Rebuilding after demolishing question

[dustyb]

@CJO Thank you for your reply. I'm actually following your journey on Youtube, after the recommendation on here. I can't believe how small it looks, at the moment, compared to how much work you did when digging out the foundations.

What would be great and I think you have mentioned it on your channel, would be a full costing of materials etc.

[dustyb]

Another question re knocking a house down to rebuild- 

 If you knock a house down, does the council tax stop and at what point does it apply again?

[-rick-]

On 08/02/2026 at 14:15, CJO said:

We are the ones from the channel mentioned above.

 

@CJO

 

Welcome! I didn't realise you were here. It's good to see someone who is documenting their journey on youtube on here!

[BotusBuild]

On 08/01/2026 at 13:29, Russell griffiths said:

on this forum that have done their own icf including the pours. 

Guilty, and it was EPS (Nudura)

Edited 7 hours ago by BotusBuild

[-rick-]

Not trying to put you off but with all the positive stories on ICF maybe it's worth highlighting that it doesn't always go completely smoothly and it might be worth checking out some cases which were a bit difficult so you know how to avoid those situations.

 

I think @ToughButterCup had a somewhat bumpy ride with his.

[JohnMo]

On 08/01/2026 at 10:53, Roger440 said:

Not really. Concrete work on that scale means a team of people and equipment. Thats not what id call DIY, though perfectly acceptable if you want to pay

I did Durisol ICF, used ready mix and a pump lorry, me, my assistant, ready lorry driver and pump lorry driver, was the full team. Someone else near me did the full pour via a mixing hopper and Tele handler all on his own, mixed it, poured it. So you don't need a full team, makes life easier and faster. Durisol or Ecobrix are easy to fill you are only filling 5.5 rows deep at a time. No special equipment needed just OSB support patches are cut joints and corners, so very DIY friendly. Concrete pump (36m boom) was £560 for 8 hrs.

 

10 minutes ago, -rick- said:

Not trying to put you off but with all the positive stories on ICF maybe it's worth highlighting that it doesn't always go completely smoothly and it might be worth checking out some cases which were a bit difficult so you know how to avoid those situations.

 

I think @ToughButterCup had a somewhat bumpy ride with his.

I did my build during COVID restrictions, which included the Durisol training centres being closed, so I had the build manual to rely on. Just followed the steps laid out in the manual and zero issues. Note: I like to read manuals, many people don't, Durisol now a Ecobrix manual is very comprehensive.

[Iceverge]

On 08/02/2026 at 14:15, CJO said:

@dustyb My partner and I were in exactly the same situation. We are the ones from the channel mentioned above.

 

We’ve given ourselves a realistic time scale to help both budget and build quality. We are using Ecobrix which is a Woodcrete ICF. 

 

It works out at around £11 a block… I think. Which sounds pricey but I feel the block has many advantages to the self builder. Our structural steelwork thats made of rebar and concealed in the block can all be constructed ourselves and has the ability to create many aspects, one of which in our case is a 1 meter cantilever.

 

All the rebar for our build only came to £700, and there’s some nice thick long stuff in there. It’s much cheaper than your typical I beam steel work.

 

Your drives on why to build it yourself are similar to ours, we know there’s a lot we can have a crack at and do well ourselves to save paying someone else though…. We know our limitations and getting a company in to build and pour our slab was money well spent.

 

I do not agree with the comment regarding an ICF pour requiring lots of labour (it may do for an EPS ICF) but our Woodcrete ones from Ecobrix performed brilliantly, though we did go full belts and braces on the shoring up but that’s easily done by screwing OSB directly to the blocks.

We had more people than needed in the end (just incase it went Pete Tong). Our build is only small, the first pour was 9.5m3 and would have been done in a morning if the concrete wagons arrived when they said they would. The pour came to just shy of £3000.

We have only done one pour so far, fingers crossed we weren’t just lucky!😅 

 

We are also not planning on doing this again or moving… unless we are 90 and in a box.🤞🏼

 

 

 

 

 

Pics please!