I demolished your house, but I'm not moving the debris!

[jack]

Just now, JSHarris said:

What I found hilarious was that the top thread, which was absolutely massive, literally hundreds of posts, was about a poor chap suffering from serious health problems induced or exacerbated by particulates and smoke from his neighbours wood burning stove, yet the adverts at the top and bottom of the page were from a wood burning stove company!

 

Every time I look in (twice a year, maybe), that thread is still in the top 10.

[Jeremy Harris]

14 minutes ago, jack said:

 

Every time I look in (twice a year, maybe), that thread is still in the top 10.

 

 

IIRC, it was running back when there was a bit of a mass exodus from GBF when lots of posts were edited or deleted, for no good reason that many of us could see.  At the same time I started receiving what can only be described as "hate email" from an extremist animal rights person, and that can only have come via GBF, because that was the only forum that had that particular email address at that time.  I really should have gone to the police about it, because some of the personal attacks in those emails were vile, but instead I chose to just delete them all.  Joiner and I had a theory as to who they had some from and why I was targeted, which related to someone having been looking at a whispered exchange between us where I'd stupidly mentioned the name of my employer.  Our view was that someone close to GBF had put two and two together, got the answer five and then set me up as a target for animal rights extremists.  Not nice at all - we'd previously been targeted and had to check under our cars every day for IEDs, as these nutters were going that far.  Makes me glad to be retired.

 

PS:  For what it's worth, I'm vehemently opposed to animal testing, have never, ever been involved in it, and the closest I've come is doing voluntary high level ethical reviews, using HO guidelines, that were aimed to reduce or eliminate any need for animal testing.

[Declan52]

9 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

Not true, £ per sqm is a vital self build metric and why it is oft quoted here. If London is excluded I think regional build costs vary by say 15% across England and Scotland.

 

Eye balling the data here https://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/homebuilding-assets/prodwebsite/content/uploads/2011/09/16093731/Homebuilding-Build-Cost-Table-April-2018.pdf indicates:

 

Level of finish accounts for a 60% cost variation.

Build route (diy or main contractor) is surprisingly small and per meter costs drop 15% between small and large houses.

So is it a question of whoever has the lowest cost per sqm is the winner in your eyes.

If I hadn't of wanted a quartz worktop, solid oak doors, oak flooring, triple glazed windows, Italian handless  kitchen doors, mhrv unit, stone clad sections outside, massive bath and walk in shower I would have saved myself maybe £15k-£18k in my build costs. But these are all the things that I wanted to look at for the rest of my days. Otherwise I would have been safer just refurbishing the house I was in.

 

[Onoff]

2 hours ago, recoveringacademic said:

 

Clive, it's Friday. you've had a long week. Pub tonight?

 

Every night and crushed concrete will still excite me!

 

I love the whole upcycling, water into wine, where there's muck there's brass thing. I swear to God I look at cow pats in the road and think "That's a potential fuel source that is!". I think the trouble with "us" as a forum, the wider society etc is that we don't go far enough. Great to build a low energy home but why stop there. Look at LA's fining individuals for putting waste into the wrong bin then sending it all to landfill anyway. It's all skewed. Everything has a value from grass cuttings to horse manure yet people who are into compost heating are still perceived as on the fringe.

 

 

[newhome]

1 minute ago, Onoff said:

Everything has a value from grass cuttings to horse manure yet people who are into compost heating are still perceived as on the fringe.

 

Well possibly because in that example those are not exactly mainstream options for most folk. People don’t have horses and many don’t have sizeable gardens. 

 

The majority of people also want an easy life. They want to come home and have heat that is, to quote Frank the Tortoise, “easily turn off and on-able”. They want to flush a loo and have water there for the flush. So solutions that take much effort will always be on the fringe. 

 

If I could get an ASHP installed for reasonable money I would do that to reduce my reliance on fossil fuels but as the only quote I’ve had is 14.5k and I can’t get anyone to fix my solar thermal I’ll stick with my all electric system and stuff it. Greener options have to be within reach of mere mortals and practical too otherwise the majority of folk won’t engage. When it’s easier to tip into landfill that’s what happens in the majority of cases too. 

