NailBiter Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 (edited) Hello all, I hope you are well. My name isn't important but you can call me NailBiter. This is an exciting / stressful process and I'm a born worrier / overthinker. Hopefully by sharing in our successes and our troubles I can help build my resilience and possibly help solve some problems you or I are having. Despite our architects best attempts at protecting us from ourselves we have designed an utterly massive house (1200m2+) over 3 floors (including basement, garage, workshop etc). This is going to be quite some feat to pull off building this house without bankrupting ourselves. Good luck to you all and good luck to us too. Cheers, NailBiter Edited February 29 by NailBiter 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonshine Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 (edited) 9 minutes ago, NailBiter said: Despite our architects best attempts at protecting us from ourselves we have designed an utterly massive house (1200m2+) over 3 floors (including basement, garage, workshop etc). What the actual f%$k, that is huge and at least a £2.5-3 mil build cost, at that amount i am worried on your behalf 🤣 I am not that far from you in Devon, and would be interested to know what a 1,200m2 house looks like. Have you got planning yet? Edited February 29 by Moonshine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 Welcome to THE build forum, wow that sounds big and impressive. We like photos and plans to help you with decision making. This forum is full of people who have done it so will give real fact based advise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markc Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 (edited) Hi and welcome … and omg! 1200sqm 😱 Edited February 29 by markc 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saveasteading Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 35 minutes ago, NailBiter said: building this house without bankrupting ourselves. We are here to help it be £2.5M and not £3.5M. When the time is right, what construction methods do you intend? What stage are you at? Too big for much self build I imagine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NailBiter Posted February 29 Author Share Posted February 29 (edited) 47 minutes ago, Moonshine said: What the actual f%$k, that is huge and at least a £2.5-3 mil build cost, at that amount i am worried on your behalf 🤣 I am not that far from you in Devon, and would be interested to know what a 1,200m2 house looks like. Have you got planning yet? We are right on the border between Dorset and Devon so possibly even closer to you. If I'm not a divorcee living in a box I'll invite you round when done. This house is being built for 3 generations of both my partners family and my family (5 people, extra on the way) and includes an Annexe, a Flat and what we call the Winter Garden which links the two buildings (building A: house, building B: flat and annexe). Large yes but I believe excusably so (the architect politely disagrees). The workshop, courtyard and the garage are about 200 m2 of that too. The combined building is a rectangle that is 42m long, 10m wide and it gets thinner as it goes up. The basement is 500m2. We have planning and we have gentlemen on site forming the access route. Geotech drilling round 2 is currently ongoing fingers crossed for a good result. Planning required a ratcheting approach that took 3 permission across as many years. I didn't want to leave too much to chance and didn't want a refusal. Why not build something smaller and extend: 1. CIL costs would apply to any extension but not the initial build. This is a not insignificant saving of something like £200,000 for the whole build. 2. The site is beautiful and I want to get it landscaped before completely the entire building beyond first fix (we don't need all the space yet). 3. With inflation nothing is getting cheaper, we had a windfall and we don't want money losing value in the bank. 4. Due to the layout of the building (flat, annexe, winter garden, house, 1st floor house south, 1st floor house north) it is easy to take on piecemeal. 5. My family ran a small building company but this is far beyond our capabilities. Once we are water tight we are back inside our comfort zone. 6. VAT exemptions provide further savings. The goal is to try and get substructure and superstructure finished externally inside of about £1 million to 1.5 million. After that I will be starting to run out of money so need to prioritise carefully and not give up my day job! I really don't mind if I'm still plodding on this project in 10 years time as long as my (extended) family are happy and comfortable. Edited February 29 by NailBiter VAT exemptions 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NailBiter Posted February 29 Author Share Posted February 29 39 minutes ago, joe90 said: Welcome to THE build forum, wow that sounds big and impressive. We like photos and plans to help you with decision making. This forum is full of people who have done it so will give real fact based advise. Good to be here thanks for the welcome. Long term lurker (small renovations), first time poster. This forum has great people and great info, looking forward to being part of that. