Challenges with the self-build process

Lucy: Hello and welcome back to the Self Builders podcast. I'm Mike Paulie, your host today. We are kindly joined by Paul Grice, who is one of Mayflower's Self Build mortgage clients. He's coming on to share all the trials, tribulations, the dos and the don'ts for everybody listening who wants to get into Self Build. We had a little chat before we hit the record button for the podcast. And I think this is going to be interesting. Given what Paul's already told me. how we normally thanks for coming on poor appreciate it. No worries. No, and How we how we normally start is I like to get a picture so I I don't know You know your project necessarily, you know from that brief check probably realize that but I love to get a picture of what what you've done so if you could paint the picture to the listeners of What it was what it looks like, you know the type of building that sort of stuff and then everyone I think can get a good visual in their mind's eye. All right, super, super. Okay, so I think we're at a stage in life where you just think to yourself, you know, do I do this or do I not do this? So we had a lovely house and then I decided to sell it and we bought a sort of old bungalow with no insulation. ⁓ but in a nice area. ⁓ So it was sort of the wrong property in the right location that sat on quite a bit of land. And then basically to decide what to do with it. you know, that was the first step was finding the plot or finding the land that we wanted to do what we wanted to do. And then it was a case of, well, Do we just extend this now or do we go with the full hog and demolish it and rebuild it? Yeah. And what did you go for? Well, we went for the first option planning wise and then, and then it just became the numbers didn't add up. So what we were going to achieve was not going to be, it still wasn't going to be right. So, ⁓ I, I took a note of some. decent properties that I'd seen not too far from here and managed to find out who the architect was for those properties and got in touch with him. And then we went down the road effectively of putting in planning for two properties and obviously the demolishing of the one that we were currently in. So that was the first step. then we were able to actually, with the help of the architect, of course, design the house exactly how we wanted it. that's the difference, I think, between ⁓ extending something that's already there and actually creating something that on paper is exactly what you want. You're working around the existing structures and trying to do it as best you can, but it's never the same as doing it around art. No, very difficult because you're working and you're working with a kind of worms that you're about to open as well. So you never really know what's what you're going to get yourself into effectively. Yeah, no, I agree. So what did you guys go for? You sort of is it traditional looking buildings? Are they both different? they fairly similar? So what we've got here, because we're on a sort of corner plot and we've got so we're able to create two accesses. So we've got a four bed house. And then the other plot, we had got planning for a three bed bungalow, which in the area that we were in, I thought was a good idea because it's sort of a village environment with pubs and still with pubs and schools and everything like that. But it seemed like, well, it's a beautiful bungalow to be honest. So yeah, it was good idea. It was a good idea. So they traditional looking sort of brick exteriors or have you gone different type of it? Yeah. Nice. No brick exteriors. We've got, we've got render. So there's render in the center. Nice archway leading to the porch. And then effectively you've got obviously the rooms as you come in the hallway off to each side with the kitchen and family room at the back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. We're going to the middle of an hallway sort of approach. Well, that was to the side, but that was another thing. We fancied a nice, decent sized hallway, a builder friend of mine says, what are doing that for? Because that's wasted space. And we were going, well, actually that's what we want. makes a difference though, doesn't it? When you walk in and you've got all that room, the bit of a slightly higher level, wider, it makes a massive difference, I think. Well, it makes a difference now that we've got the Christmas tree there at this moment in time, because all of a sudden you can have a quite a large Christmas tree that doesn't really pick up any great room. know, so yeah, lovely, lovely. So the first top tip is if you want a massive Christmas tree, get a huge hallway. Don't take up any room in any of the living space. And a decent void that the Christmas tree can go up into as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fair one. How did you find the plan in Paul? When you bought the Yeah, the planning was surprisingly relatively straightforward. mean, fortunately, we were in the envelope that building can take place. So that was good. But I was really quite surprised that I think it from start to finish planning going in to planning consent being given was 13 weeks, which is quite incredible. You know, I've spoken to various other people and I didn't really think of this at the time. ⁓ But you know, various other people, it's taking months, years. So I don't know whether that was, I think we were quite lucky there, to be honest, but... Good local authority potentially, you know, sounds like they're on it. Yeah, well, the worrying thing with the local authority was that we were aware that a lot of the planning officers had left. So perhaps the planning office was in a bit of a difficult situation. But I also kept on hopefully on the right side of the parish council, because obviously just to go to the parish council, and we only had one issue really. But generally, it sort of flew through both things. And we Yeah, there were some tweaks we had to make along the way, but effectively with the planning, what the architect, what