Plan Your Build

Guide

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Selfbuild

THIS ISSUE: PLANNING YOUR BUILD

104

CAN YOU BUILD ON THE SITE

Welcome to a new series of articles highlighting the basic things you need to know about building a home in Ireland, on both sides of the border.

This issue we start with the topic of Planning Your Build, covering everything you need to know before you invest any money in the project.

120 110

Day to day management

Is the design fit for purpose and within budget

102 Overview of the entire construction process 128 First hand experience in Co Down AUTU M N 2020 / S EL F BU IL D / 5 AUTUM N 2020 / S EL F BU IL D / 101

T T LAE N N I N G PI L

OVERVIEW

YOUR BUILD /

Where to start

In this first instalment we look at Planning Your Build, covering everything you need to know before you spend a penny on your project.

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You might be surprised just how much you can do for yourself if you are willing to learn

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Guide Selfbuild

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ndrew Stanway, author of Managing Your Build, outlines of what to expect from the building process, from start to finish.

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Andrew Stanway

Self-building is an exciting and rewarding journey, but to enjoy it as much as you possibly can and get the home of your dreams at the end, you will need to plan every detail.

There are basic things you will need to organise if you are building a new home from scratch.

Starting at the beginning, here is what you will need: u Site acquisition u Choosing an architect/designer, u Finance u Structural advice u Full planning permission from house plans u Complete and detailed specifications of everything, with choice of building method can’t sign off on your build for a lender or in lieu of a professional or a building control inspector, but almost everything else that relates to project management can be done on a DIY basis.

You might be surprised just how much you can do for yourself if you are willing to learn and are happy to take a great deal longer over everything. In fact, this is where the majority of costs can be saved, in my opinion. Doing as much of it as possible yourself will give a great sense of being in control and having really achieved something.

Similarly, at the completion of your build you’ll need professionals

u Details of exactly how you’ll manage the build (you won’t be able to do absolutely everything yourself) u Who your labour force will be u Building regulations/ construction drawings approval from Building Control (NI), Commencement notice with opt-in/out (ROI) u Appointing a building control inspector (or other qualified professional in ROI) to sign off your work at required stages u Self-build insurance u A 10-year structural warranty (optional but highly recommended)

Under normal circumstances most self-builders would receive a huge amount of help on all of this, which of course costs money.

You’d be foolish to pretend to be a structural engineer. You also

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to give official clearances on the following, none of which are DIY items: ¢ Building control sign off (NI) / Completion certificate (ROI) ¢ Certificate that planning conditions have been satisfied ¢ Electrical and gas safety certification ¢ SAP calculations and an EPC (NI) / DEAP calculations and a BER (ROI) ¢ Official airtightness test results

You’d be foolish to pretend to be a structural engineer. ..

DISCLAIMER This list is intended as a guide only; consult with a qualified design professional before you start your project.

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PLANNING YOUR BUILD / THE SITE

Can you build on the site?

The first question to ask yourself is: is the site you plan to buy or already own suitable to build, rebuild or extend on? Many of the items here will be queried by the planners but there are a few more to consider.

Access Access for machinery

Getting lorries in will be a requirement, from concrete mixers to deliveries of large items such as steel. You may even need to hire a crane. Consider how all of these heavy and wide vehicles will get to the building site. Some selfbuilders end up having to build a separate entrance for this purpose and go on to explore whether this alternative means of access isn’t better than the one that had been originally planned.

Safe means of entering

The planners will ask that you have a safe means of entering the home; this usually means a separate entrance and adequate “sight lines” – so you can safely look both ways upon exiting the property onto the main road which in most cases needs to be a minor

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road. Also consider very steep sites and how you might need to zigzag your driveway to make the climb up manageable without going into first gear and hoping for the best.

Speed limits

In ROI self-builders have had their planning applications rejected on the grounds that the road they were building on had too high a speed limit, which in turn made the site unsafe to access. In extreme cases you may be involved in talks of widening a part of the public road; in most cases planning won’t be allowed on main roads and a pre planning meeting will clarify this.

In NI, certain roads are classified as ‘protected routes’ and permission will not be given to access them directly from a new site, which of course means that planning permission would not be granted for such a site. For those roads where permission will be given, the estimated speed of the traffic on the road is one factor in determining the dimensions of the visibility splays.

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Characteristics Sun

Where the sun rises and sets will form a critical part of your house design and sun path diagrams are a routine part of the process. At this early stage, check if nearby trees or nearby buildings may become a problem in the winter months when the sun is lower in the sky.

Tree surgery, i.e. cutting the trees, can be expensive but can make an otherwise unpromising site usable.

Take advice on this as cutting trees could jeopardise certain conditions of your planning approval.

Wind and shelter

Locating the house away from strong gusts will shield it from the elements which will help with heat retention and reduce the risk of whistling vents. Check for trees bent out of shape to see where the prevailing winds are. Hedges help protect from the wind and can be planted at an early stage if not already there and this is where a give and take is also to be struck between your views and shielding the house from other people’s view.

Check the planner's development plans in relation to their approach to site boundaries.

Salt spray

Coastal locations will require tougher wearing materials for the external façade, e.g. for metal window framing materials you will need to be prepared to pay for the best, and any outdoor equipment such as having to pay extra for a marinsied heat pump if you choose an air source unit. Even locations that aren’t on the actual seafront can suffer from salt spray so check the

condition of neighbouring houses.

Salt spray can travel long distances inland. In the UK for example, for structural design purposes, any site within 2km of the shore is regarded as being within a coastal environment. Guidance suggests that the most vulnerable areas will be within 500m of the shoreline, but the aggressive environment can also have an effect on buildings as far inland as 5km.

Slope

If the site isn’t level, you are likely to incur added building costs to either design the house to follow the stepping site or to “cut and fill”, i.e. extracting soil to make a level surface to build on.

It’s generally preferable to follow the slope than to cut and fill. If you can’t get rid of the soil on site then it costs a fortune to take it away, although good topsoil is worth hanging on to for gardening.

Slopes can add as much as ten thousand for every five degrees in construction costs.

that foundations can be properly designed from the beginning. These will have to be filled in again, but the exercise should be well worth the €350 to €500 / £400 it will cost.

Drainage

Underground streams are relatively common in Ireland; if one runs beneath the house location, you should try to find another location otherwise you will have the added expense of shoring up/pumping water during the build and putting in place measures to keep the water at bay in the long term. Drainage can be an issue on all sites and should be looked at early on, e.g. find a good soakaway position or stream to divert rainwater to. Rainwater collected from your roof may need treatment depending on the roof

covering, e.g. cedar shingles are coated to be fireproof. Building in a spot with good drainage is a bonus, but it’s not considered best practice to build on top of a hill or on the high point of the site because it will make the house visible to passersby – in the countryside the planners like the house to be concealed from view.

Existing house

There may be a house on the site already and in many cases you will be expected to retain this structure and incorporate it in your design, which tends to be more expensive than building from scratch. On the plus side, if the house was a dwelling this may allow you to build where the planners wouldn’t normally grant permission.

Soil type

The exact makeup of the soil you will build your house on won’t be known until you start digging for your foundations. As a result, foundations are the hardest part to budget with certainty as you may have to upgrade to a more expensive foundation type if you don’t hit good soil straight away.

You can get an idea of what type of soil is there by looking at the type of prevalent vegetation and by checking place names – old Irish names of the townland may give a strong clue as to the soil type.

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PLANNING YOUR BUILD / THE SITE

Water

Wastewater

Mains connection

Mains connection

Connecting your home to the water mains is the most convenient way to get treated potable (drinkable) water. The cost of connecting to the mains tends to be a fixed rate, €2,272 in ROI and £238 in NI but for sites that are very far from the network, additional costs can be heavy. Check how much your site connection will cost early on with a pre-application form.

