Evening

 

Dropped in to say hello.

 

Joining you from sunny Doncaster, but don't worry, that doesn't mean I'm unecessarily violent.

 

We are just starting a self build extention.  Almost doubling the size of our bungalow, so not a small job.  After 25 years of no shows, poor work, no shows, late work, no shows and the occasional no show, we've given up on contractors and are doing the whole thing ourself.  There must be good ones out there, I'm sure there are some on here, but for some reason I can never find them. Anyway, I'm in IT, 'tuther half was a hairdresser, so we are definitely not in the trade, I have a 4 day brickaying course and a brick barbeque (which I accidentally smashed with a mini-digger) to my name, thanks to my Dad I'm generally quite handy, if a touch clumsy.  We know it will take longer, but at least that will be our fault.

 

Foundations are dug and concrete poured, our buiding control dude is excellent, but I still have questions, so I'm hoping you can help.  I can't guarantee my questions will not be stupid, but I can guarantee not to get offended when you tell me they are.

 

We're reading the regs before each bit we do, and we do know there are certain things, like gas and parts of electrics, which are off liimts and we are going to have to bite the bullet and either find or kidnap a contractor, so that all seems fine, but some of the practical things are where I'm hoping to borrow your experience, like today's question  which I'll post later.

 

 

Welcome, don’t worry there are no stupid questions here ?

I had similar experience with trades over the years and I learnt to do almost everything myself. But bricklaying (and plastering) is something I will always leave to the professionals!

Hey there! New member here and you're in a very similar boat to us. My other half is a joiner and has worked with builders for years. We're doing all the groundwork, got a good bricky lined up and got great contacts in the trades for everything else (plastering, electrics, gas etc.). Obviously my hubby will be doing all the woodwork. We're just doing a simple side extension (over garage) and builders were quoting £100k+. We did have some more reasonable builders lined up but it was like something off Rogue Traders. So enough is enough, we're doing it ourselves.

 

Best of luck with your project! Sure we'll have a lot of experiences to share!