 

[ToughButterCup]

56 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

[...]

Bet that's one advertiser that didn't realise that their ad was being directly linked to hundreds of critical posts about wood burning stoves...

 

That's not nice. Someone ought to let them know. Poor luvvies.

[Jeremy Harris]

When I first started looking at self-building, I used to think that the cost tables in the back of one or two of the self-build magazines were a good guide and probably based on reasonable evidence.  It didn't take long to realise they were very deeply flawed, for several reasons.

 

Not that many self-builders are ruthlessly honest about their build cost - you see this most noticeably in that Charlie Luxton programme.  I suspect a lot of people like to think they've built their house for less than they really paid, and leave out some things that realistically should have been included. 

 

The magazines seem to be the most oft-used source of build costs, yet they can really only get data from people that give it to them freely, and I wonder how many self-builders accurately assess build costs in the industry standard way?  Or, how many self-builders actually agree to tell the magazines what their build cost?

 

There are only a very small number of self-builders in any area, probably at most a few hundred at any one time in the whole of the UK, so the sample sizes per area will be small, and that will impact on the reliability of statistical data.

 

Self-builders tend to end up building on sites that are often more complex/costly to develop than big developers, so incur higher costs in many areas, even just because of difficult access. 

 

Finally, there is an absolutely massive spread in costs just from the varying approaches that each self-builder will take, plus the cost of the inevitable mistakes many will make.  I think it's near-impossible to put build methods into cost bands, as the magazine tables tend to do, just because averaging data with a high degree of variability is inherently flawed.

 

My gut feeling is that most self-builds end up costing more than would be indicated for the area by the simplistic costing tables, and there will be a few exceptional outliers where the costs are massively lower than in the tables or massively higher.  I think we once did an impromptu survey in a thread either here or on Ebuild that illustrated just how wide the spread in cost was.  Not statistically relevant, as it was just a small sample, but interesting, nevertheless.

[ToughButterCup]

1 minute ago, newhome said:

[...]

. So solutions that take much effort will always be on the fringe. 

[...]

 

Don't you find that effort on someone's part is the most engaging thing?

We had a delivery driver who - with me - had to handball several tonnes of blocks off his lorry. (His pallet truck went u/s)

 

" 'S awright mate , 's a bit of chance to work me beer-belly off "  

I made sure I rang the the company and asked for the MD, and told him how pleased I was. Top bloke. But humble.

[ToughButterCup]

7 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

[...]

Not that many self-builders are ruthlessly honest about their build cost - you see this most noticeably in that Charlie Luxton programme.  I suspect a lot of people like to think they've built their house for less than they really paid, and leave out some things that realistically should have been included. 

 

The magazines seem to be the most oft-used source of build costs, yet they can really only get data from people that give it to them freely, and I wonder how many self-builders accurately assess build costs in the industry standard way? 

[...]

 

I started to try and be that person. Soon got it knocked out of me.

[newhome]

1 minute ago, recoveringacademic said:

 

Don't you find that effort on someone's part is the most engaging thing?

We had a delivery driver who - with me - had to handball several tonnes of blocks off his lorry. (His pallet truck went u/s)

 

" 'S awright mate , 's a bit of chance to work me beer-belly off "  

I made sure I rang the the company and asked for the MD, and told him how pleased I was. Top bloke. But humble.

 

Absolutely if it’s in terms of delivering excellent service to a customer, and in contrast poor service is the most annoying thing. But in terms of what we want from our lives and homes to service our own needs? Mostly that’s where people see labour saving as one of the most important things (which is why my dishwasher is running for example). 

[PeterW]

11 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

...yet they can really only get data from people that give it to them freely...

 

At least one now uses a “panel” of RICS surveyors to give them their bands however they don’t show what they include  so it’s reasonably difficult to understand what the standard/good/excellent really means. 

[epsilonGreedy]

1 hour ago, Declan52 said:

So is it a question of whoever has the lowest cost per sqm is the winner in your eyes.

