Organizing a Self-Build
In spite of the recession, “self-build” houses are still popular. Why? Because they’ve always offered better value for money than simply purchasing a property. So what is “self-build”? It’s a house you build yourself, as the phrase hints! Not necessarily only by yourself, but you set yourself in the position as planner, foreman, architect of your property and let trained workers do the job you tell them to do. “Self-build” is pretty much recession-proof due to the relatively low costs involved (compared to buying a property) – in point of fact, there are more self-builders in the UK than the total number of homes being developed by any single developer. The purpose of self-build is to produce a home to your precise specifications, not a boiler-plate design that commercial developers use.
I know what you’re thinking: “I can’t build a house”. The pleasant news is that getting involved with a self-build project doesn’t have to involve you with the physical aspects of the house building (as a matter of fact, just 5% of self-builders in reality get involved with the actual construction work). Even the design aspects are often finalised by a professional designer. Self-build, by and large, is about you expressing (in laymen’s terms), what you need to the house designer – who then develops a design dependent on your necessities. This plan then becomes the draft the developers work to. Easy, eh? It’s not required to have any hands-on participation in self-build. Having said all that, the Do It Yourself fantatic can use self-build as a chance to save some wonga by contributing toward the tasks of self-build they have experience in – it’s your call as to how much engagement you want during the construction.
Since you get complete control over the specifications of the self-build, you can choose the latest in technology, while big developers lag behind since they’re building to rigid boiler-plate designs. You can put in things like underfloor heating, automated climate, lighting and entertainment facilities throughout your entire home.
You must ensure the squad of workers you choose are 100% competent and that they develop well together. No doubt you will want builders with experience of some rather potentially dangerous machinery used in building, such as concrete cutting chainsaws, block and slab splitters, power / disc cutters, floor saws, and wood saws. Not only do they need to be safe with such machinery, they of course need to do their job well too!
This article is merely an introduction to self-build, and I hope it will encourage those of you who are intimidated by the thought of running a task of this kind of size. It needn’t be time-intensive, and you won’t need house building / designing skills, but hire carefully, and you will need to cautiously work out the budget of the project.
