Eco House Build

Ribin

docmatt wrote: »

Dunno maybe he had his gas bill?

That made me laugh:rotfl:

Sorry I have not responded to Q's about my original post but I forgot to subscribe to the thread and have been out of the country.

Now subscribed so happy to answer any q's.

Ribin

PasturesNew wrote: »

Eco houses .... are for the already rich to think they are saving money.

If I had £325k I could buy a £200k house and spend £125k over the rest of my life worrying about the bills. A figure from above of £2.5k/year means my way ends up cheaper

I suggest you read my original post regarding 'Greenwash'. Eco houses can cost the same as a normally built house. So if you want a £200k house, you can still have one but without the horrendous energy bills. It really is the smart choice and as for self build, it is a no brainer, cheaper than buying an existing house in most cases. Programme on More4 at the moment called Building The Dream - everyone has made a substantial saving and in most cases they are all first time builders.

System

a reply to any of my questions would be good if possible

Ribin

the_r_sole wrote: »

how did you go about this?
did you actually design it yourself (i.e. without an architect/designer on board)
did you have a contractor or did you build most of it yourself with specialist contractors on site when needed?

the per m2 figure is good for something that high spec - I'm looking at similar design ideas but my services are going to add a fair bit to the cost (no mains water/gas/sewers etc!)

We designed it ourselves but got an architect to draw up the plans. Expensive option but he had a good reputation with local planners and we were building next to a grade 2 listed, so we had to be careful.
I had done a lot of research into low cost low energy buildings, so project managed and brought in contractors as and when necessary. I also found I could do a fair bit of work myself but that was mainly on the 2nd fix, but also got involved in roofing etc.
Re services, I was quoted quite high figures up front but successfully got them reduced by just asking them to justify the figures. If you can get them down to have a look that can help as you can reason with them BUT before doing that speak to your groundworker and you may find that they have a cheaper solution - we didn't know this but I could have had electrics a lot cheaper. You would be surprised how many people who work for the service installers have a weekend job - if you know what I mean!!!