 

 

Nope, you seem determined to invent my beliefs to provide subject matter for you to dispute.

 

What I am saying is that the established culture of this forum does not see anything noteworthy in a no-frills value for money selfbuild. As a consequence the forum does not make a contribution to solving one of largest social problems in the UK today namely polarization of wealth and plummeting home ownership rates among the under 40's.

[Jeremy Harris]

24 minutes ago, PeterW said:

 

At least one now uses a “panel” of RICS surveyors to give them their bands however they don’t show what they include  so it’s reasonably difficult to understand what the standard/good/excellent really means. 

 

I wonder where the RICS surveyors get their data though?  We haven't had our completed house surveyed, and even if we had I'm not sure that we'd have been able to give a surveyor a full breakdown of costs, or if he/she would have asked for it, so I wonder how accurate any data from RICS would be?

[Jeremy Harris]

8 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

Nope, you seem determined to invent my beliefs to provide subject matter for you to dispute.

 

What I am saying is that the established culture of this forum does not see anything noteworthy in a no-frills value for money selfbuild. As a consequence the forum does not make a contribution to solving one of largest social problems in the UK today namely polarization of wealth and plummeting home ownership rates among the under 40's.

 

 

There seems very little evidence to support those assertions.

 

Take the matter of costs.  Several long standing and prominent members here are building on a very low budget, some literally doing as I had to do for the final three years and only do work after saving from earnings (in my case pension) in order to be able to pay to do the next bit.  We have few members who have just paid for a turn-key package (only one that I can think of from the top of my head) and most fall somewhere between doing all the work themselves and project managing plus doing some work themselves.

 

I think you're making broad generalisations without solid base data - take a look at the members of this forum that are actively building and see if their builds reflect your assertions.

[Declan52]

10 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

Nope, you seem determined to invent my beliefs to provide subject matter for you to dispute.

 

What I am saying is that the established culture of this forum does not see anything noteworthy in a no-frills value for money selfbuild. As a consequence the forum does not make a contribution to solving one of largest social problems in the UK today namely polarization of wealth and plummeting home ownership rates among the under 40's.

Not true. Two of the best examples of no frills value for money self build is what both @Crofter and @Tennentslager both managed to achieve. What both of these guys achieved is nothing short of unbelievable in my eyes. 

Not many people in the UK under 40 are in a position financially to afford to go down the self build route. That's either due to the land availablity and cost where they live or maybe there salary isn't enough to go down this road. Not sure how this forum can contribute towards that. 

[newhome]

We’re apparently all old and building niche houses though .... I’ll provide another reason why self building doesn’t tend to be for young people in their first house. Self builds are almost exclusively detached houses. My first house was a small Victorian semi, then a terrace in a more expensive where I was caught in negative equity for years. It wasn’t until 13 years after buying my first house that I was in a position to buy a detached house and even then in a cheaper area than where I was living to begin with. The only way I could see that self building could be for the young not much in the way of savings group would be for something like a cooperative to build a row of terraced houses, or similar. Or an idea like the Hedgehog coop in Brighton, but even then it requires a lender to agree to fund the project. 

[Jeremy Harris]

38 minutes ago, newhome said:

We’re apparently all old and building niche houses though .... I’ll provide another reason why self building doesn’t tend to be for young people in their first house. Self builds are almost exclusively detached houses. My first house was a small Victorian semi, then a terrace in a more expensive where I was caught in negative equity for years. It wasn’t until 13 years after buying my first house that I was in a position to buy a detached house and even then in a cheaper area than where I was living to begin with. The only way I could see that self building could be for the young not much in the way of savings group would be for something like a cooperative to build a row of terraced houses, or similar. Or an idea like the Hedgehog coop in Brighton, but even then it requires a lender to agree to fund the project. 

