Am I mad?? Or can I build a 3500 sq ft house in 8-9 months...

Quilie19

Hello world. So everything is pretty much in place and good to go. The site preparation beginning the 2nd week in March, and the foundations will be dug and filled in the 3rd week....and off we go. I am building a 3500 sq ft house and garage. Going the direct labour route.
My goal and target is to be in a live-able dwelling for christmas 2017. Do people think this is achievable or am I being way too optimistic??
More then happy to answer any questions and provide more information on below :)
Traditional concrete block house. Ground floor pouring hardcore mix. First floor precast concrete slabs. Pre-made truss roof. Eco bead insulation. Underfloor heating all downstairs. Air to water system. Mechanical heat recovery ventilation. Laminate flooring downstairs and carpet upstairs (with exception of bathrooms).

ht9zni1gs28crp

Wow, 3500sq/ft thats a monster! 10 kids?

Best of luck with the build.

FiOT

Hi there,

I think it's very hard to tell from your post, I think it depends on your definition of self - build.

Are you self - building as in acting as project coordinator and getting outside trades to do everything on site or are you self- building as in doing as much of the labour as possible yourself on the build?

We are the second type, 1000 sq ft smaller than yours and only at first fix stage after 10 tough months.

Some parts of the build will just take time no matter what way you do it, e.g. our windows took 12 weeks and granite took 13 weeks. Some tradesmen will be too busy and you'll be waiting. You might have to wait for a mortgage draw down or a site visit by an engineer, everything adds on a few days/weeks. So far in our self - build, almost everything has taken longer than we guessed it would for lots of different reasons and for us the faster we moved the more expensive everything became, e.g. our windows were ready to be measured and ordered then we heard there was a special offer if we waiting 3 weeks, ended up saving 7% of the cost of them - well worth the delay in my eyes!

In my experience, self- building is very unpredictable, especially now that building is hotting up again. Employing contractors for everything will makes things smoother/easier and you won't be in the house until 10pm every night like us but your bottom figure will be bigger for it. My opinion is there isn't a huge amount to save in self - building if you don't do a lot of the work yourself, money just gets absorbed into places. I would absolutely love if someone corrected me on this!

All the best with it though, I would love for you to prove me wrong! Self - building has made me much the blunt realist!!

Quilie19

FiOT wrote: »

Hi there,

I think it's very hard to tell from your post, I think it depends on your definition of self - build.

Are you self - building as in acting as project coordinator and getting outside trades to do everything on site or are you self- building as in doing as much of the labour as possible yourself on the build?

FiOT, thanks for your detailed reply. Yes I will act as the project manager and have multiple tradesmen lined up to build, roof, plaster, plumb, etc. Myself and some family members will tackle some not-so-skilled parts of the project as it goes on, but 90% will be the professionals.
Yes I know what you are saying about the unpredictability of tradesmen nowadays with the current building boom. I plan on keeping most of the work as local as possible and by keeping a good line of communication going hopefully we won't fall too far behind schedule, and where possible have multiple tradesmen on site to work. 
The reason for avoiding the ease of using a contractor was the price. I got a quote for €410,000 and that nearly sent me to my grave, so doing it direct labour I plan to do it for €280....but am allowing for the 10% over budget, so hopefully it will come under €310k which is still a hefty saving.

Quilie19

Antonio Powerful Wildfire wrote: »

Wow, 3500sq/ft thats a monster! 10 kids?

Best of luck with the build.

Haha thanks Miller! Actually ZERO kids that I know of so far, but there is a reason for the scale of the build. I had originally designed a 2800 sq ft house which was fine and big, but then we had to redesign to adapt a granny flat to the house for a single parent so the size then jumped to 3500. Myself and the woman are only 27, but this time last year when we were looking to rent I decided f*ck paying some one else mortgage for another 5 years and lets just start paying off our own......11 months later and here we are :O exciting times

B-D-P--

Quilie19 wrote: »

Haha thanks Miller! Actually ZERO kids that I know of so far, but there is a reason for the scale of the build. I had originally designed a 2800 sq ft house which was fine and big, but then we had to redesign to adapt a granny flat to the house for a single parent so the size then jumped to 3500. Myself and the woman are only 27, but this time last year when we were looking to rent I decided f*ck paying some one else mortgage for another 5 years and lets just start paying off our own......11 months later and here we are :O exciting times

Same,
25 and building my own.
Pay your own mortgage not someone else, especially of you know your not going anywhere.

