How long will it all take?

We will plan our conversion project around our availability and when we have the funding.

Whilst we live and work in Suffolk, we can plan and organise from home and we have up to six weeks a year when we can head north to do things. In 2019, I can (and will) retire and we expect to move permanently to the steading site. Before that point we need to sell our home in Suffolk, pay off our mortgage and have enough left over to complete the steading.

Having moved North, we will aim to have an intense 18-month ‘self-build’ exercise to complete the building before the building warrant expires.

The timeline is looking something like this:

• 2014 – buy steading, start getting services on site, start working on the grounds
• 2015 – complete getting services on site, get demolition warrant, remove roof & demolish gable wall, clear and crush concrete, reapply for planning permission, get the building warrant
• 2016 – start restoring stonework, lay drains
• 2017 – continue restoring stonework, sell our current house
• 2018 – sell our current house, build roof, make the steading weathertight
• 2019 – retire, lay floors, stud walling, insulate, first fix
• 2020 – second fix, install heating and PV, fit bathrooms, fit kitchen & utility room, fit internal doors & skirting, decorate, complete

Warrants & Certification

Planning & Warrants

We have the quote from our architect for 1) a demolition warrant, 2) revised planning permission and 3) a building warrant. Not having any real idea of how much it might cost, the guesses in my plan are not right in detail, but surprisingly right in total. No sneaky savings, but also no headache.

1. I over-estimated the cost of getting the demolition warrant, which is split roughly evenly between Aberdeenshire council and the architect. This is to allow us to remove the roof and demolish the fire-damaged gable wall, off the back of the current (2012) planning permission.
2. I over-estimated the cost of re-applying for planning permission, this mostly goes to the architect for producing drawings and dusting off the supporting documents from last time. Provided we complete the demolition work by the time the current planning permission expires, we would probably not need another bat survey, hacking £900-£1000 off the bill. Being a bit of a pessimist, I have left this in the projected costs. There is also likely to be more ‘planning gain’ for Aberdeenshire council. This might be around £250 per additional bedroom (over the 4 bedrooms in the 2012 permission).
3. I fairly badly under-estimated the cost of a building warrant. This is partly because the Aberdeenshire council fee is proportional to the estimated cost of the works – and I had no idea what this might work out at. I underestimated the amount of work for the architect. To round it off, I had not included a cost for a structural engineer – about another £1000.

In total around £10,500.

Why the one quote?

Our architect is very local and does steading conversions as a specialism. He worked with Slains Estate on preparing our and neighbouring properties for sale and gained our current planning permission – there will be an element of recycling. He is very experienced and knows how to build houses as well as design them. In a former life he worked in a council building department. Ric, one of my brothers, sat in on a longish meeting with him and was positive. I guess we trust him, even if he is not the cheapest option.

Certification

Time to think about completing the project! Before we have got our hands dirty, we need to know that when we finish the building, we will get a Certificate of Completion and that we would be able to sell the property if we needed to. So we need to understand Certification.

Architect’s Certificate 

Our architect will inspect our building work against the standards, as we progress, and will provide an Architect’s Certificate on completion of the build. This is Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) approved. Should we need to sell the property within 6 years of taking occupation, the buyer should have no barrier to getting a mortgage.

The architect also has Professional Indemnity Insurance which would apply for the six years after completion. Unlike a warranty scheme, this means we, or a subsequent owner, would have to take court proceedings against him. Given that we will be doing much of the work, I would expect to a) avoid problems and b) fix them myself.

At present we plan to follow this route.

Alternative to an Architects Certificate

Building Standards Certification. The Scottish Government recommends using ‘approved certifiers’ to demonstrate that your building design & construction meet building standards. A certificate of design can be included with an application for a building warrant. It tells the local authority that the design work covered by the certificate meets building standards. It is not mandatory, but it reduces the cost of the warrant and should be quicker. Certificates cover either ‘Building Structures’ or ‘Energy’, so you may need two certificates. The certificate of construction can be included with your completion certificate submission to tell the local authority that the finished work covered by the certificate meets building standards AND that it meets the building warrant. Again it is not mandatory, but it should reduce the cost of the warrant and should save time. The intention to submit the certificate must be stated in the building warrant application. Certificates cover either ‘Electrical’ or ‘drainage/heating/plumbing’, so again you might need both. I doubt if these schemes would reduce the overall cost, but they might give peace of mind.