 

Our situation was similar.  First house was a two up, two down, Victorian terrace in a deprived area (Redruth, Cornwall) as it was all we could afford.  I sweated for two years learning DIY skills and fitting a new kitchen and bathroom to an existing very rough single storey extension at the rear, and we luckily made a profit on the sale, so moved to a very run down, even older (1761) semi detached stone cottage, that I literally had to gut internally (it had a major Radon problem, so I had to break up the concrete ground floor, (on my own, with a bit of free help from a friend and Kango borrowed from work), fit a Radon sump and ventilation system, then a Radon barrier and lay a new concrete floor (all mixed by hand in a small electric Belle mixer).  I spent five years doing up that place, new kitchen, creating an upstairs bathroom, and we lost £20k when we sold it as my job moved right at the time of the property crash in 1991/2.  By luck we managed to afford to buy a new semi in South West Scotland, only because prices were a bit cheaper than Cornwall.  I also had a pay rise and we managed to save some money, so within a year we had enough to buy our first detached house in Portpatrick, a three bedroom bungalow that had been a self-build (a serial self-builder in fact - his second build).

 

The only reason we could afford to self-build now was because we had the combination of an inheritance plus the gratuity from my pension.  That paid around 2/3rds of our self-build costs, meaning we only needed a fairly small mortgage.  This was helped by the fact that I'd opted to pay around three times more per month off our old mortgage for around 7 or 8 years, so we paid it off early, but whilst doing that we had no holidays and ran cars that were ten to fifteen years old.

 

By a combination of hard work and good fortune we've finally been able to build a house we've always wanted.  The penalty we've paid is living in houses we hated for years, living on a low income in order to pay our mortgage off early and doing a great deal of work ourselves to improve most of the houses we've lived in, with some of that work definitely increasing the value of the house.

 

Even our finished self-build took five years, because we ran out of money so the finishing has taken forever, with me saving up from my pension in order to buy materials, and me doing the lion's share of the work myself, where I could.

 

 

[Onoff]

Wish I could run a car that's 10 to 15 years old.....

[newhome]

I’m also not sure what this forum can really do about addressing the fact that many of those under 40 don’t own their home. So if someone on here does manage to build a home for under £1000 m2 (since that’s the supposedly magic number being quoted) how does that help the issue anyway? With 30 years in IT (stated elsewhere) @epsilonGreedy can’t be under 40 and if anyone does build a house that is worth more than the build costs they will just take the profit when they sell so how does that benefit anyone except that individual? The cost of houses per m2 in the UK is almost twice what it costs in the second place EU country (France) but both countries have about the same level of home ownership at about 64%. Germany is much lower at 51% but their houses cost only a 5th of what a UK house costs per m2 so there at least owning a home isn’t the be all and end all. I’ve actually considered renting when I retire simply because it would provide me with the flexibility to move more easily. It really wouldn’t bother me if I found the right property. 

[newhome]

21 minutes ago, Onoff said:

Wish I could run a car that's 10 to 15 years old.....

 

Install ASHPs. Money to be made there it seems! 

 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

30 minutes ago, Onoff said:

Wish I could run a car that's 10 to 15 years old.....

 

 

I thought they stopped making Capri's more than 15 years ago?

[Thedreamer]

I think there are a few young self-builders on here. I'm 32 (if that's young!) and wanted to self build for the last ten years. We were fortunate in having a piece of agricultural land available but we had to spend money to make it into a plot (access/levelling off/utilities).

 

Since we graduated we have saved every penny towards this dream. Even before starting anything we had to invest all our money into converting a loft into accommodation at my wife's parents. This has provided the base for us to live for five years and save, save, save. We started with zero savings and will hopefully when finished have a mortgage that will be around £250 a month. We are not building to a passive house standard but we have used triple glazing etc and a good standard of materials. 

 

The sacrifices we have made during these ten years will pay dividends for hopefully the rest of our life. We had some days where we just thought it wouldn't be possible at our age,

but as I've mentioned before, this forum and ebuild have been great for the occasional question, but mostly for providing me with the confidence that I could do this. The blogs are the best bit. 

 

A lot of my generation just don't save hard enough. Spend money on phones, running multiple cars etc. Or just mortgage themselves to the eye balls in a cheap poorly constructed developer house.