Dont think your mad, but your extremely optimistic. And I recon you'll rush some parts and regret it.
300K is a lot of money to be repaying to have regrets because you were eager to be in.

FiOT

Quilie19 wrote: »

Haha thanks Miller! Actually ZERO kids that I know of so far, but there is a reason for the scale of the build. I had originally designed a 2800 sq ft house which was fine and big, but then we had to redesign to adapt a granny flat to the house for a single parent so the size then jumped to 3500. Myself and the woman are only 27, but this time last year when we were looking to rent I decided f*ck paying some one else mortgage for another 5 years and lets just start paying off our own......11 months later and here we are :O exciting times

I remember being excited... Barely :P

Bets of luck to yourself and "the woman"!

Quilie19

B-D-P-- wrote: »

Same,
25 and building my own.
Pay your own mortgage not someone else, especially of you know your not going anywhere.

Dont think your mad, but your extremely optimistic. And I recon you'll rush some parts and regret it.
300K is a lot of money to be repaying to have regrets because you were eager to be in.

Fair play, best of luck with yours too B-D-P!
Any tradesman working on the job, I won't be mad rushing them. As you said 300k is alot of money, so I will be making sure the work is done nicely and correctly. If we can't wake up there on christmas morning its not the end of the world, but that is the goal/challenge I am setting

ht9zni1gs28crp

One tip, the devil is in the detail. The more details you can furnish now the better your chances will be. A house that size being self project managed I would want at least 30-40+ scaled accurate details, setting out your levels, air tight line and all interfaces. Your sub contractors will love you.

Quilie19

The reason I started this thread was because last night I was reading threads about self builds and people were talking about 14 months to 24 months! That got me thinking jaysus am I mad altogether planning to get a fairly big house up in 9 months. So i started working on an excel file to try and put a basic enough timeline together of the work to be done. I am unsure can you attach an excel file to this if anyone was interested in seeing it??? According to my time line I should be finishinh 2nd fixes in the 2nd week of November....#optimisticallyoptimistic

FiOT

Quilie19 wrote: »

The reason I started this thread was because last night I was reading threads about self builds and people were talking about 14 months to 24 months! That got me thinking jaysus am I mad altogether planning to get a fairly big house up in 9 months. So i started working on an excel file to try and put a basic enough timeline together of the work to be done. I am unsure can you attach an excel file to this if anyone was interested in seeing it??? According to my time line I should be finishinh 2nd fixes in the 2nd week of November....#optimisticallyoptimistic

You are starting to build at the most popular time of year to start building, we started around the same time. A lot of people wait until spring to get started, longer days and (save for the odd storm or two) better weather. This means every tradesmen and material supplier will all become busy at the very time you need them.

Maybe timber frame would help you meet your timeline better?

Do you have a a job where you can take a huge amount of time off to oversee certain parts of the build or answer phone calls 4/5 times a day?

Quilie19

FiOT wrote: »

Maybe timber frame would help you meet your timeline better?

Do you have a a job where you can take a huge amount of time off to oversee certain parts of the build or answer phone calls 4/5 times a day?

Yeah a few months back I was considering going timberframe but then decided against it, too late to change now.
I can take phone calls practically all day unless in meetings and I can also work from home on the laptop to be close to the site for certain days/stages. It won't be easy and I have been warned against the project management side of it, but sure nothing comes easy in life and with the amount we stand to save doing this myself it will hopefully justify the pressure, stress and bother. I enjoy planning and this type of work anyway.

FiOT

Quilie19 wrote: »

Yeah a few months back I was considering going timberframe but then decided against it, too late to change now.
I can take phone calls practically all day unless in meetings and I can also work from home on the laptop to be close to the site for certain days/stages. It won't be easy and I have been warned against the project management side of it, but sure nothing comes easy in life and with the amount we stand to save doing this myself it will hopefully justify the pressure, stress and bother. I enjoy planning and this type of work anyway.

Well it's not easy and it can be stressful etc. but anyone can get over that. It's being able to make split second decisions about what's best for your home.

I hear himself on the phone talking to tradesmen and it's gobbledegook to me. He's in construction 13 years and still sometimes he's not sure. Most of our tradesmen are friends and we say "well go on to something else and we'll have a think/do some furious research" and they curse and get on with it. It's more difficult to say that to a tradesmen who has 5 other jobs lined up and all being delayed because of yours.

