Anyone Managed to get PP or a Log Home or Similar?

Do you know a lot about the building regs?

What about a log house makes it inherently unlikely to pass regs, and what would you need to spend this big money on?

Metric Tensor wrote: »

The most common way of complying with the building regulations is by meeting the requirements of the Technical Guidance Documents which go from Part A to Part M.

So called log cabins can have particular problems with:

B - Fire Safety
D - Workmanship and Materials (material certification)
L - Energy Conservation (A huge cost issue in all builds and by ignoring it unscrupulous sellers can appear to offer a bargain)
M - Access (Ramps, Doors, Toilet Sizes, Corridors, etc)

Many products on the market also fall well short of some of the other aspects of the regulations too. The cheapest way to build a compliant house is the way builders all over the country are already doing it. It's in their interests and the profit interests of developers to build compliant houses as cheap as possible.

B - I've asked a few manufacturers about fire safety, I'll see what they say.

D - I don't see material certification necessarily being an issue? what about a wooden structure would be an issue inherently?

L - Wooden houses tend to be very good at retaining heat, the houses I've seen and the prices I'm talking about include floor, roof and wall insulation. As it is a small structure, any sort of heater or stove would heat it up and retain heat very well.

M - The wood houses I've seen online and seen in person are more spacious than the apartment I lived in for the past 4 years. There are plenty of semi-detatched houses around the Dublin and North Wicklow area that are as cramped.

Does any house being built now require wheelchair access, even if I am building it for myself? I don't think door sizes or window sizes will be an issue.

Those log houses from -snip- were the ones I was mostly referring to, wasn't sure if I was allowed to reference businesses. They aren't glorified sheds at all, but I've said that already.

I got a reply from them here, edited for brevity:

"Log cabins are treated for fire safety and they have a fire delay of 30min at present, which could be extended to 60min by using some fire retardant paint/varnish, so that's the least important issue.

Standard residential log cabins does not meet current Part L section of building regulations. To get a log cabin to the latest building regulation standards is possible of course, but this will increase the cost of it quite a bit. With any project that involves planning permission, you would need to hire an architect who will be assisting you along the way. He will need to create some drawings for you and then we could price the up as a custom log cabin. Guideline price for building a residential log cabin which complies with all the latest building regulations is €140 per sq.m (based on at least 100sq.m in size)"

I didn't realize there was a minimum size, but oh well.

At €140 per 100sq.m it would cost 14,000 if that's an honest figure. Seems a bit low though.

There are also prefab -snip- like this one: snip/ apparently it cost 60k minus electrics, kitchen, plumbing etc. Under 100k total.


All in all it seems viable to me, it's more a case of convincing the powers at be who may be stuck in their ways.

If I had to guess it seems you could get away with finishing the house for the 50k mark, especially if you do furniture and extra stuff yourself which I aim to do. I also aim to do any landscaping myself. The biggest cost would be renewables, septic tank. hooking up to mains I guess?

Oh and needing wheelchair access and railing in the ****ter because nanny state has decided it must be so. I mean, no one in a wheelchair has the right to visit me, nor should I be forced into preparing for the possible future injuries and disabilities I may or may not endure, which I could just do at that point in the future...maybe I should make sure the blind can make their way around my house too while I'm at it, but I digress (I'm joking).