own time spent and over what period of time if they had limited time did they have to spend working on their self build against the size of the property itself. Also are there any examples of people who have managed to use a lot of their own labour around a full time job and family commitments or is this a completely unrealistic approach given we are fully expecting to learn most things as we go rather than already having some degree of competence!

 

Whilst we are willing to work hard I guess we are trying to make sure we're not making plans for something that is physically impossible with the number of hours in a day and we are struggling to pragmatically do a reality check given this is all new to us. When we are looking at this approach we are assuming the position of working on it once structure is weathertight and that we will have to get people in to do some components of the work - similar to the approach JSHarris talks about in relation to the degree of DIY undertaken personally.

[ProDave]

I have done almost all the labour (apart from plastering and a bit of detailed joinery) since the basic shell was up.  I am just I think on target to complete for £1000 per square metre.

 

I am in year 5 of my self build and at least 1 more to go.  The house is habitable and quite cosy but a long way from finished.

 

I am self employed and only part time but very variable hours. I have not kept a count of hours worked but a lot, and a very conservative estimate suggests I have saved £30K in labour costs.

 

Our issue is money, or rather lack of it, which is why the build is taking so long, just about at the point of building it at the rate we earn the money.

[nod]

We have finished at just  under 8oo per sq  mtr on a 285 sq mtre build 

with a detached double garage on top of that 

I haven’t counted the vat claim in that Of around 30 k But we have just spent 10 k for the outside paving 

My wife had hoped to spend the 30 reclaim on landscaping But with labour the best reputable quote she got for laying the 420 am mtrs of paving and drainage was £51000 Supply and fix

So don’t under estimate how much you can save by doing it yourself

The total cost for doing the paving ourselves will be around £12000

 

It has taken us two years We both worked long days Fri Sat and Sun 

Every day except Christmas and about a dozen day when we where waiting for materials 

Every evening I would do at least three hours sometimes til midnight on a Thursday 

We have a house that is worth £350000 more than we have put into it 

We both worked full time in between

 

We haven’t scrimped With a large German kitchen and three German bathrooms 

But if we do decide to sell Cutting costs on these would Have seriously impacted a sale price

 

Hope this helps 

 

  

[recoveringbuilder]

We haven’t done so much this build as we managed to get prices for labour within a budget we could afford however in our last build both working full time and my son in law working full time, we spent every hour we weren’t at work working on the build. Hubby would come home At 4pm have a quick bite to eat and start and we would be at it till gone midnight, my son in law spent every weekend for a year with us from 9 in the morning till 6 at night.we were out until 2 in the morning moving scaffolding for the builders next morning, we spent The bells at New Year’s Eve laying under floor heating pipes, by the time the house was finished we vowed never to do it again! It was a large house 385m2 and it was the only way we were ever going to complete it as we had a very small budget and we got mucked about a lot with various trades so we had to take on things we knew very little about. Personally would never go this route again but probably that’s more to do with getting older!

[ToughButterCup]

46 minutes ago, rh2205 said:

[...]

has anyone got a record of their own time spent and over what period of time

[...]

 

 

I've worked Up to 7 days a week for the last 4 years - almost all (except for three months) on my own. Few days off here and there, most weekends I work at least half a day.

I'm retired, getting fitter by the year, losing weight, down in the dumps occasionally. But mostly head-down-arse-up-go.  The most important thing is having a supportive other half. I would have thrown in the towel a  couple of times if it weren't for her.

 

146 sq m. Roof on, windows in, some carcassing, first layer of plaster on, first fix.

 

Zero experience of building before I started : well, I mixed concrete for my dad and few times - he did have a slipped disk after all. Often I work very inefficiently indeed. Because I haven't got a clue how to do stuff. Takes me about 5 times longer to get things done than anyone else. 

 

It's the stress of the c@ck -  ups and the lack of knowledge and skills that gets to me most. Its rare for me to be able think and so plan strategically,  often, I ' ... wish I'd thought of that last year ...'

 

I could not do this job without Build Hub. Yep, I'm a Mod, so I would say that wouldn't I, but seriously for me, this isn't doable without Build Hub.

 

How the Hell @nod and his other half did it as well as full time jobs I don't know. 

 

 

[nod]

14 minutes ago, AnonymousBosch said:

 

I've worked Up to 7 days a week for the last 4 years - almost all (except for three months) on my own. Few days off here and there, most weekends I work at least half a day.

I'm retired, getting fitter by the year, losing weight, down in the dumps occasionally. But mostly head-down-arse-up-go.  The most important thing is having a supportive other half. I would have thrown in the towel a  couple of times if it weren't for her.