I probably sound quite negative, I'm actually loving the process as a whole but only because he knows what's going on. I do the money, he sorts the trades.
Just don't let the excitement blind you!

steinbock123

One thing I would NOT do is go for underfloor heating. We put it in, and there's no doubt it's a lovely way of heating a house, and I can't explain it, but it's a different kind of warmth. However, what you're effectively doing is heating up a big slab of concrete, just like a storage heater. This is fine when you live in Norway and it goes to minus 10 degrees C in September or whenever, and stays that cold until March, you can leave it on low all the time and it's economical to run. But in good old Ireland, where it can be 15 degrees today and then minus 1 tomorrow and then back to 10 the next day, it's impossible to adjust it quickly like you can with traditional radiators. It also makes it hard to heat the house quickly if you have it off and come home and need a bit of heat. We have ended up with (expensive to run) blow heaters in a couple of rooms. So if I was ever building a new house again it would be a definite no no.

Dudda

steinbock123 wrote: »

One thing I would NOT do is go for underfloor heating. We put it in, and there's no doubt it's a lovely way of heating a house, and I can't explain it, but it's a different kind of warmth. However, what you're effectively doing is heating up a big slab of concrete, just like a storage heater. This is fine when you live in Norway and it goes to minus 10 degrees C in September or whenever, and stays that cold until March, you can leave it on low all the time and it's economical to run. But in good old Ireland, where it can be 15 degrees today and then minus 1 tomorrow and then back to 10 the next day, it's impossible to adjust it quickly like you can with traditional radiators. It also makes it hard to heat the house quickly if you have it off and come home and need a bit of heat. We have ended up with (expensive to run) blow heaters in a couple of rooms. So if I was ever building a new house again it would be a definite no no.

This is exactly NOT how you run underfloor heating. Underfloor heating runs at low temperature and heats up the slab and then the concrete slab slowly releases heat throughout the day into the room. For this to work you have to have a well insulated and airtight house. You also need to have the underfloor heating always on and connected to a room stat or weather compensator or similar. It’s not something you turn on and off when your cold. Having it 15 degrees one day and minus 5 the next makes little difference if the house is well insulated and airtight. If done this way it’s very efficient and cheap way of heating as the house should cool very slowly and heat very slowly. Radiators work on the opposite way heating up fast, heating the house quickly and cooling quickly when off. As they’re more instant you don’t need as well as insulated house but it will cost you far more money to run.

Quilie19

This is exactly NOT how you run underfloor heating. Underfloor heating runs at low temperature and heats up the slab and then the concrete slab slowly releases heat throughout the day into the room. For this to work you have to have a well insulated and airtight house. You also need to have the underfloor heating always on and connected to a room stat or weather compensator or similar. It’s not something you turn on and off when your cold. Having it 15 degrees one day and minus 5 the next makes little difference if the house is well insulated and airtight. If done this way it’s very efficient and cheap way of heating as the house should cool very slowly and heat very slowly. Radiators work on the opposite way heating up fast, heating the house quickly and cooling quickly when off. As they’re more instant you don’t need as well as insulated house but it will cost you far more money to run.

Yes I will be trying to achieve a good airtight build, using a mechanical heat recovery system for the ventilation. Going with a Daiken air to water system to heat the UFH and will have thermostats across the house to control it. Going with radiators upstairs. Waiting on a guy to do that DEAP test to check if we will be ok with the following: Ground floor - 150mm Xtratherm PIR insulation. Cavity walls - 150mm Kingspan Eco Bead full fill cavity insulation with Roadstone Thermal Liteblock and 12mm slab dabbed onto the inside, Attic Area - 400mm deep Mitac quilt insulation, laid in 2 layers. Along with the Daiken air to water system and either Beam or Vent Axia MHR system.

Metric Tensor

Quilie19 wrote: »

Roadstone Thermal Liteblock and 12mm slab dabbed onto the inside,

I'd recommend against that. Only use the thermal block for the bottom few rows and take the money you save to sand and cement plaster (two coat) the wall with a skimmed finish.

Airtightness detailing with dabbed slabs on the external wall is very difficult.

Thoie

Quilie19 wrote: »

The reason I started this thread was because last night I was reading threads about self builds and people were talking about 14 months to 24 months! That got me thinking jaysus am I mad altogether planning to get a fairly big house up in 9 months. So i started working on an excel file to try and put a basic enough timeline together of the work to be done. I am unsure can you attach an excel file to this if anyone was interested in seeing it??? According to my time line I should be finishinh 2nd fixes in the 2nd week of November....#optimisticallyoptimistic

From a project management perspective, get yourself a copy of something like Microsoft Project, and put _everything_ in there, with how they're connected. Do some study on critical paths, and how to view them in the schedule tool you have. Lots of people manage perfectly well with Excel, but the beauty of proper PM tools is that if someone comes to you and says "the windows are delayed 2 weeks due to unicorns", you'll be able to see very easily what else that will impact, where the knock-on effects will be, etc.