we put in basically ticked a lot of the boxes straight off. And so the planning officers wasn't coming backwards and forwards all the time asking for this and that and the other, you know? Yeah, it sounds, it's done well there. I suppose you've designed something that is fit into the local environment. We've had knocked down and rebuild cases. They're a little easier, aren't they normally? Cause the dwellings are already there, like you said, but we've had some that have taken nearly a year and we a team meeting the other day and it's, yeah, they, they, and it's interesting what you say with the, the local authority, the office planning office is leaving pretty much everyone we speak to, but I speak to on air, we speak to it shows or stuff like that. It seems to be like really on demand. People are leaving, people are retiring and they're just not replacing them. Um, which is sort of compounding the problem, I think while they're getting a a bad rap, but they must be under the cost, I think. Yeah, a lot of a lot of the places. Well, they're all under pressure. And a lot of them think, well, I don't need this pressure. Yeah. But you know, hopefully, hopefully, those those sort of things have been ⁓ only going to get better from from where we were sort of two years ago when we when we put Yeah. went to an interesting conference a while ago, a bit off-piece, about the planning system and how it's going to change. But it's a 10-year program the government have got, so it'll probably be 20. it was interesting. It will be more automated and things like that. Do you think the architects was worth having further advice around the planning and design? Absolutely. 100%. There are architects and there's architects. just like in all industries and all trades. ⁓ But the architect we had for a start when we were looking at the extension, let's just say I was very pleased then when I met Christian, who was the architect that we used in the end, ⁓ because all of a sudden I was excited about what we could do. And I had the confidence in, because this is something that we've never done before. And so you need the confidence in the person that you're dealing with to deal with all the problems that you don't know are going to come up. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, definitely. Because it's not what we do, is it? So if you've got somebody that deals with it and can deal with these problems that they know are going to come up before they come up, then it's worth its weight in gold, to be honest, and probably worth every penny. You found the architect what just by locally searching what he's in the area and thought. Yeah, the architect was a bit lucky really. So there was a nice property that I'd seen built by a local builder. And I spoke to the local builder and he was quite open with who he used as the architect. And that's how I got in touch with him. So yeah, it was a bit. bit lucky, but at end of the day, think you, you try and make your own luck in life, don't you? And I mean, I'd never met the guy. I didn't really know how good he was, but I'd seen the work that he's done. And it was really from that meeting, that first meeting we had with the architect that we both thought, yeah, we felt encouraged by what we heard, shall we say. Is it that feel thing? You know, when you meet someone and you think, yeah, this feels like a good fit or was it? Yeah, I spoke to you. I spoke to we spoke to a couple of other architect firms and I just felt that we weren't they were on the same wavelength and. It's important, you know, that they've got their own ideas, but they didn't weren't taken into account what what we wanted. Yeah, no, I don't mean. Yeah, it was sort of going to be there while you're here. Yeah. Interesting you say that. Yeah. I think that's really important that you get somebody you can connect with and and not just, know, firm that has not necessarily got, you know, has probably got a good reputation. But it's not all about that. It's being able to connect with the person that you're dealing with. Really? It's that collaboration piece, isn't it? Between the architect having, you know, as a designer, they're interested in wanting to do the best design possible, but also the collaboration of, well, actually we don't necessarily need this. We functionally need this. it's that, I know where you, where you're coming from with getting someone who's sort of open to listing rather than being, this is the, this is what we're doing. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's the best design. Yes. Yeah. From, from brief. then, and then it's interesting talking, obviously then once you've got the planning done and you move on to dealing with builders and you know, remember one builder saying to me, well, if you'd really, you could have done with speaking to us before you speak, speak to the architect, because the architect will put certain things in the, not necessarily the builder really. thinks maybe the best thing, but that's sort of another subject, isn't it? Do Yeah, we'll get there. think that'll be interesting. So it sounds like you found a good architect, no issues there by the sounds of it. Yeah. Good for you. And then traditionally built property? Brick and ⁓ block and like I said, a little bit of render at the front. We've got a flat roof area at the back where the kitchen area is. ⁓ and, things like, ⁓ we were going to have a balcony at the back on the, on the main, ⁓ main bedroom. ⁓ but we, we didn't do that in the end. So, ⁓ because of cost really. I've got you. So how did you go about finding the, the buildable? Right. So that was, that because I think obviously this was going to be two properties. mean, I mean, let's, let's go back one stage. ⁓ What I decided to, once we got planning is, I was looking at probably the cost of building both units and thinking that was giving me sleep last night. Because I do think we've, I've got a note here that you never really know exactly how much it's all gonna cost. You know, it's all right, somebody saying, well, that'll cost that per square foot or per square meter. But actually, you don't, that to me doesn't mean anything, you know? So what I did was we sold, once we got planning permission, fortunately I know a local estate agent that had got somebody that wanted a bungalow in the area. So we were put together effectively, then they bought that plot off me and we both used the same builder to build both units. yeah, got you. So you got bit of economies on that then by the sounds of it. Yeah, so that was good. And yeah, so that to me, that was the most tax efficient way to do it for me. But as a neighbor as well. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Lovely people. Retired, you know, and just generally lovely. And so the builder, yeah. So again, a lot of big, big choice to make here because of the fact that, again, you don't really know who you're getting into bed with. And you didn't want somebody too small. know, to me, to me, I didn't want a project management myself because I'm involved. you get, was it? you went, the builder came in main contractor and, and yeah, because, know, I all the goodwill in the world. I didn't want them doing, and I didn't want this to take years to do either. So, you know, which I believe it probably would have been if I'd have tried to manage it myself. So, and plus I've got a job to do myself, you know, So yeah, we went through a main contractor, but not somebody that was too small and not somebody that was too big. So we wanted sort of a medium sized firm. And that's what we found in the end. there was a local firm that had just built 19 units, not a million miles away from here. And tended to, that was one of their bigger projects that tend to do sort of two, three, four bedroom, four house units, you know, at a time. So there weren't sort of the one man band, small building firms. There was somebody a little bit bigger that could cope with what we wanted to do. And also try and keep it on the time schedule that we wanted. do because obviously we needed to move out and that meant I needed to rent somewhere for some time. didn't fancy living in a caravan on site personally but and that would have been a nightmare during the winter anyway because it didn't rain because it didn't stop raining did it from last October till about April this year ⁓ that would have been an absolute nightmare so I'm glad we didn't do that but yeah the builder ⁓ it's difficult because you don't, again, you don't really know what you get yourself into. What issues did you have Paul? Sounds like there was a few, few hurdles with the builder. Well, not so much with the builder that we use, but the other builders that I looked at, you one lived, he lived abroad, which didn't help. ⁓ know, and there was the, I just think sometimes if you get red flags going off, ⁓ then you just. have to realize that those doubts are there for a reason. I'm not saying you're totally positive about any decision you make when it comes to that type of thing. I think that the lower amount of red flags, the better. you know what mean? But yeah, we went to the main contractor and we went on an open book situation as well, ⁓ which people talked to me about and sort of said, are you sure you know what you're doing there? You know, because is the builder then gonna not worry about the cost because it's an open book and they'll just, they won't worry about price. You know what mean? Just for those listening, just give them a bit of an overview of what open book is. Okay, so, you know, obviously you go to a building and say, you build me this please? And they'll give you a price. And then they'll build that price based on a certain sort of criteria and spec, et cetera. And I think they use the term of PC sums for this and the other and all that. Which would have been fine, but the other route is to work on a cost plus situation where effectively you're paying the cost. plus a percentage then for the builder and then you'd have obviously prelims on top of that. And it just seemed a more comfortable way to do it really. And probably it all comes to about the same figure at the end, to be honest. But I think we were more in control then of what was going on and what the costs were. I, course, because of the nature of the work that we do, I had a spreadsheet running ⁓ daily almost and and the the building would invoice this monthly. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was all okay. It was it was a good way to do it. I think it just opens up a bit a collaborative. This is just personal preference really. I've been involved in thousands of these is when you have that sort of cost place transparent relationship with someone you trust or a firm you trust. Yeah. It just feels more open. It feels, you know, you go for that sort of job, job lot. You never get apples for apples on comparisons that I've seen. You know, certain, certain contractors will put in, you've probably seen this, if you aren't quoting, they'll put prelims in for different things at different points because some they'll happily price and other elements they won't price. And then, you know, what are they building in for inflation? Some will include that in the price, some won't. And then they'll have like, you know, in the contract, it will be any amendments over and above. So it's really hard to nail down a true fixed price contracts. And then that I think is where you hear the story sometimes where there's a bit of back and forth and maybe falling out between two parties because maybe that wasn't as transparent as it could be with like a cost price contract. That's just personal preference, but I get, I get why you've done it. It sounds like it worked well for you guys though. I think it worked all right. I think it worked all right. mean, it's the most stressful thing I've done, but you know, what were the sort of two things that were the most like that made it that stressful? I think, well, you know, when you bought somewhere and then you've knocked it down and so you've paid for something and then you've got nothing. I