 

146 sq m. Roof on, windows in, some carcassing, first layer of plaster on, first fix.

 

Zero experience of building before I started : well, I mixed concrete for my dad and few times - he did have a slipped disk after all. Often I work very inefficiently indeed. Because I haven't got a clue how to do stuff. Takes me about 5 times longer to get things done than anyone else. 

 

It's the stress of the c@ck -  ups and the lack of knowledge and skills that gets to me most. Its rare for me to be able think and so plan strategically,  often, I ' ... wish I'd thought of that last year ...'

 

I could not do this job without Build Hub. Yep, I'm a Mod, so I would say that wouldn't I, but seriously for me, this isn't doable without Build Hub.

 

How the Hell @nod and his other half did it as well as full time jobs I don't know. 

 

 

14 minutes ago, AnonymousBosch said:

 

Thanks Ian 

 

You should be so proud at what you have achieved so far 

Talk about never give in

 

[redtop]

well we are very early in the build phase, site cleared, elec on site and water booked.  Got more clearance work being done over next few weeks which includes laying entrance drive, making levels right for pile foundations, etc.  Then piles go in.  Now, none of this we could do ourselves (digger job was very difficult on a steep slope).  BUT starting to get quotes in for the less skilled bits (concrete pile caps, simple retaining wall, etc) and its clear a lot can be saved by doing it ourselves.  So plan is to do the simple concreting, probably get the steels designed, supplied and erected seperatly (lots of small steels, all can be man handled).  then get a builder in to put frame on, and windows in. FLat roof so i will GRP myself (booked a free course).  Then onto the inside, where we will do as much as possible.

 

In total i reckon we can save £100K plus, easily.  We would probably save a bit less if trades didnt try to rip you of but that aspect seems endemic

[redtop]

should add we have done all the PM to date, which even at this stage has kept us busy sorting services, groundworks, steel quotes, foundations, etc, etc

[Carrerahill]

49 minutes ago, AnonymousBosch said:

 

...getting fitter by the year, losing weight, down in the dumps occasionally.

 

I hear you! I am in the dumps just now with my build. Ready to sell all my tools and give up at the moment and I don't even have any reason too really, just all going too slowly for my liking and feel like time is conspiring against me to disappear while nothing of note has been achieved in a month. A summer month at that!

 

Just had a roughcaster here - he has left me disheartened as I suspect I am no further forward to finding one!

 

He seemed to offer more thoughts on everything but his bloody part of the job and kept telling me what I would need to do to certain parts of my build. The gutters are not on fully, "Oh are you going to fit gutters, you will need gutters or you will get damp problems", what is going on there, pointing to part of a roof that hasn't been tiled yet! I bit my tongue and managed to hold of telling him I know more about buildings than he does!

 

Unless his price is particularly good I don't want to see him again - even then, I don't think his price would be worth it!

 

 

[patp]

We have been on a Self Build Course run by Potton who are timber frame manufacture/errect suppliers. Our project is traditional build but we still learned a lot. One of the big things the chap running the course stressed was to take time off to re charge the batteries. His terminology was " at this stage you jet off to Torremolinos ". He had been through a couple of self builds. There were several couples there who had full time jobs and the strain was already showing

[ToughButterCup]

43 minutes ago, Carrerahill said:

[...]

The gutters are not on fully,

[...]

 

? With gutters, I'm at the YooChube video stage : a la  How d'ya fit Lindab gutters then squire?

 

43 minutes ago, Carrerahill said:

[...]

- he has left me disheartened

[...]

Professionally, I had a fairly thick skin before I started this build. But since the build started, it's a lot - and I mean a lot - thicker now.  When that happens ( get disheartened)  to me (once a month or more) I try and do something to inspire me - I've been known to go and lurk around building sites - sometimes ask for permission to look at things on sites (told get lost occasionally) - I learn a lot doing that.

Don't tell SWMBO, but I might treat myself to the odd nice tool now and again .

(My Bosch laser spirit level is the mutts nuts)

 

Quote

... " at this stage you jet off to Torremolinos " ...

 

Would that I had the confidence, @patp ... 

[Gone West]

58 minutes ago, AnonymousBosch said:

a la  How d'ya fit Lindab gutters then squire?

I found Lindab straightforward to fit just following the instructions, especially relating to how to cut it. It's been up over seven years with no problems, no rust.

 

1 hour ago, patp said:

" at this stage you jet off to Torremolinos "

At the start of our build we only worked nine months of the year having December off for Christmas and going away to Madeira for January and February. This was fine from the relaxing point of view but we soon discovered that only working three quarters of the year meant the build was taking a very long time. Depends what you want. We haven't had the long winter break for several years now.

