Somewhere in a field in Hampshire

[Piers]

Hello!

 

Just under a year ago we bought a little cottage and some land on the Hampshire-Surrey border. The original stone cottage dates from the early 1800s and previous owners have added a couple of extensions in the 1950s and 1970s. The house itself is nothing to write home about - it's not in great nick, the stone cottage is damp and the combination of a lot of single glazed windows and no effective central heating makes it pretty chilly in winter. Brass monkey chilly.

 

We agreed to live in the house for a year before deciding what to do with it. Before we knew it that year flew past, during which time we made one major decision: The old house has gotta go!

 

The plan is to replace it with something fit for purpose. Something that is more a warm and homely house and less like a cold, mouldy sieve.

 

We're still at the early stages of our thinking. We've taken some advice from a local planning consultant and started sketching out some ideas of what we want and think/hope will comply with local planning guidelines. At the moment I feel like I'm looking at an infinite number of options and want to explore them all without closing any doors.

 

We have a few challenges - the main one being the site is on a slope and we'd like to flatten out a decent-sized section. There's going to be a lot of digging but I'm hopeful we can move the spoil around rather than have to take it way. I'd love to hear from anyone who's flattened or terraced a sloping site.

 

The good news is that the garden is big enough for us to live in the old house whilst we build the new house. 

 

The other thing that I'm really interested in is hearing about people's experiences of building with ICF. We want to keep the costs down and are happy to put in hours of (unskilled) labour. I've read some of the trials and tribulations of @recoveringacademic and I'm not put off, yet.

 

It'd be great to learn from everybody else's mistakes so I can concentrate on innovating my own c*ck-ups and then share them for your advice/amusement in the months ahead.

 

And I gather everyone on here likes a photo so here's one of our 1800s cottage with the salmon pink 1970s extension.

 

Thanks,

 

Piers

[newhome]

Welcome! I don’t have any experience of ICF, but wanted to say welcome and looking forward to seeing what you create. If you wanted to start a blog on here that would be a great way of capturing the project from start to finish. I got bored of doing my blog and stopped before the end. Looking back I so wish I had completed it, and I wish I had taken more photos of various stages too. So my advice is to photograph like crazy and write up every stage. When you are in the thick of it it’s hard to envisage that you could ever forget, but the memory does go hazy after a while. Looks a great project BTW! 

[SteamyTea]

Welcome

Bit of Es and Whizz and it will be done in no time.

 

Have you thought of just renovating to a high standard?

Seems a nice place to me, but then I live in a 1987 terrace.

I know a guy who is currently building and ICF place, seems to be taking him forever (and he don't do much else).  I teased him before he started about it and asked how he would get around the well know problems.  9 months on he is very sheepish about it all.  Must go and have a look at it sometime soon.

[jack]

Welcome!

 

We're probably not far from you (Surrey/Hampshire border). Lovely part of the world!

[vivienz]

Welcome from me, too. 

 

I can't offer any words of wisdom on ICF but I would say stay open-minded about your build system.  As well as looking at the costs of the materials, try and take into account the labour associated with them, too, and how much you need to know about it if you plan to manage the project yourself.

 

When thinking about build styles and ideas, I found it really helpful to go snooping on the planning permission part of the local council's website and try and get a feel for what was granted permission and what got kicked out.  Reading the case officer reports was informative and worth digging around for.  I also looked on Rightmove for properties I liked the look of and if they were relatively new, dug out the planning history on them as well.  This was useful for getting a feel for the style of local architects.

 

Looking forward to seeing your project develop.

[Hecateh]

Welcome

 

and

3 hours ago, newhome said:

 When you are in the thick of it it’s hard to envisage that you could ever forget, but the memory does go hazy after a while. 

I hope it does go hazy - I'd rather forget the whole thing 

[ragg987]

4 hours ago, Piers said:

site is on a slope and we'd like to flatten out a decent-sized section

Have you considered usng the slopes to your advantage rather than flattening it?

 

Our site sloped back-to-front  and left-to-right, the previous bungalow was on a single level. Our architect was able to incorporate the compound slope into the design and I think it has created some very interesting spaces. Our house is essentially on 4 half-levels plus a basement. It also meant we were able to keep the skyline consistent with the other houses in the street. You can see this effect in my profile picture - the right side is about 1m higher than the left.

 

Our basement is ICF and our grondworks contractor picked it up from scratch having never done it before. It took them quite a bit longer than they had expected, it seems there are some complexities e.g. when pouring the concrete.

 

Oh and welcome!

Edited July 3, 2018 by ragg987

[newhome]

14 minutes ago, Hecateh said:

 

I hope it does go hazy - I'd rather forget the whole thing 

 

Time heals. The time to feel proud is another phase of your journey yet to come. It will take a while, but you will reach that happy place. 

[Hecateh]

I know - I do believe it, I do, I do

[Gone West]

Hi and welcome to the forum. Nice looking site, if it was mine I would renovate to as near PH as possible.