Where to start when building a house?

Keeks

Where do you start? What is the first thing you should do before you start building a house?

Just wondering how other people started.

Also is there any good guides into building regulations in ireland. Something simple

smashey

Buy a site and get planning permission.

Seriously, make sure you are completely happy with the plans. Source good contractors from the locality and make sure to contact ESB, Eircom etc at an early stage. Generally, everything happens in an order (of sorts). Site preparation/clearing -> pouring founds -> right up to roofing. Don't skimp if at all possible, it is better to spend a few extra euro now than regret it in five years time. The current building regs aren't too complicated.

paulocon

Hi Keeks,

Good luck with the new build..

Some recommendations I'd always give would be:

- Get hold of the Homebond book - can't think of the name off hand but it's something of a self-build bible.
- Read as much as you can, there are now plenty of good resources out there, from the forum here on boards, to the forum on www.askaboutmoney.com as well as my own (growing forum) at www.selfbuildinireland.com/forum. Othere sites such as www.selfbuild.ie and www.selfbuildinireland.com have some good articles on them.

Also, check out www.sei.ie who have some guides for the self-builder.

I hope that is of some help to you. I have a few more links that I will try and dig up...

odonnell

The name of the book youre referring to is the Homebond House Building Manual, which is a fairly comprehensive guide on how a building is put together, technically. We use it a lot when designing dwellings at detailing stage for tender and construction.

My advice to you would be to firstly, seek an architects advice. Most smaller architectural practises would charge a minimal fee for advising (if theyd charge anything at all) on what you could do with any land you owned. After you have been advised, the architect would then go away and fling out a few options to run past you. After some sort of design is worked out the stages are pretty simple from your point of view as the architect would take it through to completion (if thats what you ask them to do), and the major stages would simply involve planning, and building warrant.

Planning permission basically makes sure the build is in line with regional planning policy and suits the councils plans for that particular area with no detrimental effect to the surroundings, and building warrant is essentially to ensure your building is constructed to government guidelines - structure, thermal performance, etc...

Any architect should be able to take care of all this for you. I recommend hiring one as whilst the regulations have been simplified slightly in recent years - there are still a few pitfalls to watch out for on any build and its an architects job to make sure everything is compliant.

galwaytt

money.

Everything starts with it, and ends with it.

You can do a simple calc on the cost by using either Eur90/sq ft for basic 'builders finish' or Eur125+/sq ft for more comprehensive finished spec.

De_man

odonnell wrote:

The name of the book youre referring to is the Homebond House Building Manual, which is a fairly comprehensive guide on how a building is put together, technically.

Available in Eason & Waterstones 47yoyo

Best of luck

niamh1975

Galwaytt, are you serious with those costs? does it depend what part of the country you are building in. Spoke with an architect recently and he said it was about €45 per sq metre

smashey

niamh1975 wrote:

Galwaytt, are you serious with those costs? does it depend what part of the country you are building in. Spoke with an architect recently and he said it was about €45 per sq metre

Niamh, as a fellow Donegal person, my advice to you would be shop around. You will get a better price than that.

muffler

niamh1975 wrote:

Galwaytt, are you serious with those costs? does it depend what part of the country you are building in. Spoke with an architect recently and he said it was about €45 per sq metre

I take it you meant to say €45 per sq. foot. I think you need to change architects if he thinks that you can build for that rate unless he was referring to labour content only.

A 2,000 sq. foot house for €90,000???

muffler

smashey wrote:

Niamh, as a fellow Donegal person, my advice to you would be shop around. You will get a better price than that.

Stay of the beer smashey - look what its doing to your senses

smashey

Damn. Wrong thread.:o

galwaytt

niamh - as pointed out, your architect is out by a factor of..........10 ?? and even then he's out another 100%.

If you can do it for cash, pay all direct labour, and lose your mind in the process, you might do it for under €80 per sq foot.

So, how are you at climbing scaffolding, then....???