There are quite a wide variety of types of project that are classed as self builds. These can vary from very small apartments as a part of a large project, to building or rebuilding a large stately home. The involvement can be very little where a group employs a project manager and he or she takes care of everything, to the other end where the person does the majority of the work themselves. Self build can start from a green field, from a redeveloped site previously used for something else, or substantially redeveloping or improving an existing building.
There are also a wide range of reasons why people become involved in self build, sometimes because it allows them to get a home at a very large discount, in other cases because they can have it designed the way they like, and in others because the finish is better. Many combine these and have larger, a better finished home, at no more cost than they could have had otherwise.
Others may be attracted by the idea of a retirement home, building a pension or moving towards mortgage free living. In fact whatever we put within this web site we will not cover all possible variations.
The club has no fixed view as to what projects we will help to set up and which we will not. We try as far as we can to make sure that it involves at least some homes, so don't go looking to develop industrial or commercial building projects, that involve no homes of any type. Its not that we have anything against these, its just that our resources are limited and we decided to stay within the realms that most people could become involved in.
We will therefore, in identifying what a member wishes to consider becoming involved in, start with a blank page and help them to define their own profile that best suits them. In many areas you may not have a fixed view and will be open to consider a number of opportunities that come along.
As you may not have previously considered the variety of projects that are included under self build here we want to explain some of them, its not intended to be an all inclusive list you will come across others and I am sure we will come up with others as opportunities arise.
This is by far the easiest and safest. You have a project manager with the building knowledge who will schedule everything and keep an eye on everything that is happening. Having a number of people involved cuts down the risk of mistakes occurring. Mistakes will occur and problems are likely to arise on any sized project, I remember a few years back when an office block was built and only when the last panes of glass went into the large ground floor windows, did anyone realize that it had no doors at all. In another case a digger was used to dig out the foundations deep under a large building and the building went on being constructed, until eventually they realized they could not get the digger out, so it has stayed there ever since.
Group projects can have a variety of properties and sizes, and even on some occasions be split across more than one site
You could of course manage your own project, schedule everything and manage the build. This is not as difficult as it sounds if you use a timber frame constructed house or similar as often a lot of the work in relation to scheduling, the order of things and details needed is available from the supplier of the timber frame, who will often also help with planning applications and in a variety of other ways.
Some feel they do not have to have a project manager if they have a lead builder to work with who can help them, this is fine as long as you know the builder really well and know that you will not run into a conflict with them or that they might themselves have problems.
We also have a project management system, that as a club member you can have, that helps you to either manage the build yourself or to shadow what is being done for you. With this most would be able to manage their own projects.
Called by a number of titles these involve you in becoming involved in the laboring and in some of the stages of the build, your labour earns you the deposit or a reduction on the price. These are often large projects, involving an estate or large number of apartments and organized by a property developer, who manages the site, and has put the scheme together. It can be organized by a group, but you need a project manager then who wants to do it by this means and likes to help people to get new skills. The amount of labour that you put in will be pre defined, but typically be 12 hours or more a week over more than a year, so it takes a lot of your spare time up.
Some love these projects, as people are actually involved but need no skills, others point out that with the extended build and increased costs, they often present no saving over what could have been achieved quicker with using traditional trades people who know what they are doing. The quality of work can be a problem and in order to encourage a high quality of work to be done by all, some projects involve all properties being completed before a ballot occurs to distribute the properties amongst those who have participated.
Particular caution needs to be exercised in any group where the ownership of a particular home is not defined from the start, and therefore an individual owner is not self building a defined home as it is unlikely that they will qualify for VAT recovery, adding considerably to the cost.
Within this type of self build, participation is limited to those who have building trades qualifications and or experience and each leads in their field of expertise, others acting as their assistants and labourers. For this to work, you need a strong project manager and a very good understanding of exactly what each is to do, where each will lead and the amount of time you will be expected to put in, in a support role.
Some people, even those with no previous building experience, do manage to completely build their own house, and this is some considerable achievement, as they have to not only learn all the skills involved but also make sure that they keep within the building regulations and more. Even starting from a plan set out by those who know what they are doing, this is not going to be any easy task. Undertaking a conversion or upgrading another property is far simpler as at least the majority of the structure will already exist.
If people have the real desire and are willing to learn, as well as fit enough and able to take it on, some near miracles are possible even on restricted budgets. Recently one couple were featured on TV, who had no real understanding of France, its culture, buildings or language and who bought the remains of a manor house 5 floors high, this impressive relic had been burnt out 60 years ago, in the second world war, and just its stone walls stood, and even these were in a less than stable condition, there were no floors or roof, windows or doors and trees was growing all over. They bought this cheaply on the internet for around £36,000, and by selling their home in Britain had less than £140,000 to tackle this project. Both came from a background of working in an office. Within a year, although they had a series of delays, the house had a roof, windows and doors and the first two floors nearly complete. The majority of the work they had done themselves including replacing all the wooden beams to support all the floors and making their own staircase. They had also found time to landscape and sort out the grounds and had obtained planning consent and built a wooden cabin that they lived in to allow them to be on site all the time. The floors they had done were completed to a very high standard, and was very impressive, they had taken the project in a year, from a position where most thought they had lost all sanity in attempting it, to having a major asset that could be seen to be a quality home with a manageable amount of work remaining. Eventually it was to become a very large B&B. No one now doubts that they will complete it and it is by far the most spectacular house in the area with breathtaking views.