It's slightly more tedious to set up right initially (though you can copy and paste the existing text from Excel to help things along), but a few hours of set up and learning now could save you a lot of hassle later.

Tyson Lannister

Metric Tensor wrote: »

I'd recommend against that. Only use the thermal block for the bottom few rows and take the money you save to sand and cement plaster (two coat) the wall with a skimmed finish.

Airtightness detailing with dabbed slabs on the external wall is very difficult.

I thought that the plaster would crack where where the thermal block meets the normal concrete block?

Metric Tensor

Tyson Lannister wrote: »

I thought that the plaster would crack where where the thermal block meets the normal concrete block?

Hmm. It might do but I haven't seen it happen ... although in many cases this would be behind the skirting board anyway so you'd already be doing some kind of AT remedy in that area. Also the mortar between the blocks is the same conductivity everywhere so in theory this could cause cracking too.

Building the whole internal leaf of "thermal" block is a crazy waste of money for the benefit you get. Even the benefits of one or two blocks near the bottom is not huge. You'll already be turning up the floor insulation at the edge so it's main job is to provide a break between the cold rising wall and warm higher wall so in theory one block should be sufficient.

And to further throw the cat among the pigeons said block has to be dry to have any effect ... so where does that leave you with your DPC level.

Apologies - I've gone on a mad tangent but to sum up - I see your point but I haven't seen it occur in practice (yet anyway).

ht9zni1gs28crp

Tyson Lannister wrote: »

I thought that the plaster would crack where where the thermal block meets the normal concrete block?

No it doesnt.

ht9zni1gs28crp

Metric Tensor wrote: »

Hmm. It might do but I haven't seen it happen ... although in many cases this would be behind the skirting board anyway so you'd already be doing some kind of AT remedy in that area. Also the mortar between the blocks is the same conductivity everywhere so in theory this could cause cracking too.

Building the whole internal leaf of "thermal" block is a crazy waste of money for the benefit you get. Even the benefits of one or two blocks near the bottom is not huge. You'll already be turning up the floor insulation at the edge so it's main job is to provide a break between the cold rising wall and warm higher wall so in theory one block should be sufficient.

And to further throw the cat among the pigeons said block has to be dry to have any effect ... so where does that leave you with your DPC level.

Apologies - I've gone on a mad tangent but to sum up - I see your point but I haven't seen it occur in practice (yet anyway).

Yes on our Passive house it wasn't necessary to inner leaf the lot in Thermal blocks, yes a few areas at the base to help the cold bridge base detail but your right its overkill.

Quilie19

Metric Tensor wrote: »

Quilie19 wrote: »

Roadstone Thermal Liteblock and 12mm slab dabbed onto the inside,

I'd recommend against that. Only use the thermal block for the bottom few rows and take the money you save to sand and cement plaster (two coat) the wall with a skimmed finish.

Airtightness detailing with dabbed slabs on the external wall is very difficult.

My understanding from what the engineer told me was them thermal liteblocks would only be used around the windows and doors. They are expensive enough alright so I definitely would not be using them for the whole cavity wall.

Quilie19

Thoie wrote: »

Quilie19 wrote: »

The reason I started this thread was because last night I was reading threads about self builds and people were talking about 14 months to 24 months! That got me thinking jaysus am I mad altogether planning to get a fairly big house up in 9 months. So i started working on an excel file to try and put a basic enough timeline together of the work to be done. I am unsure can you attach an excel file to this if anyone was interested in seeing it??? According to my time line I should be finishinh 2nd fixes in the 2nd week of November....#optimisticallyoptimistic

From a project management perspective, get yourself a copy of something like Microsoft Project, and put _everything_ in there, with how they're connected.  Do some study on critical paths, and how to view them in the schedule tool you have.  Lots of people manage perfectly well with Excel, but the beauty of proper PM tools is that if someone comes to you and says "the windows are delayed 2 weeks due to unicorns", you'll be able to see very easily what else that will impact, where the knock-on effects will be, etc.

It's slightly more tedious to set up right initially (though you can copy and paste the existing text from Excel to help things along), but a few hours of set up and learning now could save you a lot of hassle later.