In ROI, Group Water Schemes are also in operation and are available in some rural locations; if this is an option for you it’s worth considering as the cost of connection is relatively low and the water quality results show that water quality levels tend to be very good, much better than results gathered by the Environmental Protection Agency from wells due to a lack of maintenance.

Well

If you can’t get access to a mains connection, or the cost is too high, you can

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As with water, the plug and play option of connecting to the mains is attractive and the same caveats apply as with water. The flat fee in ROI is €3,929 to connect and in NI, provided the work does not encroach on public property, the connections can be carried out by the customer but supervised by NI Water, for a standard inspection charge of £130.

Percolation test

investigate getting a well. Costs for a borehole well start at around €5,500/£5,000 or much more depending on ground conditions. You need to factor in filtration systems and crucially, maintenance which needs to be done regularly to avoid water contamination. There are specific ways to build wells safely, available on epa.ie.

In NI, anyone who intends to drill a borehole or sink a shaft or well more than 15m deep, is required by law to inform the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland beforehand and keep a record of the borehole/shaft constructed.

If your private water supply is to a single private dwelling it is not required to be monitored by the Drinking Water Inspectorate, but you should contact the environmental health department of your local council to have your supply regularly tested.

If you can’t connect to the mains or to a Group Water Scheme, which usually also provide wastewater treatment if available in your area, you will need to install an on-site wastewater treatment system (OWWTS). Compost toilets tend to not be viewed favourably by the planners despite being more eco-friendly than septic tank systems.

Oftentimes the planners make it a condition of your application to have an OWWTS. To know if your site is suitable for such a system, which will cost you in the thousands, you need to do a percolation test – some local authorities have their own list of council engineers to carry out the test, (fees around the £500/€550 mark), others just ask that the engineer be qualified whilst in NI, the client or their agent can do it as long as they have a proper working knowledge of the test requirements.

Prices vary considerably in the private sector as there is a need to hire a digger; prices seem to range from four to five hundreds to over a thousand euros or pounds. The test consists of digging trial holes and checking how quickly the water soaks away. In ROI if the percolation test fails this could mean there is no means of getting planning permission on the site; in NI it’s possible to get a treatment tank and then get a licence to discharge the clean treated water into a nearby stream. It should be noted that for percolation tests in NI, an hour or less with a spade can sometimes be all that is needed, so a digger is not always necessary.

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Road openings Timing

Oftentimes you will be asked to dig the trenches in which your cables or pipes are to go, from the road to your house. Albeit difficult to achieve in practice, consider saving on digger costs by digging all the trenches at the same time and organise installation with network operators so that they happen in close succession. You can put in ducting into which the utilities companies can push their pipes and cables later. Ensure that your contractors have the required insurance cover to carry out works relating to public roads.

Bonds

Also know that if you are near a public road, you will probably need to open it up to connect to the mains and a bond may have to be put in place.

This involves you putting up money in advance (usually less than two thousand euros/pounds) to the local authority; you get it back if you reinstate the road the way it was before you had it opened.

An engineer from the local authority does the before and after checks.

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PLANNING YOUR BUILD / THE SITE

Broadband Don’t forget about your broadband connection; it may be impossible to get in many rural areas. If you want a highspeed cable installed you will need to get this organised at the same time as the rest of the utility connections. In ROI the fixed connection charge tends to be less than €300 as long as you are 50m from a line. In NI, the rural fibre broadband supply is being upgraded under the government’s ‘Future Telecoms Infrastructure Review’ so you just need to check availability for your area. A number of service providers do not charge

Electricity As with all utilities, if you are far from the mains, the costs will mount exponentially. ESB Networks in ROI state they aim to supply a quote within 15 business days and that the typical charge for a single, standard connection is approximately €2,700 but it can be much more depending on the site. Once you have accepted the quote and made payment, the new connection is usually made within 60 business days.

In NI, NIE will supply you with a quotation based on your specific circumstances. One self-builder was charged £15,000 on a busy road; the reason was that the existing pole was working at full capacity and a new one had to be erected. Re-siting existing poles can also be very expensive.

As a guide however, the extension of an existing overhead lowvoltage single-phase NIE supply to your site, with a new single span (45 to 50 metres) overhead line plus a terminal pole, will cost between £1,415 and £3,507. Factors such as traffic management, obtaining land rights, survey, crossing other utilities, poor ground conditions, tree cutting, use of cranes, etc. can contribute to additional costs.

If the cost of connecting to the mains is prohibitive you could look at an off-grid system, however this type of set up is likely to run in the tens of thousands to keep up with the electricity demands of an average house so it’s unlikely it will be cheaper than any network connection offer.

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any upfront fee for a connection.

...it may be impossible to get high speed broadband in some rural areas.

Gas Connecting to the gas mains (natural gas) is mostly an option in towns, and the application process is similar to all utilities.

For those in the countryside who want a gas cooker, boiler, and perhaps clothes dryer, LPG is the most viable option.

The gas is liquefied and stored in a tank. Unlike other utility services, there is no network operator, the companies that supply the kit are private and you can shop around for prices and discounts. Generally speaking buying LPG is more expensive than natural gas.

DISCLAIMER This list is not exhaustive and is for information purposes only.

Consult with relevant and qualified professionals for guidance.

NI information from Les O Donnell of Landmark Designs, landmarkdesigns.org.uk. Additional information from John Corless and Andrew Stanway.

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Planning permission Locals only

An issue that is specific to ROI is what’s often referred to as the “locals only” rule whereby in many rural locations, only those with a connection to the land are allowed to build a house on a greenfield site. Check your local authority’s County Development Plan to see if your site falls under this provision. Well over a decade ago the European Union questioned its legality; currently the government has a working group in place to look at how to comply with EU law.

In parallel, there are signs that local authorities are adopting “cluster housing” rules which could make it even more difficult to build in the open countryside.

Timing

ROI’s planners have a deadline in terms of when they get back to you (12 weeks) and they stick to it. But that’s not the case in NI. A quirk of the planning system there is that if your case officer goes on holiday, the file can sit on their desk until they return, so you may be waiting a long time to actually get planning permission to build. Delays can be caused when the planners request further information – e.g. some ecological surveys can take a long time to complete. Something to bear in mind if you are renting.

Council fees

As these are site dependent in ROI, it’s worth pointing out at this early

from house to house, as each development is different each will have a different impact on surrounding amenities. These charges can be very dear, running in the thousands, so it is important to check this in advance.

stage that you will have to pay your local authority a fee towards your building development. This fee is to contribute to aspects such as road upkeep. Costs vary widely from county to county and oftentimes

In NI, the ‘upkeep’ charges are included in your rates bill; and planning application fees are standardised, so it’s £433 for an outline application and £868 for a full application. The building control application fee for a new dwelling (under 250sqm and three storeys or less) is £300. If the proposed floor area is more, then the building control fee is calculated on the estimated build cost.

Conveyancing Rights of way

Before you buy that perfect site, your solicitor will check the file for any caveats attached to the land.

For instance a farmer may have a right of way on your site meaning they might be using it for cattle or as a laneway to access their field.

That may or may not suit your situation. Alternatively you might need to get a right of way agreed to access your own site – the current laneway may be owned by someone else and you will need a legal document cementing that right of way. Buying this can be very expensive if you’ve bought the land and the landowner knows it. You may also need a lot of land for a percolation area if the site doesn’t have very good drainage – there are also minimum distances between the septic tanks, wells and houses (you have to take into account your neighbours' as well).

Some historic public rights of way may exist in NI and their

use may not be well known, for example, a seldom-used footpath or bridleway. Local councils have a specific duty to assert, protect and keep open any public right of way and council records should show where these are.