[Crofter]

Whether it's worth putting in DIY labour depends on how much income you could be losing to do so, and how skilled (and therefore, how productive) you are with these trades- so it's going to vary enormously from one self builder to another.

 

If you are short of free time, choose carefully where to spend it. I remember @JSHarris saying that he effectively 'earned' hundreds of pounds an hour by shopping around for electrical fittings. This is a great example of somewhere that a self builder can save a small fortune, as most trades will just pick things up from their preferred supplier without much thought as to what cost is passed on to the customer.

 

My own build was very much DIY. We got planning approval in early 2015, and it was finished in May 2018- so just over three years, plus the slow burn in the months prior to gaining planning. For about two of those years, the build was my full time job. It wasn't really a decision to do the build instead of working somewhere else, it was just how things worked out at the time. A significant portion of time was spent researching and working things out- many many cups of tea, discussions on BuildHub, and playing with models on Sketchup. Working alone also made some jobs much more time consuming, especially anything involving work at heights- I must have climbed up and down ladders thousands of times.

 

I hired in a digger and driver, a plasterer, a sparky, and a plumber for the UVC. Everything else from design and drawing through to first and second fix, roofing, and painting and decorating, was done by me, with a little help from friends, family, and neighbours. The build worked out at about £1000/m2 for a reasonably high spec, on a very small footprint. This includes everything except the land.

I don't really know what it would have cost to get someone else to build it, but it would likely have worked out in the region of £2000-£2500/m2. In such a case it would probably have made sense to make the house larger, as it would have added negligible cost and lowered the cost per m2.

[TerryE]

Jan and I worked pretty much full time on our build for 3 years, but we're retired so we had the time available to do this. Quite a few active self-builders here are in the same situation. I don't know how those with young families and jobs put in the hours but they seem to be able to.

 

Yes, you can save a lot of costs but I think you need to have a very clear idea of what jobs you can realistically tackle and which are going to be more cost effective to offload to a skilled tradesman.  We did the architecture (subcontracting some work to a TA), the project management, most of the procurement, and some of the internal trades (plumbing, carpentry, kitchen and bathroom fitting and some decorating). We also had two major subs: one for the timberframe and slab; one for the groundworks and external skin.  All told we probably saved about £100-120K, and had a tight control on quality, so we are both delighted with the end result. 

 

PS. It's not that the house ended up £120K cheaper than if we'd gone to our local builder. It didn't.  However, we ended up with features and build quality that we just wouldn't have got if we'd gone this route.  We're going to be living in the house for all of or most of the rest of our lives, so these aspects are important to us.

Edited August 7, 2019 by TerryE

[willbish]

1 minute ago, TerryE said:

I don't know how those with young families and jobs put in the hours but they seem to be able to.

 

I fall in to that category and Im not sure how I do it either.

 

I'm lucky with my employment in that I work 7 days of shifts, up to 84 hours but more usually ~60ish, followed by 7 days off.

There are some things I prioritise over the house build. I make sure I eat dinner with my partner and read to my son everyday.

 

My hobbies are a distant memory, I don't see my mates often enough or my extended family.

 

6 hours ago, rh2205 said:

 how much time did you spend on it each week on average?

So I reckon I'm probably averaging 30 hours a week on site. In 18 months Ive demolished the existing house and rebuilt the shell of the new one. Last ICF pour on Friday. Ive paid for about 20 days of labour so far.

We will be moving in at the end of August next year. Once watertight I will take stock and reconsider the budget, I think there will be cash to start getting trades in to speed things up. This is probably the opposite way its usually done on Grand Designs etc. I know Ive saved a load of cash by doing all the work myself so far.

 

 

[Moira Niedzwiecka]

I am about 3 1/2 years in now. Still lots to do but getting there. I work full time. Get home about 6pm & work most evenings until about 9 or 10pm & then eat, shower & bed. I work every other Saturday, so every other Sat on build & Sundays. Not had a holiday since beginning of build. I would have done a lot more myself but some things are just too heavy for me on my own to shift. I hope to be finished in about 6 months time. I learn as I go & some things have taken me far longer than they should have, but that is because I am very careful. I would sooner do what I can myself & take my time than pay someone to do an inferior job.

[CC45]

We are 4 years in - another 1 to go.  Externals did the groundwork, timber frame erection, external brickwork & put windows in, everything else I have done.  Its been hard work.  4 nights per week for 3hrs / night and prob 45 weekends annually + all my holidays (I work full time).  We will get in under £1,000/m2 on a 250m2 house.  I could not do it without my partner - she gets the food ready and keeps our current house together so while she does not graft on the site at all really, I could not have done it without her - you must have a good partner to do this.  You also need good mates (I've just tiled & grouted a bathroom for one in return for 5 days graft) with different skills to you.  It is satisfying.  You need patience, persistence and some experience ideally (I'd renovated 3 houses and built an extension before I started).