NHCB warranty

An NHBC warranty (e.g. their Solo product) covers similar ground to an architects certificate, but is for 10 years and has a claims process rather than legal redress. It is transferable.

Certificate of completion

This is what you need to legally live in a new property. In our case this is a paper form, to go to Aberdeenshire Council. It requires a certificate for the electrical system (we know about this and I will not be doing the wiring myself), but with no suggestion that this has to be from an ‘approved certifier’. The application also requires that the energy rating for the property is as stated in the warrant, or that a corrected calculation is attached. This will be from the building warrant. The other certifications are optional, we will submit the Architects Certificate. The local authority has 14 days to approve or reject the application.

Health & Safety

I come from a working background where health & safety is taken seriously, in a practical way. We have research vessels, we do fieldwork in remote and risky locations, we have workshops, we have chemical laboratories. We also have *touch wood* a very low rate of reportable accidents and injuries. We have an active ‘Flag’ system where we report things that might cause a problem, these are acted on and has undoubtedly prevented worse things from happening. Well worth having to absorb the training and paperwork to avoid seriously damaging myself or, worse still, someone else. It is about understanding and managing risk, not about being a party-pooper. We can do things that are inherently dangerous if we have to, as long as we know what might happen and take reasonable measures to make sure it doesn’t.

It is partly about understanding your limitations. I have no head for heights and usually cannot function much above average second-floor gutter height. I make sure I am never in that position, I pay someone else to work on the roof of my current house. I am fairly tall and heavy, so I am very cautious about crawling around on roofing.

Safety in the world of building, by contrast, seems quite schizophrenic. You see large building sites that seem to enforce safety. Many small builders are quite conscious of their own mortality and use common sense. The rest are much more relaxed.

Insurance

Most insurance is about protecting your back, or surviving a personal or family disaster.

On buying the steading, I wanted insurance against someone else damaging themselves on my property. I investigated self-build policies and discovered that most ran for no more than 18 months and could not be extended. This will be appropriate when I retire and head North – I will have about that amount of time to finish the job. I looked further and found that a poor second-best was FLEA (Fire, Lightning, Explosion, Aircraft) insurance. Annoyingly no-one I contacted would offer it for a building that is effectively a ruin. It will be possible when the steading is weather-proofed and secured.

What I ended up with, for the moment. is a policy that covers me for £1,000,000 of third-party liability for both the land and the buildings. I do not have employers liability insurance, but will probably look at getting it when we actively start work on the steading in 2015.

I have also taken out an assurance policy that covers me for a fixed sum in the event that I am in-capacitated. This is really to make sure we can finish the job of I am unable to do it myself, or at least allow us to sell-up in a managed way.

Safety procedures

I have written a safety handbook that I will get formal subcontractors to read and sign-up to.

We will get a First Aid kit and an accident book.

We are using the orange plastic fencing with pins to mark out areas we want people to stay out of. I may need to buy some Herras panels if I need more substantial barriers.

I had a long think about insisting on 110v electrical tools. I have gone away from this a bit and will probably buy 240v tools, but make sure there is proper earthing and use RCDs.

Personal Protective Equipment

PPE is, of course, the last link in the safety chain. It is much better to avoid danger than wear more protective kit. We will have hard hats, gloves, face masks and protective glasses, I will make sure visitors and contractors know about them, but I will not necessarily enforce their use. In most cases I will use them myself.

Welfare

We will use the outbuilding as a welfare point, with a kettle and a couple of seats. We have a camping toilet for those who want to use it.

Tools & Equipment

Understanding the tools and equipment we will need has been a bit of a discussion point between us.

