Built my own house .....and loved it! AMA

[Tinkobell]

Realise this is not exactly a novelty these days....but wondered if any budding builders have any Q's. I loved building a house. Would do it all again if I could! Ask me anything about that highs, lows and any build info.

@Fab....no I didn't know that! I did wonder maybe a bit feng shui?

I'm sure it is excellent feng shui, since it lets the energy move through the house unimpeded. The architect who I am going to use told me it is called an enfilade, because it is what I would like, too! He is a very good classical architect who has done a lot of work for the Prince of Wales.

£1900m2 was 2016 tender Pre-brexit vote. Timbers an import, roof tiles are an import....so I'm not sure what's happened to some material costs. That said, the work stream has tailed off in SE so maybe that might balance out a little. I've a friend who built a timber framed house of 2500sqft for £1500m2 - all self managed. SIPS houses are also well worth consideration for a lower build cost and they're very very nice.

@Fab...wow! If you hire that architect, your house is an asset and has real credibility.A good architect has the skill to not just create beautiful space but to make all that space highly utilisable. Too many places are rabbit warrens with a disconnection of space that no-one uses....yet you pay for that build. I do think it's worth stretching a bit more for a RIBA architect. The real work begins Post planning approval, once they start all the individual construction details.
Our guy even drew the brick layout and brick count ....felt anal at the time but saved money.

He has interns over from America, and says that I can work with one of them to get it done as cheaply as possible, but under his close supervision, which I think is a great idea.

Yes, this one also does detailed drawing that show all the individual bricks, and how they should be positioned. The designs are works of art in themselves.

Some architects can do a colour CAD mock up.....mine didn't but that's worth considering.

So useful, thank you Fabulous and Tink.

OP - we need photos!

What do you think you did to make it so seamless? I've actually never heard of anyone ending up with no snag list.

@Stinker

1. unproblematic site - sandy subbase no piling etc.
2. good weather over 12 months
3. good error free plans
4. monthly site meetings
5. a realistic budget and financing route clear from outset
6. 'can do' mentality of the Polish workforce
7. quick decision making on materials etc - me.
8. slick scheduling of trades - polish project manager.

Front to rear view pic. Bit dark....soz!
Re: bricks, it's worth getting builders to do small test wall using mortar shade and your desired joint.....this can have a huge impact on the finished character of the house. Most brick suppliers Hanson etc will supply 20 odd test bricks free of charge.

Great thread! We are in the middle of building out own house too. We are going for a SIPs construction. We bought a run-down bungalow on a large plot with a normal residential mortgage, then applied for planning and after a very long time, finally got permission to build what we wanted. We demolished the bungalow and paid off the mortgage with cash then got a self build mortgage (we used Buildstore as a broker who were really good) and got the fund through in time to pay the deposit on the SIPs. In the meantime we used remaining cash to start the groundworks and associated stuff.

I have a question, @Tinkobell. How did you get your internet hard wired? My husband is project managing the build and has tasked me with the internet bits... they don't have fibre to the home in my area, just FTTC - can it be hardwired in this situation, do you know? Who's best to get advice? I've found it really hard to find out. We want a really good internet service as husband will be working from home plus we have two kids so internet downloading/films/etc etc - the load will be high on our internet and do NOT want crappy internet!! Thank you

@AromaticSpices does sips lower the cost? Any downside?

@Stinkerbell I'm not sure it's a huge amount cheaper now as we are having brick slips on our external walls which are extortionate to attach apparently even though the application is just like tiling So if you used render on the exterior I think it would be cheaper than a traditional timber-framed house with normal bricks. I don't know too much about the budget though tbh as DH is doing most of it.

Slight downsides I can think of is that as it results in a super-insulated house, it can get quite warm if you use a lot of glass due to solar gain. We are having MVHR (mechanical ventilation heat recovery, I think) which should purify the air and rid of impurities, pollen etc (great for me, with hayfever)

@Tinkobell £1900m2 is good.

I'm a construction QS in London and have just finished a budget for a 9 house new build for a local authority, so medium spec. Come in a touch over £2,500 including all professional fees, design, OH/P etc

More pics please 😁

£2500 for a council house! That's outrageous!

@Stinkerbelldust yes the council think so too but they tend to forget if they engage a principal contractor to deliver this project then there are additional fees. This bumps up the cost unfortunately.

Ironically, they will bitch and moan about the initial cost but then add 200k of variations

These council houses won't go into the stock, they will get sold for a quick profit.

My £1900 was 2016 tender pre brexit. We had 4 tender responses and did chose the cheapest. The big variation across our responses was the landscaping. We have probably 120 Lin metres of retaining walls, a large in out drive and half an acre of garden. Most tenderers were not interested in the gardens and so just pushed this to a third party which came back with a high Price which included VAT....so it fell out of the vat exempt contract. Big £ variation there. We also have outside garden lighting ...which again we managed to get within the contract sum. We are in a rural area....good site access, storage, good Crane access. Sandy sub base, min foundations ....we were very uncomplicated in many respects which did impact the contract sum positively in our favour.

@Aromatic.....yes I think good broadband is kind of a major purchase consideration for most now. We did get shot of BT (copper download speed 5mbps) to Virgin (fibre 24mbps)....better for film streaming but still not brill. House is hardwired to all floors. We have block walls internally as we don't like being able to hear others talk, TV's etc. The AV guys placed repeaters throughout and tested them...seems to work vey well.
We do have intelligent lighting (RAKO) ....it's ok, but we don't use to its full capability by a long long shot, Sonos in the kitchen (fantastic) and Neo Heatmiser (remote access of heating). If the hacking of home systems becomes an everyday cyber crime, we're stuffed!