Your solicitor will also check for other legal issues, for example, making sure the person selling owns the land outright, that it is registered for you to get the deeds, that any previous developments on the land are legal (if not retroactive certification will be required which someone has to pay for), etc. If you are taking out a mortgage the bank will need these documents through your solicitor.

Continuity of planning approval

In NI, there are still many rural sites which were approved years ago, but the building work was never completed. If your site is one of these, it is very important to

check that all planning conditions relating to ‘commencement of works’ have been fulfilled. If the planners have any doubts, they will ask for evidence – so avoid any nasty surprises by confirming the planning status of your site at an early stage. Ask your solicitor or design professional for advice.

Inheriting land

In many cases self-builders inherit land from their parents or relatives; there is a cost and that is stamp duty on the land (but not on the building cost). In ROI you pay 6 per

cent on the land value but can get 4 per cent back, as long as the site is an acre or less. In NI no stamp duty is due if the valuation is less than £125,000.

Insurance

Insurance is necessary to take out, so at this early stage it does no harm getting quotes. Your selfbuild insurance quote for the site will depend on a large number of factors, so best to get an idea of how much this will be in advance (and while you’re at it, check how much a warranty might cost you).

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PLANNING YOUR BUILD / BUDGET & DESIGN

What can you afford to build?

The budget will dictate what you can build and how; find out what’s on the menu.

Cost elements Building costs

There are many average figures floating about to give you an idea of how much your house will cost to build per sqm. Oftentimes the figure of 100 to 120 euros or pounds per square foot is quoted for the most common method of construction, which is blockwork, and by choosing to manage the build yourself. Yet the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland posits a figure of €2,500 to €2,800 per sqm, doubling this self-build estimate.

Part of the discrepancy has to do with what is and isn’t included, i.e. just to a builder’s finish (without kitchen, floor finishes, etc.) or turnkey?

An average cost per sqm or sqft can also be very misleading simply because there are too many variables for you to rely on an average.

There is location to factor in, for example, but also foundations and groundworks in general can eat up your contingency from day one if there are any issues with the site. The finishes too can quickly spiral out of control as the most basic finishes are unlikely to meet your requirements; you are also likely to buy new furniture, blinds, etc.

Also be aware that building costs exclude the many additional costs that you have to factor in, including council fees (from registering land and planning fees to building control fees), connection fees (plus a wastewater treatment system if connection isn’t possible), insurance and warranties, and all of the professional fees (from architectural designer to landscaper).

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Guide Selfbuild

practice in the construction industry to quote for labour and materials excluding VAT although for a new build in NI you’ll get the VAT back on materials at the end.

Due diligence on a site will also lead to preliminary fees such as ground analysis, valuation fees to give you confidence before buying the plot, removal costs, etc. Last but not least landscaping costs can be very high too, from preparing the site for lorry access to patios, pavements, driveways, fencing, boundaries, drainage, ducting, treatment systems, planting, etc.

Professional fees

Professional fees for advisors (see page 112) will also need to be quoted; oftentimes they will charge a percentage of the build cost but some services can command a flat fee as well. Paying by the hour is least common. Professional fees normally pay for themselves over the course of the build many times over by lending expertise to give you an efficient design, manage the costed elements, avoiding leakage of costs and so on, all of which will help you save both time and money.

You will also have to hire a solicitor, for the transfer of property/deeds and for the stage payments if you are taking out a mortgage. The starting price at the moment seems to be one thousand euros/pounds for a straightforward transfer of deeds, plus the cost of stamp duty (tax for transferring ownership). You pay this when the deeds are in order.

charge a fortune for development levies which is the fee they charge when they give you planning permission, to take into account the added burden to roads and services you will be placing on the locality.

Check what these are in your area, some local authorities publish them on their websites.

Other

If you are renting, it may sound obvious but the longer the build the more it will cost you. Every month towards rent is money that could go towards the build. The cost of selling your existing home is one to factor in as well. Don’t forget borrowing costs (interest you will be paying) if you are taking out a mortgage. Consider too that you will need to factor in a contingency, usually 15 per cent of the total.

Renovations

As a general rule of thumb, you will pay more per sqm for a renovation or extension than for a new build.

When people add to their homes they tend to add on the most

expensive elements of a house, e.g. kitchen. In a new build, hallways, living rooms and other rooms that don’t need to be fully kitted out drive down the overall cost per sqm.

This is mainly why extensions are so pricey.

Existing homes have to be worked around – access to the site, deliveries, machinery, etc. are likely to be trickier or more time consuming and therefore more costly. Also the finishes will need to tie in with the existing house, which often results in an entire existing ground floor needing to be

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refloored.

Labour costs are also likely to be higher simply because it takes more time to renovate than to erect something new. An existing house can of course hide problems until an element is stripped back.

Builders therefore tend to prefer working on new builds as most elements are predictable; this means a renovation premium is likely to be added to any quote.

Bear in mind too that you can rarely retain as much as you’d initially thought.

An average cost per sqm or sqft can also be very misleading simply because there are too many variables...

Where the money goes when you’re building a house Design 3% i.e. professional and planning permission fees

Preliminaries 3% including connection to utilies, site assessment Finance 7% i.e. bank’s interest rate

Connection fees

Part of your research into the site will include asking how much it will cost to connect to services, however oftentimes it isn’t until you’ve made a firm application that you will get a site visit for an accurate quotation. In NI electricity costs can run in the thousands, in ROI the water connection tends to be the biggest unknown although there is now a flat rate if your house is near the mains.

Council Fees

Some local authorities in ROI

Construction 50%

Profit 7% Final profit level mostly dependent on economic factors (house value)

Plot 30% Very site dependent, this can be up to 50% Source: House Builder's Bible 13th Edition by Mark Brinkley AUTUM AUTUNM2020 N 2020 / S/EL SF EL BU F BU IL DIL/D111 / 5

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PLANNING YOUR BUILD / BUDGET & DESIGN

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to Improve, architects often stretch the budget to its limits as their priority is to deliver on your wish list.

This is where the input of a

...pre planning meetings are not binding, so you may get a refusal based on an aspect the planner said should be ok.

Advisors Pre planning meeting

Many self-builders choose to arrange a pre planning meeting, which involves bringing a plan of what you intend to build, and where, for an informal chat with your local planning authority.

However these can nowadays be hard to arrange as the planners are often too short-staffed to give the time they used to. This depends entirely on your local authority and the resources they have.

The more detail you have the more feedback the planners will be able to give you, including whether a costly wastewater system will need to be installed (mostly relevant to ROI where it is not possible to get a licence to discharge cleaned wastewater to a watercourse).

They will discuss planning matters only, i.e. appearance, access, etc. In other words they will not be concerned with the methods you plan to employ or how energy efficient your house will be, as 5 /2S/E SE 11 LFB LF UBILD U ILD / AU / AU T UTMUNM2020 N 2020

these relate to building control and the building regulations (not within the planners’ remit).

Many of the items outlined in relation to the Site (see previous section) are likely to be discussed, but you can also pick up the phone and query any of the aspects with them. Note that pre planning meetings are not binding, so you may get a refusal based on an aspect the planner said should be ok. The individual planner who is dealing with your case can change and so can their interpretation of the current development plans and other planning documents, which are also subject to change.

Who’s who

Advisors include the architectural designer who designs the house and draws up the plans for planning approval and then once approved, adds specific instructions into the plans for the construction stage. These construction drawings are the ones submitted to Building Control (on the Building Control Management

System in ROI, done online only, and to the building control officer in your area in NI).

Then there is the structural engineer who fills in the blanks on the technical aspects, e.g. sizing steel beams, the quantity surveyor who deals with the cost elements (see below), and the energy assessor who does up the energy calculations and energy rating for the house although sometimes architectural designers can take on this role.