I have a DIY background, where good/right tools are a bonus but are not usually essential. Not having them is slower and may result in poorer quality workmanship – and I would not profess to be a craftsman even with the best equipment.

My brothers, who are professional builders, definitely have the right tools for the job, mostly well-used. It shows in their productivity. The quality of their work is of course down to experience & skill.

Hire or Buy?

This can be a bit of a dilemma for self-builders. The decision to hire or buy is all about Cost To Buy versus Hire Cost versus Time Needed. Most self builders, even those who get their hands dirty, are active for 1 or two years (evidenced by self-build insurance often only being available for up to 18 months). I have a slightly different problem, I know I will be working over a 6 year period. I will end up buying things that I might have hired for a shorter period. In my opinion, good hand/electrical tools are relatively cheaper and more available now that they have ever been, yet  hiring them is outlandishly expensive, particularly for a single day.

Quality?

Tools invariably come at a range of price points. Accepting that some products or manufacturers sell real bargains i.e. good products at a low price, I expect this is because cheap tools fall apart quickly or work less well, compared to more expensive ones. Does this matter? So Lidl and Aldi may sell a corded SDS+ drill for under £30. Should they be avoided? One argument is that at that at the price it does not matter if it destroys itself after a short while. But then again, it may not. Most bigger suppliers like Screwfix typically sell different brands of the same type of tool – Erbauer, Titan, Makita & De Walt in ascending order of price. Makita and De Walt will produce ‘good’ and ‘professional’ versions.

My approach

1. Tools/equipment which I plan to be single-use or which are more expensive or better-quality than I want to buy, I will hire. For example I need to fix a meter cupboard to a granite wall in order to get mains electricity, so I will hire a chunky, top-quality cordless SDS+ drill to drill into the granite. Thereafter I would have more use for a lighter corded SDS+ drill and a cordless drill/driver. Similarly I would hire a mini digger or diesel compressor.
2. Tools/equipment I plan to use for a long time or where the productivity/quality of the result demands it, will be better quality (mid-range) and I will buy them. If I do not need them afterwards and they have life left in them, I can sell them on eBay. So I will buy a mid-range cordless drill-driver with chunky lithium batteries because it would drive me mad to have to keep changing or replacing batteries and it should be good for 2 years of moderate use. I will expect to buy a stretch of scaffolding because that would be cheaper over a six-year period and I can sell it on at the end.
3. Tools/equipment I do not expect to use heavily and where productivity/quality is not an issue I will buy at lower-end.

Must-have tools/equipment

• General handtools – Already got. Hammers, screwdrivers, pliers, cold chisels etc. Keep.
• Spade(s), shovel(s), pickaxe, sledgehammer, builders barrows, broom(s), handbrush(es) – Buy & keep.
• Surveyors tape, builders pins and line – Already got. For marking out the boundary to the steading site. Keep.
• Level, tripod & staff – Buy on Ebay. For internal floors, drainage & other ground works. Sell  after use
• Laser measurer – Buy, cheap-ish. Keep.
• Post hole bar & digger, post driver, fencing pliers, gripple tensioner – Buy. For fencing. Keep.
• Cordless SDS+ drill, heavy duty – Hire. To get electricity meter box(es) in place.
• Fish tape – Buy & keep.
• Corded SDS+ drill 2-3kg – Buy. For all sorts of things. Decent quality to drill into granite. Keep.
• Hilti SDS+ bits – Buy. To drill into granite.
• Breaker – Buy. To break concrete (probably the £150 Titan from Screwfix). Sell after use if fit to.
• Impact Moler & compressor – Hire. For water piping under the public road.
• MDPE pipe cutter – Buy & keep.
• Big digger & driver – Hire. For demolition, trenching, foundations.
• Mini dumper – Hire. For moving concrete, spoil, aggregate.
• Micro digger – Hire. For excavating inside steading ground floor.
• Roof ladder – Buy. For demolishing existing roof and re-roofing. Keep.
• Angle grinder, 9″ + discs – Buy & keep.
• Circular saw + blades – Already got.
• Hand circular saw, corded – Buy & keep.
• Hand planer, corded – Already got.
• Jigsaw, corded – Already got.
• Hammer drill, cordless, 18v – Buy. Most people advise Makita/De Walt. I might try Ryobi One+ range. Keep
• Drill/Driver, cordless, 18v – Buy. As above. Keep.
• Hand sander, cordless, 18v – Buy. As above. Keep.
• Wrecking bars – Already got.
• Pry bars – Buy & keep.
• Scaffolding – Buy second hand on Ebay. Looking to get e.g. 8m wide by 5m high run. Sell when finished
• Slate ripper – Buy & keep.
• Sack trolley – Buy & keep.
• Cement mixer – Buy. Sell/dispose when finished.
• Pin hammer – Buy. To clean up granite. Sell once finished.
• Compressor, electric – Buy. For air tools including pin hammer. Sell once finished.
• Hand tools – Buy. For pick & point. Keep.

