New concept to make self and custom build easier and more accessible.

[Roger440]

23 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Why do people think that self building a home is cheaper, and better, that getting professionals to do it.

Just imagine what carnage there would be on the roads if people built their own bicycles from components, let alone a motorbike or car.

 

This comment, and that of Ed, is so true.

 

The building game is in the dark ages, everything is a one off, even for volume builders. Its bonkers.

 

I cant understand why no big corparate has entered the marke with a disruptive product thats better. Its happened in every other sector one can think of, but building seems stragely "off limits"

 

And so we continue to mess about, paddling in mud, mixing up concrete, mortar and plaster, and chopping up bits of wood in said mud to build stuff!

 

One day someone will.......................................

 

[saveasteading]

33 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

lining other peoples pockets for reports, surveys, etc etc.

 I don't agree  with that.  we need legislation and control of it.

Yes there are also specialists who write themselves in to planning control.

The archaeologist or naturalist who says that it may be a sensitive site and that they themselves should be paid to research further.

(I'm not mentioning these at random, and it bothered me a lot at the time)

But a good planning agent or designer can cut through some of that. Also these costs come off the land not from the builder.

 

An acre of farm land in SE England is worth £10,000.   Get planning permission and that becomes 800k to £1M or even much more. £50k may go to the community.

Someone's garden worth £30k to the house value sells for £200k with permission for a house.

 

I'd be interested to hear the equivalents around the country.

 

These windfalls are where the money goes.

Another discussion might be on why the big sites sell for so much money when years before they were worth next to nothing... is there a value below which they will not stoop?

and is there a value above which the developers wont increase. None of them.

[Roger440]

27 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

 I don't agree  with that.  we need legislation and control of it.

Yes there are also specialists who write themselves in to planning control.

The archaeologist or naturalist who says that it may be a sensitive site and that they themselves should be paid to research further.

(I'm not mentioning these at random, and it bothered me a lot at the time)

But a good planning agent or designer can cut through some of that. Also these costs come off the land not from the builder.

 

An acre of farm land in SE England is worth £10,000.   Get planning permission and that becomes 800k to £1M or even much more. £50k may go to the community.

Someone's garden worth £30k to the house value sells for £200k with permission for a house.

 

I'd be interested to hear the equivalents around the country.

 

These windfalls are where the money goes.

Another discussion might be on why the big sites sell for so much money when years before they were worth next to nothing... is there a value below which they will not stoop?

and is there a value above which the developers wont increase. None of them.

 

You might not agree with my assesment of lining pockets, but that its often 10's thousand i dont think is really debateable. 

 

As each year rolls by, more and more "stuff" gets added. Councils just demanding a report on everything, soil contamination, newts, bats, archealogical digs etc. Even where this is absolutely no evidence that its needed. But it generates an industry of people who are seen/licensed/recognised as experts in those field, who all charge handsomely for often very little. You suggest it can (could?) be reduced with a good planning agent. Sure. But again, more (unknown) costs. They charge handsomely too.

 

Eventually (well in some places already have) we arrive at a point where its simply uneconomic to build at all as the "non building" costs just keep going up. Which of course happens everytime government "meddles" and adds more layers of complexity. I saw the £76K figure reported. In some of the comments a couple of developers (big ones) pointed out that the report did not include planning costs (which it didnt). One of them said his planning costs per unit were greater than the £76k.

 

Ok, all anecdotal, but its all adding up. Theres someone on here who paid over £10k for a bat survey!! Thats just ludicrous.

 

There are few people willing to enter into building there own house when there are so many costs that cannot be known before you start. Of course there are a few with unlimited cash, and thats great for them, but thats not most people.

 

That so many on here manage to see it through to the end, is in itself amazing, and hats off to those that do. I couldnt cope with that level of financial uncertainty as i couldnt simply rustle up and exta 20, 30, 40k based on a councils whim.

 

The thread started around comments about what stops more people self building. 

Edited Thursday at 18:09 by Roger440

[MPx]

On 26/08/2026 at 18:39, SteamyTea said:

Why do people think that self building a home is cheaper, and better, that getting professionals to do it.

Just imagine what carnage there would be on the roads if people built their own bicycles from components, let alone a motorbike or car.

I never expected it to be cheaper

I always expect it to be better than getting professionals to do it

Many years ago I did build myself a car - great fun to do and use.  No carnage.

 

The problem with "professionals" is that its inherent to try to make as good a living as possible.  To do this they must take the minimum amount of time and move on to the next job.  If there is any competition they price low to get the work, then work down to the price doing all sorts of short cuts and bodges.