Thoie, I will definitely give that ago, thanks for your input

Quilie19

So from peoples experience with insulating there house, what would be good advise for someone that is open to any decision. I understand it is a very expensive part of the build but it is something I am willing to spend the money on it (within reason) because the long term benefits are well worth it. 
I will be going with triple glazed windows on all North East to North West facing walls and double glazed for the East to West walls, the house will be block built (too late for anyone to suggest timber frame insulation advantages), the cavity size is open to discussion and the cavity insulation type is open to discussion, and brand name is open to discussion.
And I suppose also taking into account we will have a good UFH system accompanied with a Daikin Altherma Air to Water heatpump with 260ltr DHW storage, and some sort of good Heat Recovery ventilation system.

babybuilder

I did a self build a few years back. Digger went on site on 20 August and I was in house 15 September a year later. I went timber frame with a block on outside. Part of the build I employed a builder to oversee the block work and some of the first and second fixing. However I spent the year project managing the build. If you included the planning and design stage I'd say it took three years. If you are using local reputable trades keep everything business like and be prepared to fall out with them. It's your money and you'll be paying back this with interest for a long time. If you are employing subcontractors be careful who is doing the work as in busy periods it may not be the person who you think is doing the work.
If I was doing it again I think I would go for a reputable contractor as I don't think I saved that much. Be prepared for enormous amounts of stress. Who is going to inspect the different stages of the build? Best of luck!

FiOT

Quilie19 wrote: »

So from peoples experience with insulating there house, what would be good advise for someone that is open to any decision. I understand it is a very expensive part of the build but it is something I am willing to spend the money on it (within reason) because the long term benefits are well worth it. 
I will be going with triple glazed windows on all North East to North West facing walls and double glazed for the East to West walls, the house will be block built (too late for anyone to suggest timber frame insulation advantages), the cavity size is open to discussion and the cavity insulation type is open to discussion, and brand name is open to discussion.
And I suppose also taking into account we will have a good UFH system accompanied with a Daikin Altherma Air to Water heatpump with 260ltr DHW storage, and some sort of good Heat Recovery ventilation system.

Your DEAP assessment will tell you what you need to have in this regard.

Metric Tensor

Triple glaze all the windows - in my opinion it's only fooling around mixing double and triple glazing. The difference in solar gain is minimal compared to the difference in heat loss and the price difference from most manufacturers is small because they (in general) use the same frames anyway.

Thoie

Quilie19 wrote: »

Thoie, I will definitely give that ago, thanks for your input

I'm not in construction, but if you go with MS Project, I can review the schedule for you if you want to PM me when you have it.

Another handy thing you can do is enter things like bank holidays for everyone involved, or individual holidays. Let's say Fred has responsibility for ordering the windows, and the window ordering milestone is March 31st. Using Project, you see that ordering windows is on the critical path - if it's not done by then, the end date will be delayed. You've also noted that Fred is on holidays from March 27th - April 7th. Excel will only show you that the deadline is March 31st, but in reality you'll need to have made the decision and placed the order by March 24th at the latest, or else move the responsibility to someone other than Fred.

A separate thing to read up about are RACIs . Maybe Fred is responsible for placing the window orders, but the architect is accountable for ensuring they're correct, and you and your partner should be consulted (about the colour, the price, double or triple glazing, whatever). Having a very clear list of who's responsible for what helps to avoid things slipping through the cracks, where a bunch of people all think someone else is doing it. This could be particularly useful where you're taking on a lot of the management yourself, and you think the contractors will do something, and it later turns out that they thought you were ordering things.

Having said all that, lots of people do all these things with nothing more than a stack of post-it notes and things scribbled on plasterboard. I'm sure the people with actual construction experience will be along soon to say my suggestions are overkill

babybuilder

Metric Tensor wrote: »

Triple glaze all the windows - in my opinion it's only fooling around mixing double and triple glazing. The difference in solar gain is minimal compared to the difference in heat loss and the price difference from most manufacturers is small because they (in general) use the same frames anyway.

Agree. Double glazing should not be considered. In my build I used wood frame triple glazing. The level of airtightness and insulation must be carried out to a high standard by work men who have experience doing this.