M&E (mechanical and electrical) consultants are becoming much more common on selfbuild projects now, as well as interior designers and landscape architects.

Other professionals that may be brought on board tend to have to do with the planning process, e.g. planning consultants, or a specialist company to carry out a tree survey or an architectural survey, for example.

Quantity surveyors

Your architectural designer will ask you what your requirements are, and what is the maximum you can spend, to design the house.

However as seen on RTÉ’s Room

quantity surveyor is helpful in the design process to ensure the tenders (quotes from builders) are within budget. Quantity surveyors have local knowledge of the costs in your area which will also be invaluable information if going direct labour.

That said, the market does dictate the build cost and you won’t get an exact figure until you get these tenders back. You could ask builders to give you a rough idea of cost, but remember that ballpark figures from builders may be misleading if they don’t have enough information to go on and you don’t control what you are asking them to include in a price.

A bill of quantities or BOQ is a cost breakdown of every part of your self-build, down to the last detail. The cost breakdown deals with every aspect specific to the design and your site.

This document will guide you throughout the build and it is drawn up by a quantity surveyor.

By adding a BOQ to the tender, if anything changes on site you will have a unit price to refer to.

PC or Prime Cost sums are estimates built into the BOQ or into the builder’s quotation/ tender. These are very common for elements such as kitchens or bathrooms. The integrity and completeness of the construction drawings are essential for costing accuracy.

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PLANNING YOUR BUILD / BUDGET & DESIGN

Architectural designers

Choosing who will guide the house design is a very important decision to make; this person is referred to as the architectural designer. In most cases the architectural designer will be an architect, which is a protected title and refers to those who are a member of either the RIAI (ROI) or the RSUA/RIBA (NI). Architectural technologists are trained in a similar manner and can fulfil the same role and their chartered institute is CIAT (both NI and ROI); in some instances engineers will take on the role of the architectural designer but this is less common as architectural training tends to yield more efficient and aesthetically pleasing designs.

Basic design choices Priority v wish lists

The design is the most critical thing to get right on a self-build as everything will flow from there, so take the time to make sure you are happy with the plans and that they allow for plenty of natural light in the house and suit your needs. Remember that this will be your house and you will be the one living in it, so your input is a very important one. You are best placed to know what works and doesn’t work for you and your family.

Explore how you live and what you need from your house, as opposed to what you want to add in. You can add in the extras once the basics have been covered in parallel with your budget constraints.

Footprint

Comparing two houses of the same surface area, a two storey will be cheaper to build than a house with no upper storey, which explains why many houses in the countryside are one and a half stories although dormers of yesteryear, which protrude through the eaves line, are hard to get planning permission for.

The planners only allow up to a certain height and self-builders are keen to keep structural costs down. The same house size sprawled on the ground floor will inherently cost more for foundations, roofing, pipe runs, etc. There tends to be 20 per cent in the difference, of sprawling vs compact footprint.

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Shape and size

A rectangular shape is the cheapest to build; curves will require more thought and specialist products and may be difficult for furniture placement too. Oftentimes new build designs include multiple structures linked together, e.g. L shapes or courtyard formations to echo the local vernacular style, or protrusions for a window seat for example. Anything outside a rectangular shape will add to the building cost and is likely to be less energy efficient.

A large house obviously costs more to build but it also tends to cost more to maintain and heat, and if as a result the valuation is high, so will the property tax. .

“

...Remember that this will be your house and you will be the one living in it, so your input is a very important one...

Guide Selfbuild

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Pivotal decisions Energy efficiency

The latest round of building regulations (2019) in ROI mean that all new builds have to be very energy efficient, which should result in the house costing very little to run depending on size, and include at least one form of renewable energy. In NI you still have the option of building the house with an oil boiler as your main source of heat, with middle of the road insulation and airtightness; here you need to make the key decision of either building a regs compliant house versus a more expensive, (upfront), energy efficient home.

Doing an energy analysis on the home at the very start is crucial to compare the options and payback times based on your specific house design and specification.

In NI Building Control will ask for this information, and in ROI it is common practice to submit it when you file for your commencement notice on the Building Control Management System. If the house is not built to the minimum building regulation standards, remedial work will have to take place to make it compliant before you move in, with clear cost implications if you have to strip back walls.

Ventilation

In most cases, the choice of an energy efficient home goes hand in hand with a mechanical ventilation system, i.e. the need for at least 4’’ or 100mm

pipes to run in your ceilings. The ventilation company will take your floor plans and look at how to get the pipes to run so that they are at their minimum and work to their maximum capacity. This exercise must be done at the design stage.

Apex roofs will require careful consideration by your ventilation supplier, for instance. Also consider where the actual unit is to go, e.g. attic, plant room.

Renewables

Heat pumps have come a long way and are now pretty much the go-to choice for heat and hot water in energy efficient new builds in ROI. Consider what type of system you will be installing and where the components will go, e.g. need for plant rooms, and whether you can make the most of the digger on site if you plan on installing geothermal (as long as it’s the horizontal type which is the cheaper option but you need a large garden).

For electricity, harvesting it from the movement of water is a good option for constant power yearround if you have a viable stream but photovoltaics (solar panels) are the most common technology for one-off houses. Wind power provides slightly more constant power but has visual and noise (and therefore planning) implications so tend to work best if located further away from the house, e.g. further back on a farm.

Glazing

The amount of sunlight you let into the house will form part of your energy strategy and most new builds nowadays will have at least one portion of wall predominantly glazed, in the form of a sliding or bifold door, and may have a number of roof lights. Glazing will substantially add to your building costs with self-builders spending in the tens of thousands for this element alone.

Know that very large rooflights tend to be much more expensive

than off-the-shelf sizes. Also, with a high proportion of glazing, even if it is triple glazed, you will start running into issues with overheating which is why south facing elevations usually feature some kind of overhang to protect from the high summer sun, again adding an element of cost. The wall to glazing ratio will form an integral part of the energy assessment at the design stage /compliance with energy requirements of the building regulations.

Joinery

The kitchen and staircase can readily break the bank; research both these aspects when you design the house so as to get these costs under control early on and to have the plans drawn up for your specification.

The kitchen needs to be fully designed before you start construction, mostly to know where the ventilation and waste will go.

It is also more efficient to design it early so you have enough room for everything you want to include, yet without wasting space. Similarly, the staircase is likely to take pride of place so consider the design and materials and any needs for extra supports required at the foundations stage.

Designing the bathroom to exact fittings/fixture dimensions early on could save you headaches later on in the build, e.g. wall hung toilets needing a false wall. Again exact pipe runs will be very useful to know early on, including provisions for the soil vent pipe.

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Mortgage requirements Your financial health

The same requirements apply as for a regular mortgage: you usually need to earn a certain multiple of the amount to repay every month, need to be in permanent employment (with self-employed applicants requiring at last a number of years trading before being eligible), and have savings. In most cases the site can be put down as the deposit if the valuation pans out.

Loan to value

Finance options Mortgages

A self-build mortgage is the most common means of financing a one-off house build as it takes into account the unique nature of this type of project. The amounts on offer, and the interest rate (cost of borrowing the money), are usually the best on the market. New to the market is the green mortgage which links the energy efficiency of the building at the end of the project to your mortgage so you get a lower interest rate.

Credit union or other loan

Going mortgage-free is the aspiration of many; for a top-up to your savings, credit unions may offer better terms than standard bank or building society loans but do shop around. Green loans are available for energy upgrades and like the green mortgage, these offer preferential rates for ending up with a house that is cheaper to run.

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Grants and fiscal incentives

In both NI and ROI the most common grants are for existing buildings undertaking an energy upgrade; insofar as Selfbuild is aware there are no grants available for new builds.

