Cactus' and Clareman51's eco-cottages

clareman51 wrote:

If you decide to build it yourself, the lender will almost certainly insist that it is supervised by an engineer. I was lucky in that I built the house myself, and only had to get bridging until my house was sold. I got an engineer to look at the foundations, and then didn't need him any more. They normally come at different stages of the build, and charge accordingly. Probably cost under 2k if you haggle.

Sorry to disappoint you, but there is almost no way 150k will build a house these days. Add 100k and you might be closer to the mark.
I built my own, and it still cost over 400k, not including land.

That must be quite a big, or exceptionally well-finished house clareman51. There are houses out there to be bought for less than €200,000 including site, and builders (small) profit. If Auditor #9 and his intended and future infant would be satisfied with a small 2 bed bungalow, and ordered the doors and windows from Latvia, and laid the blocks himself, he could do it nicely for 150,000 imo. When his ship comes in, he can get Duncan Stuart in, and build an extension for another 400,000.

cactus flower wrote:

clareman51 wrote:

If you decide to build it yourself, the lender will almost certainly insist that it is supervised by an engineer. I was lucky in that I built the house myself, and only had to get bridging until my house was sold. I got an engineer to look at the foundations, and then didn't need him any more. They normally come at different stages of the build, and charge accordingly. Probably cost under 2k if you haggle.

Sorry to disappoint you, but there is almost no way 150k will build a house these days. Add 100k and you might be closer to the mark.
I built my own, and it still cost over 400k, not including land.

That must be quite a big, or exceptionally well-finished house clareman51. There are houses out there to be bought for less than €200,000 including site, and builders (small) profit. If Auditor #9 and his intended and future infant would be satisfied with a small 2 bed bungalow, and ordered the doors and windows from Latvia, and laid the blocks himself, he could do it nicely for 150,000 imo. When his ship comes in, he can get Duncan Stuart in, and build an extension for another 400,000.

After that bad news I've downgraded it to a shed for the Cow and one calf, hopefully. It would be a warm shed, not unlike the one Jesus was born in so it would have a certain stamp of respectability.

Wouldn't a wooden house be handy to hang on didn't someone build a house out of bails of straw once for 8k (ok it was a room) but what about all those eco-homes that are cutting edge man - straw is in I tell you big style. I saw it on the BBC very warm, no cement between the bails thus easy to assemble etc.?

Auditor #9 wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

clareman51 wrote:

If you decide to build it yourself, the lender will almost certainly insist that it is supervised by an engineer. I was lucky in that I built the house myself, and only had to get bridging until my house was sold. I got an engineer to look at the foundations, and then didn't need him any more. They normally come at different stages of the build, and charge accordingly. Probably cost under 2k if you haggle.

Sorry to disappoint you, but there is almost no way 150k will build a house these days. Add 100k and you might be closer to the mark.
I built my own, and it still cost over 400k, not including land.

That must be quite a big, or exceptionally well-finished house clareman51. There are houses out there to be bought for less than €200,000 including site, and builders (small) profit. If Auditor #9 and his intended and future infant would be satisfied with a small 2 bed bungalow, and ordered the doors and windows from Latvia, and laid the blocks himself, he could do it nicely for 150,000 imo. When his ship comes in, he can get Duncan Stuart in, and build an extension for another 400,000.

After that bad news I've downgraded it to a shed for the Cow and one calf, hopefully. It would be a warm shed, not unlike the one Jesus was born in so it would have a certain stamp of respectability.

Wouldn't a wooden house be handy to hang on didn't someone build a house out of bails of straw once for 8k (ok it was a room) but what about all those eco-homes that are cutting edge man - straw is in I tell you big style. I saw it on the BBC very warm, no cement between the bails thus easy to assemble etc.?

If you kept the cow pats, and combined them with straw, you could build a cob house. At the end of the day though, the cheapest thing to do would be to build small and from standard mass produced components.

Even cheaper would be to rent, or be nice to the in-laws, and save while you watch prices dropping for a long while yet.

Quote :

I'm humming and hawing about solar panels. The most recent quote is €4421 after grant from Alternative Energy Ireland, which (to me) is a scary amount of money to spend on something, esp when we've just splashed out on a house. Any helpful encouragement or advice warmly welcomed!

We've hummed and hawed about it too, TheBear and decided that at this stage, we really don't need them. The showers are electric and our need for hot water other than that - there being no sproggies here - is less than minimal - maybe if we had appliances that feed in hot water, the situation would be different. Once you move in you'll have a better idea if there's a need for solar panels at all.

And they'll be cheaper, easier to fit and probably more advanced by then anyway.