Hello everyone. 4 years in and two architects later...exasperation

[Stu-UK]

Hello to you all. I thought I would join this forum in the hope I could learn from members and get some pointers. 

 

I live in Norfolk on a smallholding. Our bungalow is around 180 sq m of which 50% is uninhabitable due to disrepair. We have engaged two arcitects over a period of 4 years. Frith Associates charged us £20k for plans that sucesfully achieved planning permission but it was clear before even tenders were received that the budget had been seriously underestimated by the architect. We were unable to proceed.

 

The second architect/surveyor  David Cutting , completed plans to rennovate the existing bungalow and add a new extension. We got planning permission and the project went out to tender. We then found out the architects plans were at least £100k over our budget brief. We were unable to proceed.

 

To me an architect should start the conversation "what is your budget'. IF they can work within that budget and produce a house that works. Both of these muppets have seemingly totally ignored basic formulae and missed the target at my expense.

 

In summary we are the best part of £25k down and not a spade full of earth moved! With this in mind I do not intend to get yet another architect involved.

 

I am now going to seriously explore a kit build to replace the existing bungalow. The £300k budget will buy us a new efficient house rather than a rennovation.

 

I like the Woodcock that Scotframe offer and met them at the Swindon NHBC show but since then their communication with me has been non existant so I will not proceed any further with them. I am also looking at Potton Self Build homes.

 

If anyone can offer any advice as to a good choice of timber frame manufacturer that has a high standard of customer service I would appreciate it.

 

It seems in these modern days the art of running a good business has disappeared. I don't know if businesses are overwhelmed with work and don't care or I have had bad luck but I am getting heartily sick of the 'take his money and run' philosophy.

 

[Declan52]

Welcome.  A good first step is joining this forum as you will soon find out as hopefully your build progresses and problems arise. 

First things first then why don't you post your plans and we can look at them and see if there are any obvious issues that might be affecting  your budget.  Chances are we might also come up with ideas or amendments that could save you some money. 

Don't discount any company just yet as they will have been inundated with questions following them self build shows. 

[recoveringbuilder]

Hi and welcome, as I was reading your post I was just thinking you would be better with a complete new build so I was glad that by the end of it this was what you had decided!

 I was astonished at what you have already spent on architects although I do believe they are more expensive down south but even so!

 I visited several TF manufacturers at the self build show also prior to our build (which was our third) and also found that despite leaving my plans with them they never got back to me, however Claymore timber frame in Fife did get back to us and we eventually went with them. Communication was brilliant and I could lift the phone to them at any time and get to speak to one or other of the brothers who run it, we had no problems with them and they were always willing to sort out any queries right away, I wouldn’t go past them if I ever did this again 

[PeterW]

Welcome ..!

 

So the first plus point about a rebuild is that you are VAT recoverable. The second is that you have all the services on site usually, so you’re not beholden to some huge bills for service connections. 

 

180sqm replacement inside £300k is definitely doable - how much can you undertake yourself..?? £1650 sqm is about what @JSHarris spent and he had borehole and other costs in there. 

 

As @Declan52 said - post the plans and lets see how we can help. 

[Jeremy Harris]

Definitely doable for the money, especially if you're prepared to do a bit of work and project management.  Our build came in at about £1,380/m², which for your £300k would potentially give you a house of well over 200m².  Our build is a passive house, with some extras that added a fair bit of cost, like the comfort cooling that's running right now to cool down the incoming fresh air from the MVHR.  We also used oak for all the internal joinery (stairs doors, architrave, skirting etc), which added a substantial extra cost.

 

There are lots of potential suppliers around, and interestingly some of those that are most well-known rarely, if ever, feature amongst all the many self-builders here.  Potton springs to mind as having a strong advertising presence, but I think that, out of the many hundreds here, only one person has ever used them.

[joe90]

My 240 m new build plus large workshop came in at £260 ish and I am yet to clain VAT back (lots of bills were zero VAT due to being a new build). I project managedand did lots of little things, Windows, kitchen, bathrooms etc. Don’t get me started on Architects!!!!, make yourselves a wish list, post the plans here and you will get loads of good advise then get an architectural technician (draughts person) to draw proper plans for planning and building control. This forum will be your biggest asset .