Quilie19

babybuilder wrote: »

I did a self build a few years back. Digger went on site on 20 August and I was in house 15 September a year later. I went timber frame with a block on outside. Part of the build I employed a builder to oversee the block work and some of the first and second fixing. However I spent the year project managing the build. If you included the planning and design stage I'd say it took three years. If you are using local reputable trades keep everything business like and be prepared to fall out with them. It's your money and you'll be paying back this with interest for a long time.  If you are employing subcontractors be careful who is doing the work as in busy periods it may not be the person who you think is doing the work.
If I was doing it again I think I would go for a reputable contractor as I don't think I saved that much. Be prepared for enormous amounts of stress. Who is going to inspect the different stages of the build? Best of luck!

Ok thank you. So maybe I am a bit mad and I should prepare to be still completing the build into 2018. The tradesmen I have lined up for jobs at the moment are all job specific so I know they will be the ones on the job....and yes there probably will be a few thick heads come the end of it but i'm sure we will all happily sit for a pint of plain at the end of it all. Prices will be agreed up front, but I am also getting other prices to compare against, and if my proposed guy is way too high he will be given the option to come down closer to the other price or skedaddle. 
I have a Engineering consultant hired for the signing off at the certain stages and doing the site visits and working drawings, etc. Got him for €5000 which is good considering these assigned certifiers that the banks were originally requiring were up around €12,000.

babybuilder

I might sound a little paranoid but take minutes of each meeting that you have with your subs. This also is a two-way street as any changes you make later may cost you.
Btw have you got a QS to price it for you?

Quilie19

Metric Tensor wrote: »

Triple glaze all the windows - in my opinion it's only fooling around mixing double and triple glazing. The difference in solar gain is minimal compared to the difference in heat loss and the price difference from most manufacturers is small because they (in general) use the same frames anyway.

Very good. The price I got for my windows is for all triple glazed anyway. It was only recently my engineer was going on about the windows on certain sides of the house should be double/triple with certain U value and a certain G value, so thats why I put that in to see what other people take was on that. I took a screenshot the other day that kind of backs his solution, but i know it maybe handiest to just stick with triple glazing all over. I would attach that screenshot but I do not know how to add attachments

Quilie19

babybuilder wrote: »

I might sound a little paranoid but take minutes of each meeting that you have with your subs. This also is a two-way street as any changes you make later may cost you.
Btw have you got a QS to price it for you?

Yes I understand that, thats why I am trying to have all my eggs lined up and a clear idea of what will be used so that there will be minimum changes down the line that could give the tradesmen any reason to say hey the price we agreed did not include for this.
No I have not had a QS price it up for me.

babybuilder

Quilie19 wrote: »

Yes I understand that, thats why I am trying to have all my eggs lined up and a clear idea of what will be used so that there will be minimum changes down the line that could give the tradesmen any reason to say hey the price we agreed did not include for this.
No I have not had a QS price it up for me.

I'd seriously consider getting an independent price through a QS. If you're planning on spending circa 300k then 400 or 500 is money well spent.

Metric Tensor

Project management using MS Project would be great but there is no doubt it will cause you a lot of stress seeing the end date slip and slip and slip.


Many/most of your sub contractors and labourers who are on the critical path will not show up or be available on the day you asked them to be and then when they do agree to a day they still will end up being a few days late arriving.

Poor weather can easily lose you a week or two.

A mistake (they happen) that has to be corrected will add a few days.

You'll be responsible for material deliveries too - so if something is missed or forgotten you'll have to take the day off work to go and get it whilst paying your subbie to stand twiddling his thumbs on site.

What I'm saying is ... particularly in the case of a direct labour job (where the subbies will most likely never get another job from you) ... is that if you want to be in by Christmas your first shot at a programme would need to show the whole project finishing in early November.

Quilie19

Thoie wrote: »

Quilie19 wrote: »

Thoie, I will definitely give that ago, thanks for your input

I'm not in construction, but if you go with MS Project, I can review the schedule for you if you want to PM me when you have it.  

Another handy thing you can do is enter things like bank holidays for everyone involved, or individual holidays.  Let's say Fred has responsibility for ordering the windows, and the window ordering milestone is March 31st.  Using Project, you see that ordering windows is on the critical path - if it's not done by then, the end date will be delayed.  You've also noted that Fred is on holidays from March 27th - April 7th.  Excel will only show you that the deadline is March 31st, but in reality you'll need to have made the decision and placed the order by March 24th at the latest, or else move the responsibility to someone other than Fred.

A separate thing to read up about are RACIs .  Maybe Fred is responsible for placing the window orders, but the architect is accountable for ensuring they're correct, and you and your partner should be consulted (about the colour, the price, double or triple glazing, whatever).  Having a very clear list of who's responsible for what helps to avoid things slipping through the cracks, where a bunch of people all think someone else is doing it.  This could be particularly useful where you're taking on a lot of the management yourself, and you think the contractors will do something, and it later turns out that they thought you were ordering things.