Give it a go but once you start you have got to keep at it.

[nod]

Just totting up the hours that we worked over the last two years

Monday to Wednesday 4 per evening Thursday Usually 6 Friday Saturday 14 each day with my wife 

Sunday early day 10 hours 

Monday to Thursday up and on the road for 6am working on other people’s building sites around the Northwest Wages and vat fell on my wife’s shoulders for our business

My wife said if I’d of put as much time into our. business we could have paid a company to do the work 

 But where’s the satisfaction in that 

 

ive enjoyed almost every minute 

The only time I felt stressed was the initial planning stages You all know what I mean Two steps forward and one back 

I envy those just starting there builds 

Would I do it all again 

 

watch this space ?

 

 

[Declan52]

As has been pointed out above you can make a fair bit of savings if your prepared to do a lot of the work yourself. But and it's a big but be realistic in what jobs you could actually do. If you have no experience in joinery then don't be attempting to put the roof on. Unless your a plumber or spark then best leave these to the pros. Just by lifting the phone and using Google you can save money researching different material choices for example. If you get a professional to do any job they won't care where the materials come from as long as they are there when they are needed but you will as your paying the bill.

 

[Triassic]

I’m self building most of my house myself, I’ve had labour in to put the frame up, slate the roof, do the rendering and nstall the 46 windows and doors (how did I ever end up with 46 of them!). In the near future I’ll be finished  outside and will move inside. I’ve got an electrician lined up and I’m paying mates rates, after that, I’ll be getting a plasterer in to do all the plastering. I’m budgeted to finish the 380m2 house for around £1000/ m2. I’ve worked on the build full time, 7:30 to 18:00 five days per week. Occasionally I’ll work longer if I have deadlines to meet.

 

I’m not sure I could do a day job as well as self Build, those who do, have a whole new level of dedication and I take my hat off to them.

[Pete]

Agree whole heartedly with most of the above but what I will add is that so far we have paid for the timber frame/slab and had issues there with the workmanship. The external render is done but we are not happy with it but it is on, Internorm windows which have been a nightmare and now the internal plastering is poor in places, so our experience of getting people in leaves alot to be desired. I have done nearly all the rest of the work as most others have and find it hard to let somebody else on site for fear of more sub standard work.

[Crofter]

11 hours ago, Declan52 said:

Be realistic in what jobs you could actually do. If you have no experience in joinery then don't be attempting to put the roof on. Unless your a plumber or spark then best leave these to the pros.

 

In general I completely agree, but there are some jobs on a build that are relatively straightforward to do if you are prepared to do the research. You'll never be as fast as a pro, though.

 

I found the first fix joinery pretty easy, and fast- I bought in a big pile of 6x2 and sheets of OSB, and a couple of months later I had the shell of a house erected. Installing insulation, partition walls, and plasterboarding were all quite simple.

It was the second fix stuff that I found more challenging- everything you do is on display for all to see, and in the case of things like door linings, a wonky mitre or a 2mm gap can look terrible.

[nod]

20 hours ago, Crofter said:

 

In general I completely agree, but there are some jobs on a build that are relatively straightforward to do if you are prepared to do the research. You'll never be as fast as a pro, though.

 

I found the first fix joinery pretty easy, and fast- I bought in a big pile of 6x2 and sheets of OSB, and a couple of months later I had the shell of a house erected. Installing insulation, partition walls, and plasterboarding were all quite simple.

It was the second fix stuff that I found more challenging- everything you do is on display for all to see, and in the case of things like door linings, a wonky mitre or a 2mm gap can look terrible.

My business that I run is Plastering Rendering Framing and tiling 

Tiling and framing are doable if you take your time 

Renderiing and Plastering are not 

Its something that you are going to be looking at for a very long time 

 

[Crofter]

21 minutes ago, nod said:

My business that I run is Plastering Rendering Framing and tiling 

Tiling and framing are doable if you take your time 

Renderiing and Plastering are not 

Its something that you are going to be looking at for a very long time 

 

 

Yes plastering and rendering are more art than craft. I didn't even attempt to do either of them.

 

It's funny though how most people instinctively want to use professionals for all the big 'scary' jobs like erecting the frame, and go DIY for the fiddly stuff at the end. Wrong way round in some respects!

[Declan52]

A good plasterer can cover all manor of sins. For everything else there is caulk.