Might-need tools/equipment

• Platform, 5m – Buy. Possibly sell when finished.
• Corded router – Buy & keep

Wildlife

We did not have to be up here long to appreciate the amount and variety of animal life in the area, apart from the sheep and cattle in the fields around us!

On our patch:

• Barn Owl – we have one in the immediate area. We disturbed it in our out-building in October, it flew out of the only open window to get away. Further, whilst cleaning the building out we came across a number of regurgitated pellets. The same evening, we saw it in the headlights flying over the trees at the corner of our access track.
• Tawny Owl – we heard one (to whit tu woo).
• Bats – we have one flying over the property at night. As far as we know they are not resident in the steading or out-building.
• Rabbits – we have not seen any live ones so far, but we have on two occasions found fresh partially eaten ones.
• Buzzard– there is one in the immediate area, sits on posts at the side of the road, probable candidate for killing and eating rabbits on our plot.
• Rooks – not nesting in our trees as far as we know, but they are regular feeders in the surrounding fields and we hear them.
• Deer – we have not seen them, our neighbouring farmer says they are in the area but will probably avoid the steading when it is occupied.
• Geese – airborne, probably flying between the Ythan Estuary/Meikle Loch and Loch of Strathbeg.

In the wider area:

The Ythan estuary is a couple of miles down the road from East Byreleask. It is a 7 km stretch with important coastal moorland and a colony of common Shellducks.

The Sands of Forvie are at the mouth of the Ythan estuary. It has the least-disturbed dune system in the UK. It has the largest breeding colony of Eider Duck in the UK and is important for Arctic, Sandwich, Little and Common terns.

Meikle Loch is close to the Ythan estuary and to Slains school, several miles south of East Byreleask. With the Ythan estuary and Sand of Forvie it is part of a Special Protection Area. “It is a eutrophic loch with limited aquatic vegetation but is important as the home to overwintering Pink-footed Geese. Additionally, it is an essential breeding location for three species of tern during the summer months and houses a tremendous variety of reedswamp plants.”

Loch of Strathbeg is near the coast between Peterhead and Fraserburgh, formed from a bay by a storm in 1720. It is another Special Protection Area. It hosts 260 species of birds, 280 of insects and 26 of mammals. RSPB Star birds are Common tern, Lapwing, Pink-footed goose, Tree sparrow and Whooper swan.

Taming the Wilderness

The land attached to the East Byreleask Steading is former farmyard, slightly over 3/4 acres, 0.3 hectares. There is very little in the way of farm buildings remaining, but it is still a challenge.

Concrete: We have quite a bit of concrete…

1. The concrete bases of former farm buildings, hardstanding and the floor of the silage clamp amount to about 700 square metres of concrete. Assuming it is 10cm thick on average, that is 70 cubic metres or 170 tonnes.
2. There is around 80 metres of concrete wall that is 50cm thick and 2 metres high. This is an additional 80 cubic metres or 190 tonnes.
3. The floors of the steading amount to about 210 square metres. Assuming it is 10cm thick on average, that is 21 cubic metres or 50 tonnes.

