How to build a house?
Discussion
Decided to have a house built and have bought a piece of land. Would appreciate links to tips and check lists for what not to forget when specing out the requirements, and what not to forget when dealing with builders. I know its going to be stressful but I’d like to try and get it right as its probably the one time in my life that I’m going to do it.
Unless you are a builder or otherwise have experience of major building works, get yourself an architect or at least a builder who's willing/able/experienced enough to project manage it; it's practically a full time job, and a bit of a nightmare if you're inexperienced and trying to complete to a deadline. However, if you like stress and a bit of a challenge, fill your boots; scheduling trades is likened to herding cats.
We built and project managed our build with no prior experience, personaly i rather enjoyed the whole thing (but then im a bit of a control freak!). If you live and work local to your build (or your parnter does) then go for it, for us, we both commute an hour and a half (so at least 2 hours away if we were needed on site) to London, that made things very tricky, a couple of times I had to take a quick dash from work, using up precious holiday, to resolve an issue (normaly trying to pasify the neighbour where the builder has been winding her up!). But it was hard, leaving for work at 5.45am and getting home at home 8pm in the evening, then trying organise the next days deliverys/ workmen etc takes its toll, our 'victim' was the spreadsheet with all our costs/projections/diary, started off very organised then didnt get updated hardly at all in the last half of the build, so we dont really know how much it cost to build, although the words 'alot' and 'over budget' will no doubt be quite correct 
. the other weakness due to time restraints would be not negotiating enough on the materials so no doubt paid over the odds for most things (although the internet is good for investigating some items).
Hiring a profesional PM would of saved money and finished the build quicker, enough to justify the cost? not sure, more importantly we would like to repeat again (when the market picks up)and so the experiance we gained has justifed us not having a PM IMO.
As for other tips, dont rush starting the build, be 1000pct (not a typo
)sure of how the house will be inside and out, from sockets to light fittings. Just keep 'walking through' the place in your mind to perfect it as much as possible and know what materials you want to put in it, this will save you time when you do start the build.
Finaly, alot of your success will be measured on the quality of your builders, so pick very carefully!!
. the other weakness due to time restraints would be not negotiating enough on the materials so no doubt paid over the odds for most things (although the internet is good for investigating some items).Hiring a profesional PM would of saved money and finished the build quicker, enough to justify the cost? not sure, more importantly we would like to repeat again (when the market picks up)and so the experiance we gained has justifed us not having a PM IMO.
As for other tips, dont rush starting the build, be 1000pct (not a typo
)sure of how the house will be inside and out, from sockets to light fittings. Just keep 'walking through' the place in your mind to perfect it as much as possible and know what materials you want to put in it, this will save you time when you do start the build.Finaly, alot of your success will be measured on the quality of your builders, so pick very carefully!!
Edited by satans worm on Wednesday 4th November 08:10
For an extension I recently built I used this service
http://www.travisperkins.co.uk/services/estimating...
You send them the plans and get back a complete priced bill of quantities. I used it to keep the builder on his toes for both time and material costs and came in £2000 under budget. Well worth the £60-£120.
http://www.travisperkins.co.uk/services/estimating...
You send them the plans and get back a complete priced bill of quantities. I used it to keep the builder on his toes for both time and material costs and came in £2000 under budget. Well worth the £60-£120.
Brian_M said:
For an extension I recently built I used this service
http://www.travisperkins.co.uk/services/estimating...
You send them the plans and get back a complete priced bill of quantities. I used it to keep the builder on his toes for both time and material costs and came in £2000 under budget. Well worth the £60-£120.
not a bad choice, you can then at least take it to other merchants and get them bidding against each other.http://www.travisperkins.co.uk/services/estimating...
You send them the plans and get back a complete priced bill of quantities. I used it to keep the builder on his toes for both time and material costs and came in £2000 under budget. Well worth the £60-£120.
We're nearly done with first fix now... you can see the ground floor being built on youtube here
Get the House Builder's bible ( http://www.housebuildersbible.co.uk/) which explains most of the process, materials and costs.
You have got some form of planning permission on the land haven't you? We bought our site with outline planning permission and it still took five years to get full permission to build the house we wanted.
Get a good architect (with local knowledge and experience) and a good set of builders and you're a long way down the line. We live on site and couldn't imagine how anyone could manage a build at a distance - I spend about an hour every morning wandering around the site with the builders, discussing what needs to be done and other details.
You will go over budget. At every stage you will be presented the option of going for product X or product Y. Product X will be on budget, product Y will be over budget but will be 'better' in some way. Knowing that you'll be living in the house for years to come (hopefully), you'll find it hard not to go for the more expensive option every time. Remember "Built quickly, good quality and on budget - pick two."
Huff houses are overrated. Just an opinion, but you can build a house to a better spec, that looks more suited to the British landscape for half the cost. These days a lot of house design is about energy efficiency. It's a boring subject, but you'll have to live with the fuel bills for years to come, so it's a good move to design a house that is easy to heat and comfortable to live in.
Good luck.
Get the House Builder's bible ( http://www.housebuildersbible.co.uk/) which explains most of the process, materials and costs.
You have got some form of planning permission on the land haven't you? We bought our site with outline planning permission and it still took five years to get full permission to build the house we wanted.
Get a good architect (with local knowledge and experience) and a good set of builders and you're a long way down the line. We live on site and couldn't imagine how anyone could manage a build at a distance - I spend about an hour every morning wandering around the site with the builders, discussing what needs to be done and other details.
You will go over budget. At every stage you will be presented the option of going for product X or product Y. Product X will be on budget, product Y will be over budget but will be 'better' in some way. Knowing that you'll be living in the house for years to come (hopefully), you'll find it hard not to go for the more expensive option every time. Remember "Built quickly, good quality and on budget - pick two."
Huff houses are overrated. Just an opinion, but you can build a house to a better spec, that looks more suited to the British landscape for half the cost. These days a lot of house design is about energy efficiency. It's a boring subject, but you'll have to live with the fuel bills for years to come, so it's a good move to design a house that is easy to heat and comfortable to live in.
Good luck.
As for designing the house, it's your choice. I've seen people write twenty page documents detailing every last brick and socket they want in their house. Others have got a cheap CAD program and worked out a layout which they've given to an architect to fine tune.
We wrote our main requirements on a single page of A4 ('four beds, light and airy, office space' etc.). Our architect then came back with a couple of sketches, and we pointed out the bits that we liked. He did a few more and we repeated the process until we had a design that worked. The end result is a house that has a great feel, and 'flows' well. We wanted to give him the maximum opportunity to do what he's trained for, and I think it's paid off in a good design.
It helped that we interviewed a handful of architects and chose one that was 'on our wavelength'. He lives in a house he designed, and we liked the feel, so it gave us a lot of confidence in his work.
We wrote our main requirements on a single page of A4 ('four beds, light and airy, office space' etc.). Our architect then came back with a couple of sketches, and we pointed out the bits that we liked. He did a few more and we repeated the process until we had a design that worked. The end result is a house that has a great feel, and 'flows' well. We wanted to give him the maximum opportunity to do what he's trained for, and I think it's paid off in a good design.
It helped that we interviewed a handful of architects and chose one that was 'on our wavelength'. He lives in a house he designed, and we liked the feel, so it gave us a lot of confidence in his work.
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