About to start building new house - any advice?!

[jennymac]

We are going to start building a new house in April and will be project managing it ourselves due to lack of funds. Anyone done anything similar and have any tips or things to look out for?

My husband as a quantity surveyor and he would say you need to employ one to keep track of the budget and remember that changes cost more money the later you leave them in the build. Sound exciting hope we get to do that one day.

Good luck jenny were hoping to self build in about 2 years time. DH who's a designer said expect it to take much longer than you have timetabled and allow enough slack in the budget for it.

Are you liking on site?
Thats my biggest worry, the idea of living on site with kids.

oops I meant are you LIVING on site, not liking.

I worked for a self build organisation for a while. I found a book called "the housebuilders bible" very helpful, full of good tips. I am drafting plans of our extension this evening so I can imagine where you are.

Presuming you know what you're doing, building wise, it's just like any other project - be planned and organised, keep on top of costs, keep on top of changes, don't change your mind half way through. Have a good fat contingency in the budget (say 15-20%). Be really clear with your tradesmen what you expect and when, and try not to let things slide.

My tip would be, make friends with the building inspector. They usually really know their stuff.

We did it, without qualifications or knowledge - mind you it was a steep learning curve. We came in at 3% over budget so not bad. My top tip - pay extra for roof trusses that mean you can walk around in the attic!

Enjoy!

Thanks everyone. Not sure if we are going to be living on site or not. Trying to sell our current house at mo, but need to move by the end of the summer so dd can start preschool. Will probably try to rent in the area but haven't ruled out a mobile home! Have got a copy of the Housebuilders bible and dh is reading it religiously every night. Feel bad in a way as I am really leaving most of it up to him but with a 3yr old and a 2yr old plus fulltime work I find it hard to gather up the energy to think about it too much.