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NailBiter Posted February 29 Author Share Posted February 29 11 minutes ago, saveasteading said: We are here to help it be £2.5M and not £3.5M. When the time is right, what construction methods do you intend? What stage are you at? Too big for much self build I imagine. That sounds good to me thanks. If we can get to water tight inside of 1 to 1.5 million I will consider myself incredibly lucky. Fit out will not be cheap but it is at least something we can do ourselves as a family lowering costs somewhat. The current design calls for using Nudura on the Lower Ground and Ground Floors. The 1st floor is partially Nudura but partially steel to try and reduce weight. It may be that we can reconsider this somewhat if the drillers come back with a positive report. We have planning drawings done, we have 1st phase of geotech drilling done, 2nd in progress and we have a basic structural model being worked up. The goal is to do the reduced level dig (the house is on a plot that slopes in two directions) in March / April with a view to starting the foundation ASAP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saveasteading Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 6 minutes ago, NailBiter said: easy to take on piecemeal. That will reduce risk massively, allow you to tweak the design, ad it generally suits trades to have smaller tranches of work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NailBiter Posted February 29 Author Share Posted February 29 Just now, saveasteading said: That will reduce risk massively, allow you to tweak the design, ad it generally suits trades to have smaller tranches of work. Exactly this, we can go out to builders with packages and we can take advantage of quiet periods in the market as we can be patient. That should benefit both our team and ourselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saveasteading Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 1 minute ago, NailBiter said: current design calls for using Nudura I met them on Sunday. £72/m2 he said. I wouldn't be likely to specify it but there is nothing wrong with it and I can see the attraction. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonshine Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 9 minutes ago, NailBiter said: We are right on the border between Dorset and Devon so possibly even closer to you. If I'm not a divorcee living in a box I'll invite you round when done. 🤣it will be interesting to see it progress, i have just finished my build on a sloping site. It makes for some interesting challenges and try to minimise expensive solutions. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonshine Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 (edited) @NailBiter another member @BotusBuild is currently doing a build with Nudura near Saltash. He may have some recent insight as will others on the Forum Edited February 29 by Moonshine 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToughButterCup Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 2 hours ago, NailBiter said: ... NailBiter 1 hour ago, NailBiter said: ...as we can be patient.... Good: .... the patience that is .... nailbiitng wears your teeth out. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BotusBuild Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 Nailbiter, we also have a sloping site and lower floor is partially basemented. Will look forward to hearing more 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NailBiter Posted February 29 Author Share Posted February 29 7 hours ago, saveasteading said: I met them on Sunday. £72/m2 he said. I wouldn't be likely to specify it but there is nothing wrong with it and I can see the attraction. May I ask the reason it wouldn't be something you specify? We still have time to change so it could be very pertinent for us. For us it was always going to be ICF, we did consider PolarWall for a while and Alan was extremely helpful. Ultimately it came down to local availability, local support and finding a builder who we got along with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Ambrose Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 What's that old saw - "you can do it cheaply, quickly, or well - pick any two". Do you have time to do a phased approach rather than one ginormous project? Having the best project manager found within a 200 mile radius would help a lot. Do you have those skills within the family? Lastly, having access to a proper amount of 'emergency funding' might well be key at some point. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NailBiter Posted February 29 Author Share Posted February 29 Very astutely put - the time-money-quality trilemma. Hoping to fall sacrifice time in favour of money and quality. Our architect is fantastic (and patient), our substructure and superstructure frame builder is a digital native with a can do attitude. We have a high quality value engineer and project manager coming in. All of our team know each other from previous jobs and work well together. We definitely have time for a phased approach but I'm preferring to go all out on the substructure and superstructure and then focus in from there. There is an emergency fund but it would require selling or mortgaging other family property. We can dip into it but it will hurt and be the point of no return. Thanks for taking the time to say hello Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonshine Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 I want to see the 3D renders of this beast 🤣 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saveasteading Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 2 hours ago, NailBiter said: reason it wouldn't be something you specify? When