 

Edited August 24, 2018 by Thedreamer

[pdf27]

1 hour ago, Declan52 said:

Not true. Two of the best examples of no frills value for money self build is what both @Crofter and @Tennentslager both managed to achieve. What both of these guys achieved is nothing short of unbelievable in my eyes. 

Not many people in the UK under 40 are in a position financially to afford to go down the self build route. That's either due to the land availablity and cost where they live or maybe there salary isn't enough to go down this road. Not sure how this forum can contribute towards that. 

I'm in that age bracket (37) and there are a whole bunch of interlocking impediments:

• Cost - unless you're very well paid and have support from your family (I'm fortunate on both counts) you're going to be in a shared ownership flat or at best terraced house. That's a reflection of the ratio of house prices to earnings, and of the fact that young people start out with minimal savings, relatively low salaries (compared to later in their working life) and often a lot of student debt. Self-building an individual flat is rather hard.
• Related to this is deposit size - getting a 100% or 95% mortgage is hard, getting one for a self-build project is much harder. If you're not living in a caravan on site (may not be possible for a small site), the rent requirements will bring down what you can borrow further.
• Refurbishing somewhere is much easier financially - the houses that need it (typically where an older person has lived for decades without doing anything, and has now died or moved into care) are easily found at the bottom of the price range, and the work required can be done incrementally on a DIY basis. We originally planned to do this with our current house.
• Finding time to work on it is hard - it wasn't too hard on our first refurbishment, but now I've got a bit more money and can contemplate something a bit more ambitious I'm married with two young kids (2 and 4). They, of course, also soak up a lot of my income for childcare. The reality is that we can't do very much of the work ourselves because of this - and that pushes the price up further.
• Young people tend to be quite geographically mobile, and will follow the work far more than older people who are settled with families. Problem is, that means you're likely to relocate every ~5 years (i.e. about the time it takes for the full self-build process), and you're also disproportionately likely to be working in London or the South East where land is much harder to obtain.

[newhome]

@ultramods volunteered his age in his blog and is also under 40. Good to see this forum helping some in that age group with their projects, and equally people sharing information to assist others. It’s the only way it can work here in what is a virtual, voluntary community. 

[Declan52]

34 minutes ago, pdf27 said:

I'm in that age bracket (37) and there are a whole bunch of interlocking impediments:

• Cost - unless you're very well paid and have support from your family (I'm fortunate on both counts) you're going to be in a shared ownership flat or at best terraced house. That's a reflection of the ratio of house prices to earnings, and of the fact that young people start out with minimal savings, relatively low salaries (compared to later in their working life) and often a lot of student debt. Self-building an individual flat is rather hard.
• Related to this is deposit size - getting a 100% or 95% mortgage is hard, getting one for a self-build project is much harder. If you're not living in a caravan on site (may not be possible for a small site), the rent requirements will bring down what you can borrow further.
• Refurbishing somewhere is much easier financially - the houses that need it (typically where an older person has lived for decades without doing anything, and has now died or moved into care) are easily found at the bottom of the price range, and the work required can be done incrementally on a DIY basis. We originally planned to do this with our current house.
• Finding time to work on it is hard - it wasn't too hard on our first refurbishment, but now I've got a bit more money and can contemplate something a bit more ambitious I'm married with two young kids (2 and 4). They, of course, also soak up a lot of my income for childcare. The reality is that we can't do very much of the work ourselves because of this - and that pushes the price up further.
• Young people tend to be quite geographically mobile, and will follow the work far more than older people who are settled with families. Problem is, that means you're likely to relocate every ~5 years (i.e. about the time it takes for the full self-build process), and you're also disproportionately likely to be working in London or the South East where land is much harder to obtain.

You aren't far from summing my circumstances up. 

I was 36 and living in a row of terraced houses. We bought if from the council fairly cheap and over the course of 15 years gutted it and when it was ready sold it on to complete the build.

Getting a mortgage was fairly difficult as it was during 2010 when the banks weren't lending any money. Took  4 attempts to get one approved. 

Was lucky enough with my work rota that I had plenty of time to be on site but still took 2 years to complete.