 

Any whiff of its not so much the price as the quality of work that's important to me and its like having "mug" tattooed across my forehead and ridiculous numbers spring forth - and even if agreed, the speed at all costs working methods are so ingrained the attention to detail still doesn't happen.  Example: One of my pet hates are the plastic inserts that are used to edge tiles.  To avoid that I spend ages mitering the tiles around window reveals and the like giving an even grout line all through.  I expect a professional could do that probably better and quicker than I can - but none do - or at least none that I've ever come across and I've seen a lot of tiled bathrooms in my life.  You see mostly plastic, some up market metal can look better, and some make no attempt at all and just leave the tile edge on show.  But we all like different things and that choice obviously suits most.  Me - I'd rather do it myself and get a "better" result.

[Ed_]

2 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

You might not agree with my assesment of lining pockets, but that its often 10's thousand i dont think is really debateable. 

I think there are two big issues with the "stuff":

1- it disproportionately affects lower budget builds. 

2- it mostly has to be paid out early, sometimes years before even starting the build, this can be challenging financially.

 

A lot of this is ripe for disruption but I fear the self build market is too small to make the development costs worthwhile.

16 minutes ago, MPx said:

If there is any competition they price low to get the work, then work down to the price doing all sorts of short cuts and bodges.

@Gus Potterhas written persuasively in other threads about the savings from getting a good designer/engineer in early. It seems to me the issue is that obviously makes that professional more expensive, and how does a self builder separate someone who is offering a better service from someone who is just charging more? There is no way of knowing whether a professional has settled for the first option they found or considered 10. This is why I try to do as much as possible myself, I'd rather die by my own mistakes, at least I will have learnt something!

[Great_scot_selfbuild]

35 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

You might not agree with my assesment of lining pockets, but that its often 10's thousand i dont think is really debateable. 

I was quoted over £10k for a landscape visual impact assessment (this was the most likely tactic for council to refuse my planning application. I enddd up writing my own (despite some comments that it needed to be by someone with Landscape architectural post-nominals or such).

 

At some point I’ll revisit my costings and share as much as I can - we bought land without any PP and worked very hard to achieve it, against some very strong advice that it was ‘nigh on impossible’. 

[Roger440]

1 hour ago, Great_scot_selfbuild said:

I was quoted over £10k for a landscape visual impact assessment (this was the most likely tactic for council to refuse my planning application. I enddd up writing my own (despite some comments that it needed to be by someone with Landscape architectural post-nominals or such).

 

At some point I’ll revisit my costings and share as much as I can - we bought land without any PP and worked very hard to achieve it, against some very strong advice that it was ‘nigh on impossible’. 

 

Good work if you can pull it off.

 

 

[Post and beam]

12 hours ago, Great_scot_selfbuild said:

I was quoted over £10k for a landscape visual impact assessment

  The first thing i would do in any circumstance like this if i had to do it today would be CoPilot Researcher mode. Or Claude.

I am more impressed each day with what AI can do for us.

 

This week, and in relation to my lease enfranchisement i asked it to look for any precedent of a 500 year old lease from the 16th century with a lost Freeholder. 15 minutes thinking and bingo a house in Leeds. 

It gave me names, dates, Court transcripts of the decision and strategies how to weave the relevant points into my own case.

 

Apologies thats going off topic a little too far.  You get the point though.

[Great_scot_selfbuild]

1 minute ago, Post and beam said:

if i had to do it today would be CoPilot Researcher mode.

Absolutely. As it was, I did all my planning and documents the old way before discovering the utility of AI for adding things like this. I would absolutely take this approach in the future with similar tasks.

[Roger440]

4 hours ago, Post and beam said:

  The first thing i would do in any circumstance like this if i had to do it today would be CoPilot Researcher mode. Or Claude.

I am more impressed each day with what AI can do for us.

 

This week, and in relation to my lease enfranchisement i asked it to look for any precedent of a 500 year old lease from the 16th century with a lost Freeholder. 15 minutes thinking and bingo a house in Leeds. 

It gave me names, dates, Court transcripts of the decision and strategies how to weave the relevant points into my own case.

 

Apologies thats going off topic a little too far.  You get the point though.

 

This is all wonderful. I can get AI to do my structural  calculations too, or SAP report, but the BCO wont accept them. Has to be from a competent person. Even if that same person might be using the exact same method.

 

Though "competent" is open, currently, to interpretation. I imagine that will change, bringing yet another layer of cost and complexity to bear.

[Indy]

2 hours ago, Roger440 said:

 

This is all wonderful. I can get AI to do my structural  calculations too, or SAP report, but the BCO wont accept them. Has to be from a competent person. Even if that same person might be using the exact same method.

 

Though "competent" is open, currently, to interpretation. I imagine that will change, bringing yet another layer of cost and complexity to bear.

There’s a material difference between something like a landscape visual assessment and structural engineering calcs.