Having said all that, lots of people do all these things with nothing more than a stack of post-it notes and things scribbled on plasterboard.  I'm sure the people with actual construction experience will be along soon to say my suggestions are overkill

At the moment and the way I am planning to go about it, Quilie = Fred, and Fred will be looking after every aspect of hiring the tradesmen, communicating the timeframe and trying to get the people when they are needed, and ordering and supplying all materials to the site for when they are required. I have an excel file kind of like how you described MS project above where I have all the list of jobs and the person/company for that job, with a column for any holidays they have planned or times when they know they will not be available, and a column for the amount of days/weeks they think they need to complete their job and another 2 columns for tolerance, "if everything was to go good" or "if things were to go bad for X reasons". So that way I can be prepared to let the next tradesman know - look can you put me down in the diary for this date, and if anything is not going to plan I will let you know in advance and change you to this date. Haha probably sounds silly but it makes some sense in my own head.

Quilie19

babybuilder wrote: »

Quilie19 wrote: »

Yes I understand that, thats why I am trying to have all my eggs lined up and a clear idea of what will be used so that there will be minimum changes down the line that could give the tradesmen any reason to say hey the price we agreed did not include for this.
No I have not had a QS price it up for me.

I'd seriously consider getting an independent price through a QS. If you're planning on spending circa 300k then 400 or 500 is money well spent.

Yes maybe that is a good idea. Can you tell me what I would be getting from the QS? Would they go into detail about materials and this and that, or just lay out for me saying you should be spending X amount to complete the build.

FiOT

Quilie19 wrote: »

Yes maybe that is a good idea. Can you tell me what I would be getting from the QS? Would they go into detail about materials and this and that, or just lay out for me saying you should be spending X amount to complete the build.

QS will be able to give you a bill of quantities so you'll know exactly how much of everything you'll need to order if you're doing the ordering, very hard to judge otherwise unless your tradesmen and going to guesstimate for you.

We ended up with some left over of everything down to these guesstimations, little bit of money lost everywhere and a pile of stuff down the back of the garden that we'll never use!

babybuilder

Quilie19 wrote: »

Yes maybe that is a good idea. Can you tell me what I would be getting from the QS? Would they go into detail about materials and this and that, or just lay out for me saying you should be spending X amount to complete the build.

A good QS report will detail all materials and labour costs. Just going back to your house size and what you've budgeted. 300k for a 3500sq ft house in my view is way underestimated. Ten years ago most self-builds came in at 100e + per sq ft. You really need to have a more detailed look. What level of finish are you aiming for? Turnkey? My house is c. 3000 sq ft and the final cost was more than 400k including outside.

Quilie19

What I'm saying is ... particularly in the case of a direct labour job (where the subbies will most likely never get another job from you) ... is that if you want to be in by Christmas your first shot at a programme would need to show the whole project finishing in early November.

In the excel file that I have completed, it finish date is the 2nd week of November. So thats promising. But I really don't know if I am allowing for coorect times on certain jobs, like drying period for the interior plastering for example, and for certain jobs I have planned to overlap each other if it is possible to do it like that. 
Does anyone here know how to post an excel spreadsheet on to this? I would be very curious for peoples feed back on the time frame I have laid out.

Quilie19

babybuilder wrote: »

Quilie19 wrote: »

Yes maybe that is a good idea. Can you tell me what I would be getting from the QS? Would they go into detail about materials and this and that, or just lay out for me saying you should be spending X amount to complete the build.

A good QS report will detail all materials and labour costs. Just going back to your house size and what you've budgeted. 300k for a 3500sq ft house in my view is way underestimated. Ten years ago most self-builds came in at 100e + per sq ft. You really need to have a more detailed look. What level of finish are you aiming for? Turnkey?  My house is c. 3000 sq ft and the final cost was more than 400k including outside.

Cool I will look into the QS situation. Did you go all direct labour and supply all material yourself? or did you have subcontractors involved in your build? The only reason I feel I can get the job done for approx. 300k is because I am involving no contractors.

Thoie

Quilie19 wrote: »

In the excel file that I have completed, it finish date is the 2nd week of November. So thats promising. But I really don't know if I am allowing for coorect times on certain jobs, like drying period for the interior plastering for example, and for certain jobs I have planned to overlap each other if it is possible to do it like that. 
Does anyone here know how to post an excel spreadsheet on to this? I would be very curious for peoples feed back on the time frame I have laid out.

