selfbuild on a tight budget

Tasey

Hi all..
Im sorry to be posting a probably frequently asked question, but Im new, so forgive me! Myself & my partner are about to start the long journey down the road of self-building on a very tight budget. Our house is roughly 2490 sq ft & our budget is 150k. We are going to try save as much as possible on labour by getting family to help &friends to do jobs, & himself will do as much as he can. My question is, how do we save on materials, they seem to be the only thing that hasn't gone down in price. If we shop local we can cut down on delivery costs, but local builder providers are often more expensive for the products themselves, Im not talking about going for inferior products, but Im trying to save ourselves money where we can! If anybody can help or has any suggestions I would be extremely grateful.

Jimbo

Thats an extremely tight budget even with low labour costs.
It's also a big house. Have you got planning permission yet? If not, it might be worth considering scaling the size back if possible and have a higher spec smaller house.

I have heard some stories of people saving sginificantly on importing the internal fittings - kitchen, wardrobes, etc from China but there's obviously a risk involved.

LoTwan

I am building the same size with a (turnkey) budget of €250k & I am cutting things fine. Fairplay if you can manage to do it.

Tasey

We're crossing fingers & toes that we can manage it!

colorc

That is an extremely tight budget to be building that size of a house. Materials haven't really come down in price in any great significance, infact Timber has being going up in price over the last few months! Maybe you could search websites that sell second hand/surplus building materials like donedeal, buyandsell, selfbuildrates, add, gumtree etc.?

muffler

Personally I think that you will be hard pressed to build for that budget. It may just be possible if you can have 100% free labour.

On a slightly different but relevant note I see a lot of posts here about pricing for various house types and sizes and the majority are all well over 2000 sq. feet. Im just wondering are people not aware that a property tax is most likey on the way and it would surely be based on the size of the property.

Add to that the heating and general maintenance costs then I think people should really be looking at building something a little more appropriate for the times that are in it.

Sorry, rant over

sinnerboy

My old pal Pat Green posted this awhile back on another forum .

I can't put it any better then he , so -

One of the things that comes through on this forum is the number of people building houses for themselves on greenfield sites without any proper professional advice. This appears to be in order to save on professional fees. However from the size of the houses been built it is obvious that they could well afford the advice an architect could offer.
My advice would be as follows
1) Do you really want to live on a greenfield site where the only access for your children to school, church shops is by car fueled by a rapidly dimishing resource.
2) does the house need to be as big
From experience I find that the first thing is that clients do, is start listing rooms that they do not need, formal unused reception rooms, bedrooms that may only be used once a year if that by visiting relations, double garages, workshops palayrooms. They rapidly end up wanting a behemoth of a house that is way beyond their needs. Of course then they cant afford an architect if they are to build this monstrosity an end up with one of those dreadful pattern book houses from 1980 design books, with north facing sunrooms , that litter our country side.
No family house needs to be more than 150sqm, if it is properly designed. Within this you can have all the space and light that you could possibly need. The reason that houses end up larger than this is because people are hiring amateur unqualified draftsmen to draw up their house. A properly qualified architect will vigoursly question your assumptions and needs and you should end up with house designed around you and your family that you can afford. If you use your architect as a draftmen to draw up your house according to your own limited experience of what a house should look like - enormous with poorly linked unusable spaces.The house will not be designed for your site.

Remember you are designing a house for you and your family not for your grand aunts perception of palatial grandeur. You are not designing a B & B for your friend and distant relations, so why mortgate yourself to the hilt for your freinds who can either sleep on the floor or stay in the B & B down the road.

A 300sqm house no matter how energy efficent will cost a fortune to heat, hours to clean, and is using an unsustainable amount of matirial to build. A small house is an energy efficent house.

Design can change your life for the better and provide you with a house that is afordable, easy to heat and a pleasure to live in. Can you really afford not to use an architect. Throw away those dreadful pattern books. These are a crime against ireland's countryside. I spoke to one Planner who told me how these pattern book cowboys would come in every day with a different client and show the same plan, wink at the planner and tell the client how that particular plan is particularly suited to their needs.

You simply cannot afford bad design

shev7924

Iam after doing the plastering being on many private houses in the north east area and that was the exact budget many of the couples were working off because thats all the bank would give them.Two houses ive been to took all internal fixtures and fitings from new york over on a ship even down to the likes of internal slabs.They told me that it saved them 30percent on the budget.Cut short you can do it price around but dont always go for the lowest price.It usually means corner cutting

imitation

I would disagree in saying that a 2500 sqft house is far too big, throw in a office and a gym room as well as a playroom for the children and you wont be long in making good use of the space, especially if there is some open plan design going on. Moreover, as alot of self builds are outside of cities it just doesn't seem to make much sense to put up a small house, especially with economy of scale.

I also refuse to believe the doomsday scenario with oil will result in country living being untenable, yes there will be an uncomfortable period, but I honestly believe other energy sources will replace it once there has been enough proper development. I just don't think its a valid basis for somebody to build a home smaller than there requirements

Having said all that though, there is merit in saying that people do need to consider the size of there home carefully and if they really do need every single square meter.

wjc

You cannot finish that size house for that! Do not even think you can get builders finish on that budget. Don't start unless you have finances to finish. Be realistic!

I recently built a 180m2 house for about 160k and that was with doing a considerable amount of the construction myself, I dread to think how much it would have cost if I'd paid myself!

As for the size, for us 180m2 was plenty big enough, I could easily lose 10-15m2 without diminishing the quality of life in it.

A big house could be a liability rather than an asset in the future of high fuel prices and property taxes and rural overhang of property for sale.

galwaytt

...sorry to join the chorus, but I don't think it can be done for that either.

The absolute cheapest price I've seen so far, for 2350sq ft 2-storey, is €169,000, and I think that was a bargain, tbh.

Be very careful of price-only-led builder's........you will get exactly what you pay for........

st1979

I have a builder doing a similar size house for a similar price. He is doing his best for me to keep the cost down as i have given him a lot of work during the good times so it can be done and best of luck to you.