[newhome]

Welcome. You’ve definitely come to the right place to ask questions. I’ll just pick up on the point about a new build rather than a renovation. Firstly in order for the build to be eligible for a VAT reclaim the planning permission must be for a new dwelling. If it is only for a refurb currently you will need a new PP. Secondly there must be no conditions attached to the build that tie the occupier to a specific business, so ‘to be occupied by someone involved in the business on the smallholding’ for example. If either of these conditions aren’t met you could find your VAT reclaim refused which can be an expensive mistake. 

 

My house is a Scotframe house albeit from a few years ago. I found them absolutely fine to deal with. Definitely worth keeping them on your list, especially if you like one of their designs. There are however multiple timber frame companies around so lots to choose from. Turnkey will clearly be the most expensive but if you don’t mind digging in and doing some of the work yourself you may save a fair bit of money. We have self builders on here who have been at opposite ends of the spectrum from turnkey to full DIY and everything in between. 

 

[Stu-UK]

Thanks for replying to my opening post so quickly. I am comforted hearing the project is doable for the budget. To me £300k is a huge huge huge amount of money but when we start talking house building  it becomes a rather average pot. ?

 

I am now decided on the new build. My problem is I don't have plans to use! The original architect designed a very modern new build which  I slowly grew to hate. It ended up looking like a health centre. The second architect's plans are unsuitable as they rennovate the existing  bungalow so I am back to the beginning with less money and no plans,  just ideas.  I cannot tar all architects with the same brush  but I really do not want to go there again. This primarily is why I am looking for an off the shelf kit pattern that I can tweak. The attached plans  is a design by Scotframe that we like apart from  the garage which we would adapt to a living area (office). If I cannot get Scotframe to respond in time (I really want this well underway this year) something on a similar theme would be ok. I hear what you are saying @Declan52 about companies being inundated with enquiries. I will cut them some slack.  

This would change the existing bungalow to a 1 1/2 storey . Planning have been very easy upto to now and my theory is as they passed the original modern (health centre) house I cannot see this being and issue. Noone is overlooked etc as we are very rural.

 

I am prepared to put as much work into this as I need to save money. One big bonus is I have found a really keen helpful builder (one man band) that will guide me where he can. 

 

I was aware of the VAT refund on newbuild but your comment @newhome is really interesting. I will not use loose descriptions in the future, thank you for that! Also although a turnkey is tempting I will do as much as I possibly can to cut costs.

 

@Christine Walker I will look into Claymore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

Doesn't look massively more complex or expensive than our build.  Our's is smaller at 130m², excluding a detached garage that's about 22m², but it's also built to passive house thermal performance standards, which mean that heating bills are almost non-existent and overall the only bills we have are Council Tax and house insurance.  Excluding Council tax and insurance, the house running cost is less than zero, as we get around £1000 a year for the electricity we generate and pay about £600 a year in electricity bills (the house is all-electric and my car is electric, and is usually charged at home).

 

Here's a photo of our build, which cost around £1,380/m². albeit a couple of years ago:

 

 

The details of our trials and tribulations are in my blog, here: http://www.mayfly.eu/

 

[ProDave]

I lost faith in architects 15 years ago when building our first house. We had 2 architects come and talk to us. Both wanted in the order of £25K to act on our behalf, and these fees were based on a percentage of their estimated build cost.  And they would not negotiate on the fees or scope of work that we wanted.

 

We ended up getting a local building firm to build the shell and they did the drawings for £2K and the total build cost was roughly half what both architects had estimated.  

 

We did project manage ourselves and did a lot of the internal work ourselves.

 

I get the impression if you just hand it to an architect and say "build me a house" you will end up paying substantially more than if you manage it yourself appointing trades as you need them.

[epsilonGreedy]

19 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

Here's a photo of our build, which cost around £1,380/m². albeit a couple of years ago:

 

 

Re. the wood cladding. Is it a trick of the light or is there an irregular line to the bottom of each plank? I like the effect.

[newhome]

29 minutes ago, Stu-UK said:

The attached plans  is a design by Scotframe that we like apart from  the garage which we would adapt to a living area (office).

 

The plot I bought came with PP and an architect had been involved but he seemed to base his design on a Scotframe house and the house next door (external design is  the same) had been supplied by Scotframe so we engaged them to supply the frame. We changed quite a lot of the internal layout and they supplied the new building control plans to suit what we wanted and provided the structural engineer for the frame itself. Because those things were all wrapped up in the timber frame supply we were able to reclaim the VAT on the whole thing including the architect and SE work that if arranged separately wouldn't have been eligible to reclaim. 