mean, that was a real difficult thing to cope with psychologically really, that we hadn't got anything. Do know what I'm saying? At a stage, there was a stage for a couple of months where we bought something, knocked it down and got nothing there apart from land, that was it. And that was a real difficult thing in the mind to cope with, to be honest. And there was various other things going on at that moment in time as well, which didn't make it any easier. then once we, and then of course it started raining and didn't stop raining. know, delays. Yeah, delays, you know. But once then the sort of the slabs put in and all the on the floor eating is put in and you can get, you can get a bit of a picture that we are moving in the right direction. mean, the amount of cost, of course, under the ground is incredible. know, things like attenuation tank that we had to have. Bear in mind there was a property here before and all of a sudden we've got all these planning rules coming in that we've got to have this, that and the other. Yeah. Where is this to do with biodiversity net gain by any or would it might've been before that kicked in? I don't know, Mike. I don't know exactly, but you know, we've got a big tank under the ground in the garden. but because there's two properties here now to stop the flow of water going into the, into the storm drain ⁓ quickly, quite, I think it's over the top personally, but anyway, it is what it is. You know, it's not as if it's a massive development with 30 odd hours or something. It is, but yeah. It's money before anything's, you know, there's nothing coming out of the crowd. ⁓ Yeah, I remember somebody saying to me, know, something like a good percentage of the money that you'll fork out, you don't see because it's underground. Yeah, but once then, you know, we got to Christmas last year, and then we had a cold spell so that the bricklayers couldn't lay bricks. So that was further delays. which I'm glad they didn't to be honest, because obviously you do see some sites where they're still laying bricks and it's two degrees or whatever it is. So I was pleased actually that we were doing things the right way. Although you know all these things are gonna delay at the end somehow because they have a knock on effect, don't they? How long will it take them, Okay, so we demolished the property at the end of August 23. And we moved in at beginning of October this year. ⁓ don't know. said, good. It was supposed to be that it was going to be a 44 week project, but we knew that was going to stretch and, ⁓ and that would have been in February and had gone to plan. So we, we hope to be in probably in June. ⁓ but we weren't. And by Christmas famous. Yeah, we were in the beginning of October and yeah, they say, yeah, you've been by Christmas and they say, which year? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah, it's, that's, that's so on get up really. Do you know what that is? The benefit of having someone manage your build for you. Yeah. Yeah. We'll speak to self builders who are, you know, more involved and it'll, you know, it takes a lot longer and it goes, can go a lot. further down the timeline. That's interesting because you know, is that sort of a false economy that they think that people think actually if I manage this myself, I'm going to be saving money. But actually, is the time element costing you more money? Do know what I'm saying? Yeah, you can't always say to our guys, you can't give an A B test on life to customers. You just can't do it. But it'd be interesting if you could. I do think sometimes we were speaking to some people, do genuinely, they're not that worried about the overrun. They just want to get involved and do it. And I do think other customers want to do it for cost savings exercise. So in those instances, I think you're right. If you've got, so even a PN potentially use there a day or two a week and you pay them a few quid, it's going to be cheaper than you delaying for six months or eight months or whatever it may be for sure. personally, but I think it's different for different folks. Some people want to get out on the tools, you know? Yeah. Well, yeah. but it's not what we do for a living, is it? So it's hard. It's really hard. And if you, yeah, if you're working for a living as well and you you you've got another job, people do it though. Our customers at Mayfair do it. They're not full-time jobs and they're and they're working and do it. It's a lot. It's a lot. Yeah. mean, we were still able to make decisions every day. Yeah. I'd get a phone call, well we've got to make a decision about this, we've got to make a decision about that, sometimes three, four, five times a day. But because it was our bill, wasn't it? So it's not just somebody doing it and then you're buying it off a builder or whatever. So rightly so it was our build. We forgot cost wise Paul, did you overrun? No. Yeah. Well, I suppose it was just a transparent cost plus contract. Did they give you some idea of what they expected it to come in at the beginning? Yeah. mean, I mean, bear in mind, it's almost 3000 square feet. property. size. Yeah. It's a decent size. Yeah. You can see, you know, you can Google that and you can say, well, that can cost anything between that and that. Yeah. Yeah. And I think we were in about 220 a square foot to be honest. that's pretty good. know? wasn't the main contracted build. Yeah. Someone's looking after it all for you. Yeah. That's that's pretty good. And of course, you know, we've tried to go for a quite high end finish as well. ⁓ That's really good. Yeah. Really, really. That's less than 2,400 pound a square meter. Isn't Yeah. 10.7. Yeah. That's, that's really, you've found a blooming good builder there. Yeah. Yeah. We've done, we've done all right. And of course they use, you know, they've, they've got deals with the sort of, yeah. what we're saying about the bathrooms and stuff like that. the heating of course is another was another subject because we had to have air-sourced seat pump. ⁓ yeah. It's really popular that.