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Timber Self Build Home
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woodyandluna



Joined: 05 Jul 2005
Posts: 71
Location: Milton Keynes
PostPosted: Tue Jul 05, 05 11:23 am    Post subject: Timber Self Build Home Reply with quote
    

Hello everyone, newbie here!!

I am considering living in a self build timber home like this one:

Timber Home

There seems to be several companies that can supply these self build kits ready for assembly for around £20k and I can't help but be impressed by them. I understand that roofing, plumbing, electrics, kitchen and bathroom are to be added onto this, but it still seems to me an affordable form of housing. I'd love to make one of these into a low impact house by implementing various energy and water saving measures. Can anyone forsee any pitfalls with this?

Despite the cost, I find this type of home very appealing. I wonder if they get very cold in the winter?!

Does anyone have any experience of living in a home like this, or know anyone else who has?

Is there a way that I could make the costs tax deductable, perhaps by setting up a business?

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Many thanks in advance,

Carl

Andy B



Joined: 12 Jan 2005
Posts: 3920
Location: Brum
PostPosted: Tue Jul 05, 05 11:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

The home itself can be cheap, it's the land to put it on thats expensive.

tahir



Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45389
Location: Essex
PostPosted: Tue Jul 05, 05 11:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

There are loads of systems out there that are similar in concept, the costs that you'll have to add to most of them will be:

Foundations/Groundworks
Erection
Finishes (usually includes things like roof tiles as well as the stuff you'd normally expect)
And obviously fittings and furnishings.

We had a thread recently about a few different types here:

https://forum.downsizer.net/about1607.html&highlight=stuart

woodyandluna



Joined: 05 Jul 2005
Posts: 71
Location: Milton Keynes
PostPosted: Tue Jul 05, 05 12:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Thanks for the info and link Tahir.

Andy, good point I agree wholeheartedly. In my excitement, I forgot to mention that I was considering moving to France because land prices are so high here in the UK. Obviously, the land will still be the major investment though.

Can you get a mortgage to buy a timber home? I suspect not.
Can you get a mortgage to buy land? I hope so!

Thanks again,

Carl

tahir



Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45389
Location: Essex
PostPosted: Tue Jul 05, 05 12:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

brica wrote:
Can you get a mortgage to buy a timber home? I suspect not.
Can you get a mortgage to buy land? I hope so!


Shouldn't be a problem with either

tahir



Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45389
Location: Essex
PostPosted: Tue Jul 05, 05 12:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

brica wrote:
Obviously, the land will still be the major investment though.


Not necessarily, especially not in France.

Jill



Joined: 23 Jun 2005
Posts: 13

PostPosted: Tue Jul 05, 05 1:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Hi,
We have a place in brittany and our local maire will not give planning permission at the moment for such houses unfortunately, because I rather like it myself.

regards
Jill

tawny owl



Joined: 29 Apr 2005
Posts: 563
Location: Hampshire
PostPosted: Tue Jul 05, 05 2:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

One system I saw at the homebuilding and renovating show that was quite interesting was insulating concrete formwork done by Beco Wallform, Polarwall, Quadlock and a few others. It's basically a polystyrene brick that's used to build the actual house up to the first floor, then filled in with concrete, leaving the insulated brick in situ, and that's then clad with plasterboard or tiles on the inside and render or whatever on the outside. Thus, you basically end up with a sort of reverse cavity wall, with two layers of insulation sandwiching the building material. Now before anyone jumps on me because of the use of polystyrene and concrete, this type of building is so well insulated that energy costs are very low, and also it cuts down on some other harmful materials. Building costs are also really low (they were talking 3 grand to build a 2-bedroom house up to the roof), and it's very versatile, because the strength is all on the outside walls, thus all internal ones are stud and so it's very easy to change a basic design. See https://www.becowallform.co.uk/web/techbr.pdf for the technical details.

woodyandluna



Joined: 05 Jul 2005
Posts: 71
Location: Milton Keynes
PostPosted: Tue Jul 05, 05 2:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Jill wrote:
Hi,
We have a place in brittany and our local maire will not give planning permission at the moment for such houses unfortunately, because I rather like it myself.

regards
Jill


That's a shame. Do you think it would be a no-no (or non-non!) throughout France?