 

I would call your proposed 'office' a 'study' or 'home gym' or something. A minor point and you are allowed a single home office in a house but the more you can do to make it sound like a house rather than somewhere that you might be running a business from the better in truth and that garage space is pretty large.    

[Jeremy Harris]

On 27/02/2019 at 18:58, epsilonGreedy said:

 

Re. the wood cladding. Is it a trick of the light or is there an irregular line to the bottom of each plank? I like the effect.

 

Thanks, it's deliberately irregular, as it's rough sawn waney edge larch, with the bark on the lower edges (although some of the bark is now beginning to peel off).  The trees were grown on Fonthill estate (about 6 miles away from us) and were milled in the local sawmill in Ansty (about 3 miles away from us), so it's a very local product.  We went to see the trees before they were felled, and chose (with the invaluable assistance of the sawmill chap) the trees that would provide the wide boards to clad our house (the average board width is around 300mm)

[epsilonGreedy]

41 minutes ago, Stu-UK said:

The attached plans  is a design by Scotframe that we like apart from the garage which we would adapt to a living area (office).

 

 

Trouble is that Scotframe design is not normal for Norfolk, hint look at the name. Depending on how sensitive your rural location is you might have to localize the finish of that Scotframe design. You could adopt the @JSHarriscladded exterior, then ditch the croft stone finish of the entrance wing and use use some English heritage bricks.

[recoveringbuilder]

Hi again, being inquisitive as I am ( otherwise known as nosey) I’ve been looking at Scot frame website, our house is circa 268m2 so a bit larger than the one you’re looking at and we paid around the same price for the kit albeit all our finishings were solid oak. Another way we saved having to pay out vat was getting the TF company to do the erection of the kit which then made no vat payable on the whole kit which saved us forking out at the beginning and with the length of time it takes for the vat reclaim I’m glad we did it this way. 

We are just finishing off outside now but reckon the final cost will come in at just over £1k per sq m , a lot of the saving IMO was us sourcing everything instead of letting the builder supply, he worked on a labour only basis.

[Thedreamer]

3 hours ago, newhome said:

Welcome. You’ve definitely come to the right place to ask questions. I’ll just pick up on the point about a new build rather than a renovation. Firstly in order for the build to be eligible for a VAT reclaim the planning permission must be for a new dwelling. If it is only for a refurb currently you will need a new PP. Secondly there must be no conditions attached to the build that tie the occupier to a specific business, so ‘to be occupied by someone involved in the business on the smallholding’ for example. If either of these conditions aren’t met you could find your VAT reclaim refused which can be an expensive mistake. 

 

My house is a Scotframe house albeit from a few years ago. I found them absolutely fine to deal with. Definitely worth keeping them on your list, especially if you like one of their designs. There are however multiple timber frame companies around so lots to choose from. Turnkey will clearly be the most expensive but if you don’t mind digging in and doing some of the work yourself you may save a fair bit of money. We have self builders on here who have been at opposite ends of the spectrum from turnkey to full DIY and everything in between. 

 

 

Interesting point, our house is on a decrofted house site and has no section 75 conditions attached, however we received croft house grant assistance which ties my wife's croft business to the house for ten years.

 

I researched this a while ago to check that the VAT reclaim would not be an issue, perhaps the conditions attached by planner are tighter for granting permission connected to agricultural businesses down south?

 

Just out of interest @Stu-UK what do you keep on your small holding, is it a business or a hobby farm?

 

 

 

[newhome]

3 hours ago, Thedreamer said:

I researched this a while ago to check that the VAT reclaim would not be an issue, perhaps the conditions attached by planner are tighter for granting permission connected to agricultural businesses down south?

 

The VAT reclaim form says that the property cannot be used to run a business from and indeed there are several tribunal cases where claims have been rejected due to the business purpose on the PP. 

 

Looking at this tribunal case it does appear that it was a section 75 condition that made this croft ineligible for a reclaim. 

 

https://library.croneri.co.uk/cch_uk/bvc/2017-tc-05687

 

In England this is a section 106 condition and in addition to the house not being tied to business use it can’t be restricted from being disposed of separately from the land / business. 