In ROI if you are aged over 60 the grant covers the entire cost of the energy upgrade; there are also enhanced grants for low income households and adaptation grants. Older buildings may qualify for grants too but these can be difficult to get; contacting your local authority is a good first port of call. In ROI the Help to Buy scheme gives first time selfbuilders a rebate to help with your deposit; you will need a solicitor to do the paperwork for you.

In NI grants for existing homes include ones for replacing your boiler and adaptation grants.

A large bespoke home in the middle of nowhere may cost a lot to build yet only be worth a fraction of that amount on the market; the bank will therefore look at how much it costs you to build versus how much the bank will get if they end up repossessing it. On the upside, this constraint usually means the bank’s requirement will help you build in a profit into your home or at least make sure it is in line with the market valuation.

Build cost form

The banks will ask that you supply them with costings; they will have an average cost per sqm in mind and will expect your estimate to come in at least that amount.

Many banks have forms to fill in, which can be done by the builder but they will also accept a detailed bill of quantities. All build costs must include a contingency, which the banks usually expect to be between 10 and 20 per cent of the total.

Certifier

In all cases the banks will ask that you have a qualified individual with professional indemnity insurance to oversee the process. This person will sign off on the house having completed the various stages of the project to release payments. In ROI banks should allow you to opt out of the building control process of appointing an Assigned Certifier, as this is now currently routine for self-build projects.

Bank appetite for lending COVID-19 has tested the banks’ willingness to lend under unusual circumstances but think too if your preferred mortgage company lends to the type of site you plan to build on – are they adequately or overexposed in the area? The banks will look at resale value so considerations like it being in the middle of a family farm or very near farm buildings might have an impact on how much you can borrow.

S P O N S O R E D C O NTTIETN LE T

What can you afford to build?

Kieran McCarthy KMC Homes

The top five elements to affect the cost of building your home.

As the enjoyable and engaging aspect of drawing your house begins, you will be tempted to ignore the budget for many months.

But from the very moment you put pen to paper you should focus on the three basic pillars that will ensure your project gets to site: house design, planning permission and budget.

So, it is important that when you are setting up a design team, which is your responsibility to do as the client, that you have a designer who will look after the first two pillars and a quantity surveyor who will look after the third.

This is because it would not normally be possible for an architectural designer or engineer to accurately assess the cost of the house they are designing for you. That is not their core competency. Also, houses nowadays are too complex with too many moving parts to estimate its cost with any level of confidence in advance.

Here are the top 5 elements that affect the budget of your new home:

1

Size

Buildings are costed in rates per sqm or rates per linear meter so the bigger the building the greater these quantities will become.

However there are many

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sunken costs that don’t scale down or up; even a small house will need a reasonably sized kitchen and a heating source.

2

Site

What is underground affects your foundations; if you hit normal firm building ground then a standard footing will suffice but if you uncover rock or clay then a more expensive dig or foundation design may result. How far back your site is from a main road will also mean a longer driveway and service runs, adding more expense. Other factors include the slope which will affect the amount of bulk excavation required; a level site will require the least amount of bulk dig.

3

Design

The most basic design, which is what people usually refer to when discussing a costs per square foot price (though without most finishes and often excluding VAT), is what you would typically see in a dense housing scheme: a rectangular house with a straight ‘A’ pitched roof.

When you deviate from this design into a more expansive architect-led concept, you quickly move up the gears in terms of cost, in many cases due to the structure needed to support

KMC Homes provides full design, planning permission, cost control, building, finishes and project management services. KMC Homes Ltd., Fota Retail Park, Carrigtwohill, Co Cork, tel.

021 4882450, kmchomes.ie

large open spaces, large windows/ doors, unusual roofs and overhangs, etc. These may add greatly to your enjoyment of your home but they have cost implications that need to be priced up in advance. You can easily double to cost of a house with an elaborate design.

4

Specification

5

Scope of work

Once you have designed the spatial layout of your home the next key consideration is what you are going to put in it as the cost range is considerable: windows, heating system, ventilation, kitchen, bathrooms, tiles, floors, paint, patio, driveway, stairs, joinery, roof covering.

For example, a kitchen may cost you €7,000 or €40,000.

You may find that even once you have a good sense of your design and indeed your budget that you are still a little over, with no clear way of balancing the books. At this stage you may look at the scope of work and what you may potentially be able to defer for a year or two when you may have access to more money. Options to postpone spending up to €20,000 include waiting to fit out your utility room, built-ins in spare bedrooms, painting the outside of your house, your drive finish and some paving work.

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PLANNING YOUR BUILD / BUDGET & DESIGN Additional information: John Corless, Les O Donnell, Keith Kelliher and Andrew Stanway Always seek professional advice before starting your project.

Managing cash flow Stage payments

Banks release the money for your self-build mortgage in stages; this avoids you having to unnecessarily pay interest on a large sum of money. The stages correspond to the key moments in the build, such as completing the foundations, the walls, the roof, and internal finishes.

Remember that in many cases you will have to pay for materials or casual labour before the money is released.

There is a last stage for final sign-off including the snags, which

is usually 10 per cent of the build cost. The person you’ve hired to certify compliance with the building regulations will sign off on the certificates of compliance at the key stages of the build. These will be given to your solicitor who will then apply for the stage payment to be released.

VAT

In NI the standard VAT rate is 20 per cent but all self- built new builds qualify for a zero VAT rate, which leads to substantial savings. However, you will need

to have some cash flow to pay the VAT upfront then keep a record of all your invoices and apply at the end, very promptly as there is a time limit from when you get building control’s completion cert, for a refund. Some renovation projects qualify for a 5 per cent VAT rate, including if the house has not been lived in for two years, if you convert a barn into a house, or if the work is for someone aged over 60. VAT charged on professional fees is not reclaimable in NI.

In ROI, current VAT rates are 23 per cent on goods and 13.5 per cent on services; so if you hire a builder their services including the supply of materials are quoted at the 13.5 per cent VAT rate but if you go DIY and buy items off the shelf for your build, you will be charged 23 per cent.

Again, remember that everyone from the builder’s merchant to the contractor is likely to quote excluding VAT.

330

180

our self-build mortgages help you build your dream home.

Find out how you can keep your build on plan with a Self-Build Specialist at

aibni.co.uk/selfbuild Only available in NI YOUR HOME MAY BE REPOSSESSED IF YOU DO NOT KEEP UP REPAYMENTS ON YOUR MORTGAGE AIB reserves the right to withdraw or amend products at any time. Lending criteria, terms and conditions apply.

The AIB logo and AIB (NI) are trade marks used under licence by AIB Group (UK) p.l.c. incorporated in Northern Ireland. Registered Office 92 Ann Street, Belfast BT1 3HH. Registered Number NI018800. Authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority.

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PLANNING YOUR BUILD / PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Who will manage the project?

A key decision to make at the very start of the project is whether you go with a main contractor or manage each of the individual tradesmen yourself (known as direct labour); you also need to know in advance what costs are associated with site management.

Project managers Builder as project manager

Hiring a builder means you have one point of contact for the entire construction process. In return for the builder’s profit, anywhere from 10 to 20 per cent of the build cost, you are shifting most of the risks onto him, including building the house on time and on budget, managing cash flow and paying tradesmen, and statutory (mandatory) health and safety roles.

Design professional as project manager

In most cases your architectural designer will only have a supervisory role in that they will be checking the quality of the work at key stages, signing off on mortgage stage payments. But some architectural designers, engineers and professional project managers, can manage the project for you for a fee, to take care of everything that is outside the remit of the builder, e.g. sourcing materials that aren’t off the shelf and coordinating with specialist tradesmen.