Others have managed to produce very impressive homes over a number of years by this route, while also having another job. Building their home becomes their lifestyle and takes up all their time, they also save money in that there is no time left to undertake anything else or spend cash on other pursuits. It may be worth pointing out that the majority of the equipment that you will need, can be rented when needed, and of course you can always hire in someone to do any job that you just cannot do yourself, or like fitting out gas connections, you are not allowed to.
You could have a build where you or a project manager organizes trades people to take the build to a position where the shell is complete, and you have reached a defined stage, and then take over the project yourself to finish off the fitting out, decorating etc. As long as this is all part of the same managed project you should have no problems with VAT reclaims, as you have never completed the build at the change over, in how the build continues. This method has appeal to some people who feel that what they are then taking on, is very little more than extended DIY, however you still may find that some steps like having kitchens installed, bathroom equipment put in and the like is best done by others, to allow the project to move forward quickly. One of the problems is in determining exactly what you are capable of doing yourself, and this will vary greatly from person to person. This can however be a good way to extend the margin that you can make if you have the interest and the time to undertake this.
You can self build anything from a one bedroom apartment to a stately home, and most by a number of methods as we have discussed above.
What many first think of when you mention self build, with 4 or 5 bedrooms, several bathrooms and built to a very high standard. These are the projects most usually featured in the self build magazines, and in many cases featured are built on a single plot and not as a part of a larger group.
They can also be built as a small estate with mixed designs or using a common design as in the case of one group who constructed a new collection of homes but with thatched roofs and the external appearance of a street of period homes.
Many of the people attracted to this have a home well above the size and specification that they would have been able to get by other means.
Similar to the above, usually well designed, above the quality of a commercially built estate home, they may be built as pairs or as what are now often referred to as linked detached, which frequently means that you have a house then two garages then another house in a string, giving the advantages of a detached house in sound insulation while the benefit of space saving of a semi. Although one semi can be larger than the other, its normal to balance the look from the front.
A number of homes linked together in a line, maybe staggered at the front and rear, or differentiated in some other way, have a lower sized footprint and land requirement so are considerably cheaper. As a self build a higher grade of sound insulation can be put in, they can have some personalization or differences, designed in. The larger the number that are fitted into a piece of land, the cheaper they are to build, and they can have on occasions, shared grounds outside making them ideal for holiday properties. These are attractive to people who want to make the first step onto the housing ladder, for 'build to let', for single people and couples whose activities are away from the home. In some cases building on three floors can mean that these homes can have both a surprising number and sized rooms.
By fitting in more homes into a space, the cost of land in the formula is reduced and therefore the properties become cheaper. The number and size of rooms is not necessarily smaller than any other type and they can also be constructed over more than one floor. This is best explained by looking at a design that utilizes a foot print of a pair of semi's, so you have two houses wide and 2 floors tall, but in between the top of the semis and the roof you add an extra floor across the two, this has the same floor area as the semis but is an apartment and has been acquired without using any more land, other than possibly a staircase or lift to reach it. Extend this philosophy with a terrace and several extra floors with different sizes and staggered arrangements and you can see that the number of homes can be greatly increased while the ground area stays the same. They cold be wrapped around or over other property such as shops or offices and is limited only by your imagination and what planning consent is available in the area.
Barn conversions are very similar to the new build detached home and others are similar in many ways to the others above, its just you start with an existing structure that you arrange things within, rather than starting from scratch. This is not necessarily cheaper to do, and where listed buildings or other special situations apply, can be more expensive.
There are two areas of interest here, the homes that people look at when they first retire or are approaching retirement, these are often downsizing now the family have left home and at the same time often moving out of high priced city areas to a pleasant and quieter country setting that is far cheaper, and frees up cash or eliminates any remaining mortgage.
The second type are as people get older, they start to prepare for old age, when perhaps getting up stairs may become difficult, when perhaps they need less rooms and maybe would like to have someone employed on site to keep an eye on them all. Perhaps a shared dayroom or sun lounge or other facilities. The principle objective is to allow them to continue to live independently for many more years than they would otherwise. The problems from a self build perspective is in both thinking about this early enough and what to do with it until you need it. It is far simpler where it is built for an elderly parent and then they can move to it and free up their existing home for you, or to sell.
As this page could easily become a book, we had to stop at some point, however I hope it has achieved its purpose in stretching your imagination and getting you to consider that there are more options within self build than the one or two you will have previously read about.
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