 

http://www.gabelletax.com/blog/2015/11/20/property-and-vat-buildings-qualifying-for-zero-rating/

 

Given the significant amount of money involved it’s definitely worth checking this out properly before starting to build if the PP has conditions attached to it. 

[Declan52]

First of all its a nice looking house and won't be that complicated to build.  

Your front door might be better with just one side light.  It's hard to tell with no dimensions but if you go for 3g units they have fairly wide frames so you might not have much actual glass on each side.  

The toilet and cloakroom are eating into what could be a very grand looking entrance.  You could relocate the cloakroom to under the stairs and the toilet to the rear hall.  Block of that door way and make a small toilet there.  Not counting the double garage doors you have 5 different doorways so you could easily lose that one. 

What about upstairs layout. 

Maybe it's just me but why has the garage not got  quoins so it matches the house.  If it was me I would do it all like the garage and have the just the front porch in stone and keep the rest clean and sharp looking. 

[joe90]

Yes VAT can be claimed back fir a new build but most of our large expenditure was zero rated as VAT because it was a new build, therefore you don’t have to stump up fir VAT then claim it back. Cash flow.?

[Patrick]

I just keep repeating what people before me said :Forget

 about the architect. Waste of time and money. Unless you are designing something extraordinary, (and by extraordinary I don't mean a bit better insulated house, but something like the Sydney opera) it can be done by either yourself or an architectural technician.

all of this was mentioned by others before. One thing that really helped me was a clever guy telling me :planning permission is a look on the house from the outside (design based, more about the look/appearance then any technical aspects). Building control is the look from the inside out (technical based, very much about the details of how to build it and make it work).

so an architect is looking at the planning stage more as a design project. While a lot of the self builders, specially the ones with not so deep pockets, just want a decent looking house that WORKS. not a Sydney opera.

so draw yourself some ideas up. Get used to some 3d softwares (mentioned in other posts on here, like revit, sketchup) and once you had all the replies on the forum here you probably more or less already ready to just submit it yourself without any architectural technicians or spending money at all.

Edited March 1, 2019 by Patrick

[Ferdinand]

On 27/02/2019 at 18:23, Stu-UK said:

(I really want this well underway this year)

This may well be possible, but be prepared for things such as long lead times for TF suppliers - which may make you decide between your favourite house and rapid progress.

 

The Time-Cost-Quality triangle applies in spades to self-build You only get two at once at the cost of the third. 

 

https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/project-management-scope-triangle.php

 

And welcome.

 

Ferdinand

 

Edited March 3, 2019 by Ferdinand

[Stu-UK]

Update: After much research and looking for a positive helpful supplier I have decided to give Potton Homes a go. I visited their show homes in St Neots and spoke to their self build consultant. 

 

I am not committed but will go through the design and planning stage and see what comes out the other side.

 

One refreshing change from the idiot architects that have basically stolen my money, Potton suggested I slightly reduce my wishlist to cover contigency. I know it is obvious but the arcitects have just assumed I have given them a brief of only 2/3 rds of my actual budget! In fact Potton said this is common. 

 

As we have no plans. Potton will design us a new house for a fraction of what we have spent on the others. I have had to get a topographical survey done. Potton require this but I have never had to get one on the two prior and successful planning applications!?

 

I now have a timetable which Potton are suggesting I could have a watertight shell by the winter. Trades and other unkown factors considered

 

Stuart

 

[lizzie]

@Stu-UK congrats on sorting out your supplier. 

 

Have been in a couple of Potton houses, they seemed nice. We gave up on them as suppliers though they were hopeless when we were looking think they must have been busy and couldn't be bothered at the time.

[Stu-UK]

Yes I think possibly they are all guilty. I never heard anything from Scotframe despite pestering. Weird considering the effort they put in to getting new business. Their  rep in Cumbernauld  contacted us in February for our brief and that was that!. Nothing. Commonplace response for norfolk trades but disheartening to think it is more widespread. I hope hope hope we have made the right choice. ? 

[Jeremy Harris]

We also looked at Potton, as they have a house built inside the Swindon centre.  Looked OK, but when I drilled down to the technical detail airtightness was not great and increasing the insulation to a level above building regs minimum seemed a bit problematic.  The finer detailing of things like door and window opening, cavity closures, airtightness by design, all seems a bit lacking, but then this was over 6 years ago now.  They were also pretty expensive, but then they were offering what amounted to a turn-key package.