First self build

[jack]

13 hours ago, Benpointer said:

Too much glazing imo.  Overheating, heat loss, where to place furniture, privacy, structure (how's that east corner actually going to be built?), aesthetics...

 

But...  Surely the joy of self-build is that within reason we each get to have the house we want, not the house some builder thinks we might want?  Just make sure it is the design you want, not just the one that happens to be approved for that plot at the moment. 

 

Project management: I was a PM for 20+ years before I retired (in finance, not building, admittedly) but I am finding PMing our own self-build reasonably stressy and challenging.  Fortunately the buzz is outweighing the worries for me at the moment but if you aren't used to managing complex projects with a lot riding on them, think very carefully before diving in.

 

Finally, this thread is very interesting - from people who have been there:

 

 

 

+1 to all this.

For reference, our house is almost exactly the same size as yours.

 

We project-managed our build 10 years ago, but we had the benefit of using one provider for the foundations and timber frame. There were definitely some very stressful periods, mainly around poor (sometimes laughably so) workmanship and how that would be handled by the trade that did it. It's certainly doable, especially if you're well-organised and thick-skinned.

 

We have similar amounts of glazing in our kitchen diner and it's one of my biggest regrets. Lots of glass can work okay if the space is big enough to allow furniture to be positioned well away from the glass. In our case, the space is something like 6 x 5.5 m and there's nowhere to put furniture without it being up against a window or sliding door. If I were doing it again, I'd get rid of most of the floor to ceiling windows and replace them with large ordinary windows on low walls (roughly table or back-of-sofa height). I'd also also replace the 5.5 m long slider with a pair of french doors with windows either side.

[Roof]

Thanks for the comments can I asked 

who done your timber frame and do you use special glass also have you 

got any pics thanks 

[jack]

10 minutes ago, Roof said:

Thanks for the comments can I asked who done your timber frame

 

MBC Timber Frame. Irish company, but I think they have a factory somewhere in south west UK. I used them over 10 years ago, but several on here have used them more recently. Copy and paste this term into Google search: "mbc site:buildhub.org.uk"

 

10 minutes ago, Roof said:

do you use special glass

 

You can use glass with lower transmission values (i.e., it's designed to let less light through).

 

A better idea, imo, is to build in some sort of external shading. We have electrically operated external venetian blinds on some windows, which are very effective, but there are other options, like shade cloth. You can get them built into concealed boxes at the top of the windows, so they're more or less invisible when not in use. You might end up with some visible guide rails on very wide windows, but they're pretty discreet. Not the cheapest option, but then neither is installing the amount of glass you're planning!

 

I don't have any photos of my house on BuildHub, but plenty of others have shared. The MBC search above should show some options.

[SteamyTea]

With that much glazing I would think it would be very hard to pass Part L of the building regs, that is before worrying about Part O.

 

If an architect designed that, they need to be taken into a kiddies science lesson and re-educated. 

[Roof]

Thanks for the advice I’ll have a look on there website there may be a way I can make some of the glass smaller

can I ask how long your build time was thanks

[jack]

6 hours ago, Roof said:

Thanks for the advice I’ll have a look on there website there may be a way I can make some of the glass smaller

 

If the plot you're looking at has full planning permission for that house, you might consider re-applying for permission for something that will be cheaper to build. Even with the cost of another architect, you could potentially end up saving money overall with a cheaper design.

 

How long does the current planning permission have to go until it expires? If it's still got a fair bit of time to run, you could easily get permission to get something else built without risking the existing permission expiring. 

 

6 hours ago, Roof said:

can I ask how long your build time was thanks

 

Just over a year from demolition to moving in.

[Kelvin]

We bought a plot with planning for a house we didn’t want to build an re-applied for the house we did want to build. It slows things down obviously and costs a bit more but it’s worth it to get what you want rather what someone else has drawn. 

[Benpointer]

11 minutes ago, Kelvin said:

We bought a plot with planning for a house we didn’t want to build an re-applied for the house we did want to build. It slows things down obviously and costs a bit more but it’s worth it to get what you want rather what someone else has drawn. 

We did exactly the same.  Took 6 months and cost a bit, but no way would we have wanted what was planned.

[Roundtuit]

50 minutes ago, Benpointer said:

We did exactly the same.  Took 6 months and cost a bit, but no way would we have wanted what was planned.

Same here.  It took two applications, but we got what we wanted.  If time is on your side, don't be afraid to revisit plans to suit you.