I have looked really seriously at similar products ( there used to be many competing in a new market) I couldn't make it stack up commercially against other methods (mostly using frameworks.) However, that may be different now. Also I can see that it suits diy, as it doesn't need specialist skills, and may suit a small general builder, even groundwotker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saveasteading Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 2 hours ago, NailBiter said: sacrifice time in favour of money and quality. A false trilemma in my opinion, invented to market expensive products. With the right design in the first place, you get the optimum result. The right design requires a knowledge of design and of the construction process (weather and all) from the outset. An integrated process. Not the linear process of client , Architect, Engineer, builder. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BotusBuild Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 The trifecta - I chose quality and cost. I have a confirmed level of OCD but we also like to get good value for money. We are doing a lot of the build work ourselves, and that brings me onto the ICF topic ... We chose Nudura for one of the reasons @saveasteading points out 10 hours ago, saveasteading said: Also I can see that it suits diy The guys from Fell Partnership helped us get the first couple of rows in place for the ground floor. We did the rest and it took the two of us a week, followed by the concrete pour a few weeks later (piss poor planning on my part). For the more complex second floor, it took us about 3 weeks (more openings, slopes etc.) We, and the Fell Partnership guys were very impressed seeing as we had never handled the stuff before day 1 of the ground floor build. BENEFITS: Simple to work with. Quick. A lot of air tightness issues dealt with from the outset. Insulated (it's in the name). Once your foundations are in, you could have your 3 storeys built in under 2 months with good planning and weather. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToughButterCup Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 12 hours ago, NailBiter said: .... and be the point of no return.... Some might argue that point occurs earlier. In our case that was probably becuase we started to fall in love with the place. For so long it was just paper, or a screen image - then it was a 3D animation, then paper / card model, then lines on the ground, then .... etc. There is so much emotion wrapped up in this 'thing' we are all building. In a very real sense it was once a figment of our imagination, then a chat in a pub, then a look from a partner, then a dream ... all the way up to "Where The(expletive deleted)ety(expletive deleted)DoYouWantThisSoddingSocketDarling, please just make a decision and don't change your mind - again." We now have six - yes six - extensions hidden about the house. I lost those "WhereDoYouWantThis?" battles . Not all of them, but most. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorfun Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 22 hours ago, NailBiter said: Despite our architects best attempts at protecting us from ourselves we have designed an utterly massive house (1200m2+) over 3 floors (including basement, garage, workshop etc). This is going to be quite some feat to pull off building this house without bankrupting ourselves. i'm fully aware of this trap and we fell in to it as well. now we're at the tail end of our build i advise you to reconsider. the stress of trying to find the money down the back of a sofa or having to do the work yourself to save money and watching the completion date move further and further in to the future is really hard. and then the extra costs involved in the mortgage payments as time slips and the money you try and save by doing stuff yourself just ends up getting eaten up in more mortgage payments is a bitter pill to swallow. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NailBiter Posted March 1 Author Share Posted March 1 (edited) 1 hour ago, Thorfun said: i'm fully aware of this trap and we fell in to it as well. now we're at the tail end of our build i advise you to reconsider. the stress of trying to find the money down the back of a sofa or having to do the work yourself to save money and watching the completion date move further and further in to the future is really hard. and then the extra costs involved in the mortgage payments as time slips and the money you try and save by doing stuff yourself just ends up getting eaten up in more mortgage payments is a bitter pill to swallow. I hear you and I'm also nervous my arrogance is overwhelming my better sense. I believe I can make a fairly cohesive argument for what, how and why. My understanding (which could be wrong) is that I can get building control sign off for each section presuming that section is complete (e.g. I can't get sign off for a bedroom that accesses off a landing with no bannisters put in). I think a lot of the stress of doing bits yourself is when you are forced far outside your comfort zone under time and financial pressure. I'm hopefully able to avoid the worst of that with the benefit of clever phasing and patience. Or so the theory goes anyway. Hope you get to the finish line soon mate, wishing you all of the luck (well not all of it, I need some too but a lot of it). Edited March 1 by NailBiter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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