They can also manage the project to be entirely direct

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Guide Selfbuild

labour. Make sure what their contribution to the project will be, and for what fee, is crystal clear from the start, and don’t hesitate to ask for clarification.

Project managers often charge a percentage of the build and this will depend on their level of involvement, but you can expect to pay around the 10 per cent mark. You can also ask that they give you a fixed cost for each element they are involved with.

Site foreman

An in between option is to hire a site foremean; a builder will have one if he doesn’t take on the role himself. The foreman focuses on keeping the site ticking over by coordinating the trades, making sure materials arrive when they need to and keeping the site tidy and safe. They may charge by the day or the hour.

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DIY

If you take charge of the entire supervision, you will not be able to hold down a full time job at the same time. A project manager is on call and has to be on site to keep on top of all aspects.

DIY project management means you will be investing time and money, as in money you could be earning if you weren't project managing the build.

Know that the experience will be stressful, for many reasons but one is that there will be a lot to coordinate. Also consider that you will be on site at weekends as well as during the week, so your personal life will also be impacted.

Remember that even if you do hire a main contractor, the owner remains the ultimate person responsible for taking every step possible to make sure the house is built to both the building regulations and to health and safety requirements.

Day to day management Cash flow

If you are taking out a self-build mortgage, the bank will release money in stages, only paying for work that has been completed up to key stages and signed off on by your certifier (engineer or other professional).

However tradesmen are often paid on a day rate and some deposits or purchases have to be made upfront (never pay the full amount in advance). This means you will need to have some cash available to pay for these, before you get the money for that stage from the bank. In NI you are entitled to a VAT refund on materials for your new build, but you will only get the money back at the very end of the project.

Contracts

A contract with your architectural designer, and one with your builder, are more than highly recommended.

This will allow you to refer to it if anything goes wrong; make sure the contract is one your solicitor

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PLANNING YOUR BUILD / PROJECT MANAGEMENT

checks and not one that’s been drawn up by the other party for you to sign. Individual tradesmen won’t sign a contract and you will be lucky if you even get a written quotation, but what is expected of them should be made clear from the outset and ask them what they need from you as well, e.g. have certain things prepared for them to do their work.

Health & Safety

In ROI for any project that lasts longer than 30 days or poses a health and safety risk, it is mandatory that you appoint a Project Supervisor Design Stage (PSDS) and a Project Supervisor Construction Stage (PSCS) to your project. Your architectural designer will usually take on the first role, which results in a detailed report

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that you must submit to the health and safety authorities. A fee will apply to put together the report.

The PSCS must be someone who is competent to take on the role of health and safety supervision during the construction stage; here too a report must be submitted to the authorities and you must follow it. It will detail how the site will be kept safe and will clearly identify who the PSCS is on site (usually the foreman), as they need to be present at all times when work is happening. Again, it is your responsibility as the owner to appoint someone competent (it could be yourself) and take overarching responsibility for the health and safety of those on site.

In NI, if more than one contractor is involved (including subcontractors) you must appoint, in writing, a Principal Designer (PD) and a Principal Contractor (PC). On a domestic self-build, you

(the client) can assume the role of PC, but only if you are sufficiently competent and knowledgeable. If you do not do this, your duties as a client are automatically transferred to the contractor or principal contractor and you should inform them that this is your intention.

offcuts on your site but in some instances you may ask that they take away the surplus if it can be recycled through the manufacturer/ supplier.

Waste management

You will have to make provisions for a dry and secure (under lock and key) place to store materials, and tools, which is why many self-builders build their garage first. You will also have to make provisions for water and electricity as well as toilet facilities (most likely having to rent portable loos). Lorry access to the site is also essential to avoid added costs: you will need a wide access lane that can withstand heavy loads.

A tidy site will save you money because having everything readily accessible saves time and has the benefit of reducing the risk of injury. Also tradesmen will be less likely to add to the junk pile if there isn’t one there – waste disposal costs can run very high with skips. Budget for this early on and make it clear to the tradesman who is to deal with what type of waste; most will dispose of their

Bare necessities on site

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Building Control Planning versus construction drawings

Your architectural designer will submit what looks like fairly detailed drawings to your local authority to secure planning approval. These are however in no way detailed enough to rely on to build your house. You will need to pay for a design professional to turn these into construction drawings, with clear instructions on how to build every element. It is common for an architectural designer to put together these drawings and for the builder to then suggest changes, which might make the construction more practical and cost effective. Make sure that you get a written itemised summary, from your builder, of costs that are affected by any

suggested differences to the designer’s specifications. Any change to the plans must be made in a new version of the plans, discarding all old versions that are on site. All sets of plans must abide to the building regulations and must be checked by a qualified professional to make sure they do.

Building regulations Even though the planners are not concerned with how you are going to build your house (but with how it looks from the outside and how it sites within the landscape along with its impact on

the environment), a condition of planning permission is that you build your house to the building regulations. This entails following the guidance documents published by the authorities: in ROI Technical Guidance Documents from the Department of Housing and in NI Technical Booklets from the Department of Finance.

These documents provide specific instructions, construction details and/or targets that are to be met, for all aspects of the build, i.e. structural integrity, energy efficiency, wastewater, etc. Again, it is the owner’s overarching responsibility to take every step to

“

make sure the house is built to the current building regulations; this means appointing competent persons to both put together the construction drawings and execute the installation.

Building Control is the government’s way of policing that you are building your house in accordance with the building regulations. Just bear in mind that building regulations are a minimum standard only, and in many cases you will go above and beyond these to get the quality of finish you want and a higher level of energy efficiency (lower energy bills).

Building control NI

NI has a fully functioning building control system whereby local authority building control officers both check the construction drawings to make sure they

Building Control is the government’s way of policing that you are building your house in accordance with the building regulations. . .

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Guide Selfbuild

are compliant with the building regulations and carry out inspections throughout the build to help you execute the plans, and tweak them as necessary and within the scope of the building regulations.

You must put in your plans in the first instance with your local authority to get them checked and approved by building control, then the inspection regime will be set out according to the project. You can call on the building control officer to visit the site at any time you need guidance.

At the end, the authorities supply you with a completion certificate, which you will need to get your final mortgage payment and VAT refund.

There are fees associated with the application to building control but this entitles you to six standard inspections on average. Subject to resources, they will endeavour to carry out all additional inspections you request but reserve the right to prioritise when and if required.

Building control ROI ROI’s building control function is wholly based on a self-certification

system. The owner either takes the responsibility to certify they have taken every step to ensure the house was built to the building regulations (‘opt out’), or the owner pays a professional to carry out inspections throughout the build and gather certificates of compliance from the tradesmen and suppliers to the project so that they, in turn, can supply a completion cert at the end (‘opt in’).

Due to the high cost of opting in, which is in large part a result of the administrative burden, most self-builders opt out, even when they hire a professional to act as project manager. When opting in, the self-builder is officially recruiting an Assigned Certifier (must be a registered architect, engineer or building surveyor) to take responsibility for the build.

The way the authorities keep track of these self-certified documents is online, through the Building Control Management System (BCMS).

When you have got your planning permission you must upload your construction drawings onto BCMS in order to apply for your commencement notice. You can

only start building once you have that document approved.

Building control officers within local authorities are mostly concerned with buildings that require a fire certificate (commercial premises), but they do also have the authority to do spot inspections on selfbuild sites. Because of a lack of resources, these are rare. You must pay a fee when filing for the

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commencement notice on the BCMS; if you opt in, the cost of hiring an assigned certifier has to be negotiated in the same way as you would when appointing a design consultant.

Energy rating

Before you can move into your new build, you will have to get an energy rating done up. The cost for a new build is around the 150 euro/pounds mark with the cost dependent on the size of the dwelling and on all paperwork being in order.

