Our initial intention was to try to build with ICF (Insulating Concrete Formwork) a reasonable summary of this is here; this had been a preferred choice even before we bought the land, as we just felt it was a good system and why wouldn’t you want to live in a concrete house which by its very nature was airtight and highly insulated.
In hindsight, we should have done some of this analysis earlier but we were badly advised by our Architect THAA, who we slowly began to realise had absolutely no understanding of modern build methods – I could write a hole blog about THAA and what went wrong!
However, before we could make a decision we had to understand the ground, it’s a complicated site and we had to get a Site Investigation survey done. We actually had one which had been done by a previous owner, but for various reasons, we couldn’t use it, and our Structural Engineers thought it was incorrect. So we got another one done (££££).
5 Bore holes later, and analysis of the samples, we got a report which basically said that we would need to Pile or have a seriously light weight structure (e.g. Timber) sitting on a RAFT Foundation. Piling is a bit like throwing money into a hole and high risk, so we decided we wanted a solution which would work on a raft.
We did quite a bit of analysis, including getting quotes, of different Timber Frame companies including MBC, EDEN and Clays (SIPS) – I created a spreadsheet (one of many) with Pros, Cons and Costings. We had meetings with each of the Timber Frame companies and the ICF companies but they all said “we can’t build a solution which will work on a raft designed like that …” and we need piling.
We partially knew that SHED (Structural Engineers) had a relationship with a Timber Frame Company, but we hadn’t discussed it, as they had tried to stay neutral during the discussions, but after discussing how much piling would cost with them, we finally asked outright if they could build something which would work. They suggested that we visit their factory and a house they were building in Durham to discuss in more detail.
The Factory wasn’t really what we expected, and this is because they had build the frame and design it specifically in conjunction with SHED to
We followed this up with a budgeting quote, initially to airtightness, but then a full budgeting quote, which was in the ball park of our budget and compared favourably with the other Timber Frame companies we’d looked into.
So we decided that Green Roof Structures were to be our main contractor and Timber Frame Provider.
Point North, Gloster Hill Self Build 