Whilst concrete is just as typical of traditional Scottish farming as granite steadings, there is mercifully no planning requirement to preserve it as part of the built environment! I hope the walls can be knocked down by our digger man. I will buy a concrete breaker to get the concrete slab into handle-able chunks. What do we do with 400+ tonnes of broken concrete? We will hire a crusher and break it to hardcore. We can use it within the steading floors and to build up the shared track – all 470 metres of it, probably. The alternative would be pay to remove the waste, then pay again to get the hardcore we need for the building works.

Whilst the cleared areas around the steading will be building site for a few years, we will want to get the rest of it restored to garden. Given this will take years, we need to start sooner not later. We have yet to find a source of manure of other organic waste, but have started our first compost heap.

Track: The ground between the steading proper and our out-building is a well established farm track and runs across much of the plot. Assuming we will also want to convert this to viable garden, we will probably need to dig it out, remove the hardcore and start to build up the fertility.

Jungle: On our visits to the site before we owned it, we could not see from one end of the plot to the other. There are a number of mature ash and sycamore trees but everything around and between them is overgrown with smaller trees and perennial weeds, especially nettles. There is a good deal of concrete and stone scattered around. A strip down the eastern side is rough grass.

During our September visit, we found time to clear a small area. We removed some smaller trees, mostly sick-looking elder. We cut branches from two of the mature trees to above head height. The effect was immediate – a much more open wooded area that we could access. We will need to tackle the perennial weeds over several seasons – we have asked for a petrol strimmer for Christmas.

Japanese Knotweed: During our September visit, we came upon a patch of not un-attractive bamboo-like fronds, with somewhat heart-shaped leaves. It meant nothing to me, but Jill was suspicious. Back at her parents house, she confirmed that we had Japanese Knotweed on site. Reading up about it, it is a real nuisance. It is invasive and the roots can break concrete. It grows rhizomes out and down for several metres and small fragments of broken rhizome will quickly grow into new plants. Whilst it is not notifiable, we are required to make sure it does not invade anyone-else’s property and must not sell the property without informing the buyer. It is a headache for commercial builders, where time is of the essence. If you only have months to work on a site and sell it, you more or less have to excavate several metres down, sieve root material out and burn it. We have more leeway. By regularly using glyphosate on the foliage, over at least three years, it should eventually weaken and die.

Fortunately, this was the best time of year to treat it, whilst it is flowering. We bought weedkiller and sprayed the patch we had uncovered. We delved further and found more. Then more. Then more. We ran out of weedkiller, bought more and carried on. Much of it was too tall to spray, I cut it at ground level and we later burnt it. A month later, most of the sprayed foliage had died and there was some regrowth, this should not survive winter. We did read that the new growth can be cut, steamed and eaten. We will be working on destroying it for the next few years.

In November 2014 this headline, from the Independent, was typical of a minor feeding frenzy – “Japanese Knotweed: Government to issue Asbos (Anti-social behaviour orders) to those who fail to deal with invasive plant“. Here is the article in full…

“People who fail to control the growth of Britain’s most invasive and pernicious alien plant species could be issued with anti-social behaviour orders (Asbos), the Home Office has said.
The Government has named Japanese knotweed as one of the “non-native” plants which “have the ability to spread and pose serious threats to biodiversity, the economy and human health”.
As a result, new rules have been introduced in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 that could see people and organisations served with notices for “not controlling Japanese knotweed [when they] could be reasonably expected to do so”.
“Failure to act” is defined specifically as a form of anti-social “conduct”, according to a Home Office document, and individuals could be fined up to £2,500. Companies who allow the weed to get out of control could face a fine up to £20,000.
Japanese knotweed was brought to Britain in the 19th century as Fallopia japonica, a medal-winning ornamental plant.
But it has become a botanical menace, capable of ripping through concrete and brickwork and causing £170 million of damage a year.
Just a few millimetres of its underground root or rhizome is sufficient to spawn a new plant, making its removal from soil time-consuming and expensive – getting rid of it from 10 acres of the London Olympics site reportedly cost more than £70 million.
The new powers come after trials have raised hopes that psyllids could prey naturally on the plant, and in doing so diminish its ability to spread so vigorously. The targeted introduction of the specially-bred insects for trials was the first time the release of an alien insect species had been authorised in the EU.”