I think you have to have made a certain number of posts before you're allowed attach files - you've made 16 so far, so that may be a bit low.

When you can do it, when you're writing a post click the paperclip at the top. Max filesize allowed for xls is 300k, which seems very small. For privacy, maybe search and replace all the names with something else - eg, change Quilie to Fred, etc.


Edit: You need 50 posts before being allowed to attach files.

Quilie19

babybuilder wrote: »

What level of finish are you aiming for? Turnkey?  

No, my goal would be to have water and electricity, a bed in the masterbedroom, and a Christmas tree in the sitting room. All the interior design can be taken care of by ourselves as the weeks and months go on

FiOT

Quilie19 wrote: »

No, my goal would be to have water and electricity, a bed in the masterbedroom, and a Christmas tree in the sitting room. All the interior design can be taken care of by ourselves as the weeks and months go on

Check with your bank how little they will accept in terms of "done"

Our bank wants floors in all rooms etc. or they won't allow the completion draw down.

We had a Christmas tree this year... and no front door.

Thoie

FiOT wrote: »

Check with your bank how little they will accept in terms of "done"

Our bank wants floors in all rooms etc. or they won't allow the completion draw down.

We had a Christmas tree this year... and no front door.

Off-topic, but is that specifically for a self-build? I'm in the process of buying a new build, and can't see how that would work in my case - builders won't give me the keys to lay floors until I've paid them (with the mortgage draw down).

Quilie19

FiOT wrote: »

Quilie19 wrote: »

No, my goal would be to have water and electricity, a bed in the masterbedroom, and a Christmas tree in the sitting room. All the interior design can be taken care of by ourselves as the weeks and months go on

Check with your bank how little they will accept in terms of "done"

Our bank wants floors in all rooms etc. or they won't allow the completion draw down.

We had a Christmas tree this year... and no front door.

My idea of turnkey is - fully furnished, all walls painted, curtains hanging, walk in wardrobe and other wardrobes assembled from ikea, etc. What I hope for is the laminate floor all laid downstairs, the kitchen installed, and probably the carpet laid upstairs. Then furnishing wise - a bed, a couch and a TV.

FiOT

Thoie wrote: »

Off-topic, but is that specifically for a self-build? I'm in the process of buying a new build, and can't see how that would work in my case - builders won't give me the keys to lay floors until I've paid them (with the mortgage draw down).

It's a bit different with self - building, money - wise you're always a stage behind what you've done if you get me, e.g. you don't get your first stage payment until after foundations are done.

Think perhaps it's their way of making sure you're not just getting a bit of money to use on a well - deserved holiday at the end of it all :pac:

Really down to their understanding of the word "complete".

Water John

One position to consider, as you are also working, is that of Gopher.
Have you any relative, retired parent, to do the run to the hardware store, for more nails?
Most important position. also trades know some one is around, all the time.

Key positions to note are also when two trades may need to be on site together, eg, plumber and electrician, when installing and activating thermostats, actuators and manifold on UFH.

FiOT

Water John wrote: »

One position to consider, as you are also working, is that of Gopher.
Have you any relative, retired parent, to do the run to the hardware store, for more nails?
Most important position. also trades know some one is around, all the time.

Key positions to note are also when two trades may need to be on site together, eg, plumber and electrician, when installing and activating thermostats, actuators and manifold on UFH.

Key position indeed.

If something isn't on site that's needed, your tradesmen will leave and I wouldn't blame them, the sun is shining and people are making hay.

My tiny mammy has been given a serious amount of random jobs over the past while; all 5ft of her directing arctic trucks from a small country road into our site, dragging rolls of lead out of builders providers... You name it.

I know you have said you have worked everything out on excel but the practicalities sometimes can't be planned on paper, our spreadsheet has not been updated in a while... Happier for it!

Quilie19

Water John wrote: »

One position to consider, as you are also working, is that of Gopher.
Have you any relative, retired parent, to do the run to the hardware store, for more nails?
Most important position. also trades know some one is around, all the time.

Key positions to note are also when two trades may need to be on site together, eg, plumber and electrician, when installing and activating thermostats, actuators and manifold on UFH.

Yes my mother is retired now and the womans father is also retired and will be glad to help out whenever they can if i'm tied up in work. Also I will have an account set up in McMahons builders providers so the tradesmen will know if they need anything extra just get it and give me the receipt.