 

The former is a nonsensical piece of paper that needs to be produced to check a box on the planning application. Money down the drain.
 

The latter is integral to the safety of the house and its inhabitants, and something I would gladly pay for an expert to do. 

[Square Feet]

On 27/08/2026 at 17:50, Roger440 said:

Beyond project management, which has its place, though not for me, im really not clear what you are offering. Being blunt, sounds like another "cost" thats adds little if anything to the task of getting a house built. Maybe ive misunderstood?

I'm no offering anything 😂 The guy who started the original post might be though.......

[Gus Potter]

On 28/08/2026 at 13:33, Roger440 said:

This is all wonderful. I can get AI to do my structural  calculations too, or SAP report, but the BCO wont accept them. Has to be from a competent person. Even if that same person might be using the exact same method.

 

Though "competent" is open, currently, to interpretation. I imagine that will change, bringing yet another layer of cost and complexity to bear.

In my day job I sometimes ask AI for it's calculations for a bit of fun! A lot of the time I find it's completely wrong! I checked a beam design against AI and found it to be a factor of ten out, on the unsafe side. One of the bits it missed was the destabilising loads ( an unrestrained load applied to the top flange) loads, the lack of adequate lateral restraint and the support conditions, all that lead to is being miles unsafe.  

 

Now AI aggregates information, you could have ten undergraduates all uploading their student projects and AI thinks.. this is right, but it's dangerous bollocks!

 

There is good reason for BC to reject you! If you want to use AI to generate calcs then you have to be competent enough to make sure it's not rubbish.

 

By all means use AI to do the donkey work for you, but unless you know what you are doing, have the knowledge to understand what the calculations mean  then you are an idiot!

[Gus Potter]

On 27/08/2026 at 19:05, MPx said:

The problem with "professionals" is that its inherent to try to make as good a living as possible.  To do this they must take the minimum amount of time and move on to the next job.  If there is any competition they price low to get the work, then work down to the price doing all sorts of short cuts and bodges.

 

On 27/08/2026 at 19:26, Ed_ said:

"Me Gus" to add to the quote has written persuasively in other threads about the savings from getting a good designer/engineer in early. It seems to me the issue is that obviously makes that professional more expensive, and how does a self builder separate someone who is offering a better service from someone who is just charging more? There is no way of knowing whether a professional has settled for the first option they found or considered 10. This is why I try to do as much as possible myself, I'd rather die by my own mistakes, at least I will have learnt something!

Reading a lot of these posts it's pretty clear that that many on BH don't have a high opinion of folk like me who design as a day job. I can see many professionals have lost their compass and are not delivering value for money and are not that good at running a business, hence the poor service delivery. I've been in the construction industry for over 40 years, 20 spent as a contractor running my own business' , did my own self build, really pretty much all by myself on the tools ( took me three years) then off to uni to be an Engineer, now for the last ten years I wear two hats as an Engineer and Architectural designer. Thus have a fairly rounded view of the in and outs of this. I can say that in the last 20 years there has been a race to the bottom, not just from designers,  but also say the timber frame suppliers, ground works designers ( UFH and rafts etc)  and designers who think that if they curtail their design brief, caveat it a lot the money is going to flow.

 

But in the long term it doesn’t, as often the key to good business is repeat business, recommendation, even in the short term cutting you brief down often leads to problems, queries, design mistakes that just eat into your profit and leads to potential claims or Clients rightfully withholding money.

 

Ok, lets look at some financials. The bottom line for a new self builder ( not someone who works in the trade with contacts) is the tendency to split each element into work packages, say foundations, timber frame and roof ect. Each package supplier takes the cream out of the job, leaving nothing for the self builder. Then you have planning and BC regs on top not least, that all adds to the cost. 

 

I work on a lot of projects where I'm involved holistically. I work very closely with the Client, not just as a designer but also do hand holding and participate in all of the design. 

 

Now to be blunt. Say for a self build the design fee is £10k. An experienced chippy ( joiner may cost you £250 a day, a labourer £150 as day, total 2.0k per week. All I have to do to wash my face is to save you a few weeks, just on the labour alone and I have well and truly washed my face! 

 

The pendulum is swinging back where folk are clocking that we need to "go back to the old days", but now you need someone like me who can cope with the modern code requirements for example, and the modern way of doing business., much less trust and more hard arse stuff. 

 

I get this kind of business where folk are happy to pay me a bit more as I can guide them, hold their hand and most importantly we all have fun, we do whacky designs that you only get to do on self builds! We also tend to avoid " work packages where we can, say from MBC et al and keep the cream to ourselves. This also often helps cash flow and gives the Client more control on day to day site activity. 

 

Now in the round if you want to make some money then try and find a designer like me that is local to you, with good contacts.