Keeping in touch

East Byreleask Steading is six miles from Ellon, which has modern things like superfast broadband and 4G mobile. Not quite the same at the steading. A telephone line emerges from the ground, next to the shared access track and to where our water pipe comes on site. The local BT exchange is at Auchleuchries (NSALR) which is close to Toll of Birness. It is about 3 miles by road and 2 miles as the crow flies. In technology terms, it is antiquated, last updated in 2006 with ADSL Max. East Byreleask is recognised by the BT website and it estimates up to 3.5mbps download. I would be sceptical of it ever achieving this, but it looks like it would be just about functional. At least we would not immediately have to look at a satellite service.

It is not clear whether we will get fast broadband. The Digital Scotland website has a postcode checker that tells me “This postcode is within the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband intervention area.  This means that we aim to improve broadband in your area.” We are in the ‘Rest of Scotland’ rollout, but the associated map is sufficiently complex and sufficiently lacking in a frame of reference that I cannot work out whether we are in the ‘January-June 2015’ tranche or ‘Under evaluation’. I await good news on superfast broadband at East Byreleask…

Mobile is solidly 2G. My EE gets about 1 bar over most of the site, nothing in the steading, but three bars in the north-east corner of the site. Jill’s Vodafone gets similar reception. So calls, texts and Whatsapp are all OK-ish outside. I did notice that my phone battery was going flat much quicker than down south, maybe having to try harder to get signal?

UPDATE 05/01/2015 – over Christmas I spoke to our next-door neighbour, Allan Aitken. He has had a phone line put in (took several months) and says the broadband is quite reasonable. I also discovered that I get 3 bars of H+ mobile signal outside the west wall of the steading. Looks like it should be OK upstairs in the steading, at least in line with the windows.

Planning our fencing

We own a very active and curious collie. The neighbouring farmer has cattle and sheep. A proper dog-proof boundary is a priority. Our planning permission says this has to be traditional post-and-wire.

The Missing boundary fence: First, find your boundary. I have a plan, measured up by our architect as part of the sale of the property to ourselves. It shows distances to two decimal places of metres. A large chunk along the north-east and northern boundaries are marked as ‘undefined’ i.e. there is nothing on the ground to show where it should goes. I marked it up as best I could in October, with 1″ x 1″ short stakes, but I do not expect it to still there by Christmas, when we aim to build the fence. One problem is in the north-east corner, with a number of changes of direction, but no angles on the master plan. There are an infinite number of solutions, so I did something that looks OK and will await feedback from the neighbouring farmer.

We will run the fence along the northern boundary towards the shared track and turn 70 degrees towards the steading, to join close to where the garage door will be i.e. it will be outside the fence. We will put two wooden farm-style gates in that section to give access to visitors and to the trucks that will empty the septic tank. The latter can be up to 8 tonnes and need to get to within 25m of the tank. The boundary resumes down the side of the west leg, with a gate onto our driveway, then follows the boundary to meet with the existing fence put up by the neighbour. Looking at existing fences, we will use standard pig netting with strainers and posts some 1.2m above ground. We will run barbed wire along the tops where the fence faces fields. We will use straining wire on the boundary with our neighbours.

George, our digger driver is available over the Christmas period to dig holes for the strainers. The rest we can do ourselves.

The blue line shows the new fencing we need to construct.

How much will it all cost?