Risk protection Insurance

The professionals that will advise you throughout your build must all carry valid professional indemnity insurance; tradesmen and builders must also carry their own set of insurance to cover their work and behaviour on site.

However there is a minimum amount of insurance cover that you must take out on your build as the owner; this is to deal with any claims made against you if someone gets hurt (including visitors and trespassers) on the building site, and to protect you against the risk of damage and losses in relation to fire, theft, flood, etc.

Fine print

Make sure you fully understand what is and isn't covered in your policy. Structural defects warranties may last ten years but check what exactly is and isn't covered and for how

long; same goes for your insurance.

Warranties

Warranties are optional but are an excellent way to bring in an extra layer of quality control on the building phase and a guarantee against structural defects. The same principle as taking out a warranty on an appliance applies and a 10 year timeframe will give you time to evaluate if any defects in construction appear. A structural warranty policy usually covers any defect, fault or failure in design, workmanship, materials or components of the structure causing destruction of, or physical damage, to the house.

During the construction stage the warranty provider will send a surveyor to visit the site at key stages, usually four to six visits, to make sure the house is built to the building regulations. If works have already started, the surveyor will have to carry out a far more detailed survey which will result in a higher overall policy cost.

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PLANNING YOUR BUILD / WA S T E O N S I T E

Refuse the refuse

Building or extending a house generates a lot of waste, in the form of solids, liquids or sludges, all of which will cost money to dispose of. The first step therefore is to design waste out of your construction drawings, writes structural engineer and architectural designer Les O'Donnell.

Les O’Donnell landmarkdesigns.org.uk

Whose job is it to dispose of the waste your house construction creates on site? The polluter pays principle applies, i.e. it is ultimately your responsibility.

This usually means segregating between what can be reused on site, what can be recycled off site and what needs to go to landfill. Organise the waste destined for landfill or the recycling facility so that it can be placed in the relevant containers.

Refuse and reduce

You can refuse any unnecessary packaging by telling suppliers that you don’t want it, or ask them to take it back with them after delivery. Make this clear when placing your order.

From the beginning, try to work out how much waste you might end up with, by looking at the design and making sure it works to standard dimensions. If in doubt, allow 5 per cent of all materials being subject to cutting, trimming or adjusting. Over time, this will add up to a big pile.

Know that plasterers, tilers and so forth will have leftover material to discard, and they won’t want to take it away with them. If you are hiring a main contractor, waste management should be included in the contract.

If waste can be designed out of your plans, you will expend much less effort and cost in dealing with what remains. Helpful tips to reduce waste include: u Keep the design layout simple and use standard dimensions to avoid excessive cutting of materials, e.g. wall areas, room sizes and ceiling heights should match standard brick, block and panel dimensions. Offsite or Modern Methods of Construction can reduce significant amounts of site waste because all parts that arrive on site are used. u Keep an eye on the tendency to over engineer some structural items; oversized beams, columns, slabs, etc. contain material which is unnecessary and technically therefore, is waste. u Overordering or ordering too soon can result in materials or products stored on site becoming damaged and unable to be reused. A good weather-tight storage facility is very useful which is why many selfbuilders build their garage or shed first. u Consider that a building designed to suit the site contours will reduce excavation and fill operations. u Find out the lifespan of each building component and how and when it will need to be maintained, repaired or replaced. Anything going into spaces which are to be permanently covered should have a lifespan equivalent to that of the building.

Reuse, recycle and recover

A lot of what is commonly regarded as waste does not need to be dumped – in fact, landfill should only be the last option. Easiest to deal with are bits of unusable metal which can be sold as scrap, but wiring, straps, sheet materials and pieces of plasterboard will usually end up in landfill. That said, lengths of discarded pipe can be used for underfloor ventilation.

Dry untreated natural timber offcuts can be used as fuel in your new wood-burning stove but other types of timber need to be disposed of. Treated timber is considered hazardous waste. The other main categories of discarded items include: Insert material If there are buildings to be demolished it could be

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*Hazardous waste, i.e. waste that is harmful to the environment and/or human health, includes contaminated soil, any materials or substances that may have flammable additives, certain wood preservatives, lead, sealed glazing units, paints, caulking materials, elastic sealants and heat insulation, adhesives, sealants and mastic, tar emulsions, wood treated with fungicides and/or pesticides, coatings of halogenated flame retardants, equipment with PCBs, mercury lighting, systems with CFCs, containers for hazardous substances (solvents, paints, adhesives, etc.); and the packaging of likely contaminated waste.

worthwhile to hire a crusher to produce aggregate directly from old unreinforced concrete, bricks and blocks, etc. Defective bricks, blocks, slates, tiles or pavers can all be broken up to use as inert fill material or as filter media in the bottom of surface water soakaways. Offcuts from reinforced concrete lintels can be used as pad-stones under steel beams but check with your structural engineer.

Plastic Look for the recycling logo on hard plastic (most can be recycled). As a rule of thumb most packaging, e.g. film like plastics and styrofoam, aren’t recyclable.

Chunks of plastic based insulation material can be fitted into gaps to enhance the thermal efficiency of your dwelling, although in reality many insulation products can’t be recycled and most of the offcuts will be skipped.

Skip hire

Having taken every opportunity to reduce and reuse waste materials, the next step is to deal with what is left. It is important to get advice on dealing with construction waste from your local council, which may also have a scheme for leaving a skip on your site.

Private skips for hire will usually have a cheaper price for inert material only, but most people opt for mixed skips which includes everything from plasterboard to plastic. According to EnviroWise UK the true cost of a mixed construction waste skip is over 15 times the cost of the skip hire due to sorting.

Currently, the typical cost of hiring a medium sized skip (7-8 tonne) is around £120.00 + VAT in NI / €300 in ROI. Larger skips reduce the cost of disposal per tonne. Bear in mind that skip filling needs supervision to avoid creating more waste than you expected (know what you will be filling it with as a priority), and if placed along

a road make sure it is securely covered so passers-by don’t use it for fly tipping. Most operators also require that you do not overfill it (must be level with the top of the skip).

Trips to landfill

The alternative to ordering skips is to make trips with your van or trailer to the local council waste facility, where they will charge for anything that is neither household waste nor recyclable.

If transporting your own waste, get a list from your council which shows the categories of waste and how much it will charge to process them.

In ROI you will need to register

Guide Selfbuild

at £30.50/tonne.

A back of the envelope calculation comparing trips to landfill versus skip hire weighs heavily in favour of making the trips, even if you hire casual labour to do it for you. Check in advance that the landfill accepts construction waste.

In the dumps

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tidy on a daily basis, with unused materials stacked neatly, is always a good indicator of your workers’ attitudes to waste. If you are managing the site make sure you keep it clean, as this should help others on site be tidy too.

Hazardous waste

If not using a council skip or making trips to landfill, you must make sure that whoever takes it off your site is authorised to do so. Only give waste to local council waste services, a council-authorised waste contractor, licensed private waste operator or registered waste carrier.

There have been reports in the

Brownfield sites are defined as containing contaminated soil, but even a greenfield site can contain buried waste, so if you identify anything that looks like hazardous waste*, you must obtain expert advice on how to deal with it. The penalties for failing to control hazardous waste are severe.

The other source of hazardous waste for self-builders tends to be found in demolition works, due mainly to the absence of past

media recently of individuals posing as waste contractors, who charge a low fee and dump the waste illegally. If the price is too good to be true, there is usually a reason.

Be mindful too that if left unsupervised, the old practices of burying waste, incorporating unsuitable materials in fill and chucking cast-off items into cavities, voids and drainage trenches, will still happen.

A site which is kept clean and

legislation. Asbestos is a hazardous material that can be found in roof, ceiling and floor tiles, slates, some plasters, insulation and vermiculite products, and the cost of removal can easily run in the thousands.