[Roof]

How much of the glazing would you lose

[Roof]

[Roundtuit]

I like glass, but maybe half of it.  Dispensing with the dual aspect corner bits will simplify things and reduce structural complexity. You can still have the views, but through smaller apertures.

[Roof]

Does anyone recommend to have a survey done on a plot with planning permission 

[Nickfromwales]

5 minutes ago, Roof said:

Does anyone recommend to have a survey done on a plot with planning permission 

There are lots of surveys to choose from! 

 

Big one for me is geotechnical, to ascertain soil/ground conditions well in advance, in case you need a 6-figure foundation which blows the project cost into orbit.

 

Whilst they're there at it, add to it a ground contamination survey so at least you know what it'll cost to get out of the ground and that you don't need a huge volume of muckaway and new material imported to replace it.

[Pocster]

7 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

There are lots of surveys to choose from! 

 

Big one for me is geotechnical, to ascertain soil/ground conditions well in advance, in case you need a 6-figure foundation which blows the project cost into orbit.

 

Whilst they're there at it, add to it a ground contamination survey so at least you know what it'll cost to get out of the ground and that you don't need a huge volume of muckaway and new material imported to replace it.

Agree with this . But ( as I did ) you can do these things yourself and save £££££ on the surveys /reports . What you find may balloon costs …

[saveasteading]

1 hour ago, Nickfromwales said:

Big one for me is geotechnical, to ascertain soil/ground conditions well in advance,

Whilst they're there at it, add to it a ground contamination survey

Agreed. Its my subject and I sometimes forget other people don't read the ground.... and once I was too cocky and got it badly and expensively wrong.

 

If you are going to use a Structural Engineer  then talk to them early. They may have information on adjacent plots.  That might limit  the survey required to being a digger doing a couple of relatively shallow holes.

For example where I am now I know there is 80m or more of solid clay because a plot nearby did boreholes. Plus I have dug below the soil and found blue clay.  

 

BUT my mistake back then was not to dig a few holes, as we found there had been a pit and it was filled with rubbish.   You must avoid that.

 

Then, with certainty on the ground conditions you will likely make all that cost back as the SE now has certainty on the ground properties.

It may be important for soakaways too, if you need that.

 

[Kelvin]

Our plot has a basic survey. However I did a full land survey before buying it. I paid a professional to do this as it was useful to get it in the right format for later SE work and I lived 400 miles from the plot. It cost £700 as I recall and was worth it to us. 

[G and J]

The SE we didn’t use told us to engage a bore hole based ground survey costing £1.5k plus for three little holes which, in hindsight, would have told us nothing.  Bob, the SE we are working with told me to get me spade out and dug 4 holes a meter deep and let me know when he can look down them.  
 

As I’m a Boy Scout at heart (never did get the Blue Peter badge I so dearly deserved) I complied and in addition made a water level and I did a site level survey which has proved itself to be invaluable.  It was more pertinent for us as we rather inconveniently had a knackered bungalow filling the site back then, but still useful to have hard data on your levels.

 

The test pits proved their worth, big time - we still hit a few soft bits but we managed with fairly close to designed foundation levels.

 

In your shoes I’d seek agreement to visit site with a spade.

[SteamyTea]

3 minutes ago, G and J said:

As I’m a Boy Scout at heart (never did get the Blue Peter badge I so dearly deserved)

Should have joined the Sea Scouts then.

[Stratman]

I had six bore holes and a percolation test for £850 earlier this year. They were really useful in determining soil strata and a thin layer of clay so how far down to excavate to compacted shale. The holes went down nearly 2 metres.

[saveasteading]

11 minutes ago, Stratman said:

bore holes and a percolation test for £850

Sounds amazing. How did they do the boreholes? Then the percolation test in a pit?

[Stratman]

A two man diesel powered rig hammered 1m sections of 100mm pipe into the ground then withdrew the cores for analysis. Filled one hole with water then measured the level as it went down over a few hours.

[Stratman]

Like this: https://www.southwalesgroundtesting.co.uk/tracked-dynamic-sampling-and-strength-profiling

 

[Stratman]

13 hours ago, Stratman said:

Filled one hole with water then measured the level as it went down

Incidentally, I believe this wont be enough to determine ground permiability value adequately for a SUDS compliant soakaway, but I'll do a proper larger deeper pit once we get the groundworks going.

[saveasteading]

2 hours ago, Stratman said:

believe this wont be enough to

Correct. It is promising though.

You can diy the test.