Do you know of any good websites that list land for sale in France please? Google searching brings up loads!!

Interesting idea Tawny, thanks for the tip off!

Thanks,

Carl

Jill



Joined: 23 Jun 2005
Posts: 13

PostPosted: Wed Jul 06, 05 8:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Not all communes are the same so I believe, we wanted to try and get planning permission to erect so log cabins on our land but came up against a non,non! we explained they wernt the run of the mill log sheds but very nice expensive cabins/houses, no where near as nice as the one you have shown, still a non, non, but like I said I'm sure its not the same everywhere, I'll try and find some links for you that I used in the past.
Jill

@Calli



Joined: 03 Jul 2005
Posts: 1682
Location: Galway
PostPosted: Wed Jul 06, 05 9:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

brica wrote:


In my excitement, I forgot to mention that I was considering moving to France because land prices are so high here in the UK. Obviously, the land will still be the major investment though.



Land in UK extortionate - thats one of the reasons why we are here in Ireland. Scools and lifestyle others-would not hesitate to recommend it.
There are a few sites showing land prices just for info of course!
Many already have full planning so OPP better.

www.propertyfile.net, www.propertypartners.net
Would have supplied a link but a bit of a dinosaur here.....Makes it hard to type with these paws too..

Callie

tawny owl



Joined: 29 Apr 2005
Posts: 563
Location: Hampshire
PostPosted: Wed Jul 06, 05 12:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Don't run away with the idea that you're going to get a bargain there, though. House prices (and land with PP) has doubled in Ireland in the last couple of years, and it's now supposedly in third place in the world for increases in prices. Plus it's becoming a lot harder to get PP.

tawny owl



Joined: 29 Apr 2005
Posts: 563
Location: Hampshire
PostPosted: Tue Oct 25, 05 4:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

tawny owl wrote:
One system I saw at the homebuilding and renovating show that was quite interesting was insulating concrete formwork done by Beco Wallform, Polarwall, Quadlock and a few others. It's basically a polystyrene brick that's used to build the actual house up to the first floor, then filled in with concrete, leaving the insulated brick in situ, and that's then clad with plasterboard or tiles on the inside and render or whatever on the outside. Thus, you basically end up with a sort of reverse cavity wall, with two layers of insulation sandwiching the building material. Now before anyone jumps on me because of the use of polystyrene and concrete, this type of building is so well insulated that energy costs are very low, and also it cuts down on some other harmful materials. Building costs are also really low (they were talking 3 grand to build a 2-bedroom house up to the roof), and it's very versatile, because the strength is all on the outside walls, thus all internal ones are stud and so it's very easy to change a basic design. See https://www.becowallform.co.uk/web/techbr.pdf for the technical details.


A house using this system was on Grand Designs last week. The owner ended up with a very interesting (and I thought quite lovely) curved house, although it seemed the architect was learning on the job, and poured the whole of the staircase tower in one hit, thus ending up with some of the blocks giving way and causing 'blow-outs', which then caused problems when the staircase was lowered into the tower. Personally, I'd have put the staircase in and built round it, but there you go. I was surprised they had so much trouble, because when I spoke to these people at the show, they said that they'd recommend trained builders, or if there weren't any in the area, they'd send their own person to supervise. They also made it very clear that only one floor at a time could be poured, to prevent exactly this problem, and that steel rods were needed for reinforcing throughout.

V. interesting though, and well worth having a look at, as it gave quite good close-ups of the system.

dougal



Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent
PostPosted: Tue Oct 25, 05 5:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

tawny owl wrote:
...A house using {the Beco} system was on Grand Designs last week...

Details here
https://www.channel4.com/4homes/ontv/grand-designs/houses/D/devon_south.html

Maybe worth remarking that More4 (Freeview, etc) is rerunning old Grand Designs programmes at 7pm weekdays, and repeated en bloc Saturday daytime. The strawbale house in France was shown last week...

Blue Sky



Joined: 30 Jan 2005
Posts: 7658
Location: France
PostPosted: Tue Oct 25, 05 6:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

I've seen these in CS magazine and they seem quite impressive. I'd have one here if I had the funds. IMO they are very good for the money. (20K)

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