Generally speaking, do not mix hazardous wastes with each other or with other non-hazardous waste, supervise what your site workers are dumping into the skip or trailer and prevent access to the skip by any unauthorised persons.

Hiring the largest skip size will reduce the cost per tonne but know exactly what you will be putting into it otherwise it will be filled by the tradesmen before you know it. Cover it to prevent fly tipping.

with the local council to get access to the landfill; the weight of your car and trailer or van is weighed upon entering and exiting. The cost varies but there is usually a minimum charge plus €200 per tonne.

The costs in NI tend to be lower with local authorities charging by type of waste. Charges at a typical council waste facility, which may differ in certain areas, are plasterboard at £50/tonne, timber at £41/tonne and contaminated soil

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PLANNING YOUR BUILD / BUILDING THE DREAM

Getting started

Brian Corry

Much as we thought we had found out everything we needed to know about the site we bought in Co Down, there were still plenty of surprises along the way, writes self-builder Brian Corry who is on a mission to build himself an eco house.

Our self-build journey started as it often does, house hunting. My wife, Karen, and I had been looking for some time but none of the houses we visited delivered what we were looking for, and Karen eventually said she was surprised I hadn’t suggested a self-build considering that we wanted a house that worked with the landscape, was ecologically friendly and low carbon.

Several months later we found the dream site which had an old single storey cottage with outline planning permission. It had a long windy, narrow, lane and a magical stream running down the back of the property overlooking a small Lough. Just perfect.

Working with an architectural designer

Over a number of months, we played around with various layouts and shapes on paper but none seemed to work efficiently as a home until we settled on a rectangular design with a curved roof.

When we went to our architectural designer, we were able to give him our detailed layout. Even though this saved time, there was still plenty to do and this is when you get see the designer’s skill and experience in drawing up the plans. That fresh perspective and

5 /8S/E SE 12 LFB LF UBILD U ILD / AU / AU T UTMUNM2020 N 2020

knowledge made our designs even better.

If we hadn’t already known exactly what we wanted, then we would have undoubtedly asked for initial sketches from a number of architectural designers and proceeded with the one we liked the most.

As it was, we employed an architect we knew and are happy with how the design turned out and with the suggestions he made.

We also knew our architect had a good rapport with the planners and he was able to guide us through gaining planning permission with

no hiccups.

Working with a QS

Spending so much money before we even broke ground led us to try and cost absolutely everything in the build. In hindsight, we should have employed a quantity surveyor (QS) from the very beginning instead of several months later.

However, it proved a very useful exercise to try to cost everything ourselves as it forced us to research and make decisions on bathroom fittings, the kitchen, floor coverings, lighting, etc.

What was most difficult was trying to work out the rates for the various trades and what time should be allocated for, say, plastering. This is where a QS comes into their own. They have up to date rates and know pretty accurately how long a job should take.

Knowing this is essential when you start to employ people directly to undertake work – how else will you know that you are not overpaying or whether the cheapest

quote you received is actually too low to be realistic?

Undoubtedly, having a QS does not remove all financial risk from a project however there is no hiding place when they do the sums and if you have been over optimistic then your QS should put you right. With the information they provide you should recoup their fee many times over, both in time and money.

To give you an example, our quantity surveyor gave us a breakdown of the preliminary costs: £725 for a temporary water connection, about £1,500 for the site office, accommodation and portaloo, and in excess of £3,500 for lifting equipment and generator.

The scaffolding hire for 300sqm for a period of 20 weeks, will come in at close to £5,500, and fuel, transport, site security and insurance also have to be factored in at this early stage, along with cleaning and tidying the site daily. Then of course there is the management, staffing and contracts manager, plus professional fees (QS, architect, engineer, energy assessor, solicitor).

Guide Selfbuild

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The planners and the roads service will not allow you to build on a site that does not give you the sight lines necessary to enter and exit the property safely.

In our case we had to buy a portion of the adjoining field, which was owned by the person selling us the site, to accommodate this. We were able to incorporate it into the sale to prevent it becoming a “ransom strip�.

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We wanted our house to be compact, to fit in with the surroundings and to reduce the build cost. An oversized home which costs a fortune to heat and maintain tends to be hard to sell when/if circumstances change.

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Curved roof

A curved or wing shaped roof blends in with the rolling drumlins of Co Down and allows us to have a full second story

Height

Planning constraints included a 6m maximum ridge height and a relatively small area on the site that we had to build the house within.

AUTUM AUTUNM2020 N 2020 / S/EL SF EL BU F BU IL DIL/D129 / 5

TITLE

PLANNING YOUR BUILD / BUILDING THE DREAM

Room sizes

FIRST FLOOR

We concentrated on having a large kitchen/family room and good-sized bedrooms where we felt we would be spending the majority of our time.

Robes

Plant room

Bathroom Bedroom

Landing

Simple design decisions will make your life easier, such as making sure the drawer for the cutlery and cupboard for the crockery are all within reach of the dishwasher; similarly think of where you are most likely to do the ironing. Also consider where the TV, and charging stations for your phones, will be.

GROUND FLOOR

R ig h t ( W e s t ) E l e v a t i o n

En-suite

Master Bedroom

Functionality

Void Over Kitchen/Living Dinning

Entrance/ lobby

Store

Bedroom

R e a r ( S o u t h ) E le v a t io n

1: 10 0

Study Pantry

Cloaks

WC

Bedroom

l

En-suite Shower

Robes ,

ADDED COSTS Demolition

Anyone who has watched even a couple of episodes of Grand Designs will know that the road to self-building is strewn with over optimistic budgets.

Our first reality check was the demolition and clearing of the massively overgrown, sloping site. It was only when we had cleared the vegetation that we realised we needed to cut and fill large sections to create a relatively flat area for the build.

An extra couple of days of digger work plus the stoning suddenly doubled the actual budget allocated.

5 /0S/E SE 13 LFB LF UBILD U ILD / AU / AU T UTMUNM2020 N 2020

Utility

Christmas tree l

Kitchen

Dining

F r o n t ( N o r t h ) E le v a t io n

Make sure there is sufficient space for at least one large Christmas tree in your new home, with a double socket close by. Also where you will store it, along with suitcases and other seasonal items. ,

Laneway gravel

That nice long laneway I mentioned at the start in reality cost a small fortune in stone to make it suitable for lorries to access. This was something we definitely hadn’t budgeted for.

Even after we had demolished the existing structure many tonnes of stone was needed to ensure the site was clean for vehicles to park on. £10K disappeared quick as a flash – ouch.

Living 1: 10 0

L e f t ( E a s t ) E le v a t i o n

Sitting Room

Furniture

,

We started by asking ourselves how many rooms we really needed as opposed to wanted. We were strict in not building in dining rooms, reception rooms etc. Our experience, growing up and with other people’s homes was that these rooms rarely got used so why bother with them?

Bugbears

We asked ourselves what things we found awkward in our current home and asked our friends too. We always felt that the laundry basket is never where you need it so we have made space for a chute directly to the washing machine from upstairs.

,

Compact design

John Corless, of Selfbuild Live fame, is forever mentioning the need to ensure that the furniture you want will actually fit in the room. We researched and got actual measurements for L-shaped sofas, our kitchen table, American style fridge, etc. to ensure that there was sufficient space for what we intended to buy.

Electricity connection

We had made an allowance of £20,000 for bringing electricity to the site but the reality is that you need to place a firm order and pay a deposit before a proper survey is undertaken.

It took months of planning, speaking to neighbours and pouring over Google maps to find a suitable route that everyone would be happy with – at a cost of £21,000 for the connection and approximately £3,000 for us to organise digging the trench.