Building your own home is the only way to create the home of your dreams with decent savings. This is a quick, general guide for those wondering what it’s all about. Approximately one million people in the UK would like to build their own home in the next year. This is what is termed in the industry as self build, and it is estimated that around 11,000 self build homes are completed each year. Self building, of course, does not necessarily mean picking up bricks and physicall

Many building projects go over budget when self builders take build cost advice from architects and designers alone Why do some self builders ask their architect or designer how much their build will cost and then use this build cost advice as a ‘cast in stone’ budget? Architects are not building estimators or quantity surveyors. You wouldn’t ask your bricklayer for advice on Solar Pv, or your carpenter about drainage connections. Many projects never move beyond the initial p

Professionals. Prelims. Project Management. Profit. Vince Holden explains how things other than material and labour costs, impact on how much your new home will cost to build — perhaps as much as 40% of the total There are four cost elements in construction that start with ‘Pr’ – but they are sometimes rather confusing for laypeople. What they have in common, however, is that they are concerned with the supporting aspects of a building project that don’t involve the actual ma