One of the self-build books quotes the following calculation, to come up with a price for a building plot…

Plot sale price = Finished sale price – Building costs – A reasonable profit

As a rule of thumb, this explains why building plots are eye-wateringly expensive in areas of high demand and much more reasonable in less-popular areas. It is also commonly said that it is cheaper to knock down an old structure and build from new than to convert the old structure to modern standards. Whoever sold us East Byreleask Steading must have done calculations like these. It was at the lower end of the price range for Aberdeenshire. In some ways this is easily explained: It is closer to Peterhead than Aberdeen. The structure is sound, but it is large and needs a lot doing on it. The wider site is a mess. It may gain or lose from the state of the housing market and ‘desirability’ factors like accessibility, local schools and local services.

Finished sale price

By their nature, converted steadings are relatively few and far between. They vary wildly in size and degree of alteration (towards  what a ‘normative’ or ‘ideal’ home is deemed to be). However, similarly sized converted steadings in the general area appear for sale at the £390k-mark. How quickly it might sell, should we need to, is probably more important to us than price. Our architect has suggested that the larger the floor area, the harder it will be to sell. We are choosing to make it larger.

A reasonable profit

As we see this as a retirement home, the profit element is less important than it would be to a commercial builder. It is a ‘desirable’.

Building costs – using Build Cost Calculators

New-build costs are often estimated using the tables of cost-per-square-metre that are published in self-build magazines and books. There are online calculators that use this information to come up with the numbers. The Homebuilding & Renovating Build Cost Calculator is popular. The variables are a) 1 or 2 floors, b) project location (Scotland is one location), c) build quality – standard, good, excellent and d) ‘contracted to’ – self managed subcontractors, subcontractors, builders & subcontractors, single main contractor. This does not really cover our circumstances. Our property is a mix of single and 1.5 floor and we will probably do more of the work ourselves than the ‘contracted to’ allows for. If I am retired or working in my spare time, I will not cost-in my time. Plus it is a conversion, not a new-build or renovation.

For interest, the magic number for 2/Scotland/Good/Self managed subcontractors is £818 per square metre, £204,500. Going for Excellent quality bumps the numbers up to £1,027 and £256,750. We will probably go for some ‘Excellent’ and some ‘Good’.

If this were representative for us, our cost including buying the site would be around £300,000 – £350,000. This would work for us if we can afford it, we would make our reasonable profit and we would still be able to sell the finished property.

Building costs – using a Work/Cost Breakdown Structure

The limited nature of building cost calculators lead me to use the other popular approach -a work/cost breakdown structure. Given the site and the complete list of things that need buying and doing, how much will it cost? It is time-consuming. It requires a solid knowledge of building techniques, time, materials and labour costs, which I do not claim. However, I have spent a LOT of time (not costed!) finding out how houses are built (praise-be to search engines, builder blogs, online suppliers and building brothers). Today we have some 570 distinct tasks to undertake or items to buy. This will increase as we work through the list. If I do not have a clue about a particular element of cost, I guess and assume that it could be ‘as-much-again’ i.e. the uncertainty is 100%. As I get more detail and a better handle on costs the uncertainty decreases until, with a quote, it is 0%. Even if I am wildly out on one line, I would expect to be out the other way on other lines.

This all becomes more accurate with time. A tiny example: We need an electricity supply. In the very early days we knew that power came towards our plot on poles and went underground at the boundary of the adjacent plot. In the worst case, we would need a trench dug and cable run to the steading. I guessed (based on some Googling) £1500 +/- £1000 as a single line in the breakdown. Later we discovered two utility meters on the wall of the steading and the remains of a wiring system, but they are on the wall that must be demolished and re-built. My estimate broke down to five lines totalling £1500 +/- £350 to relocate the meter box. Now my plan has 25 lines. I have a quote from the power company for £498.35 to re-locate the meter, with estimates of £725 +/- £224 for trenching, materials and an electrician to install my temporary power supply. I will shortly be getting a quote from the electrician and will buy the materials. It is unlikely to go outside the current limits.

My first estimates were that total building costs, including purchase, would be around £270,000 +/- £170,000. It is now around £330,000 +/- £110,000. I have some confidence that the first number will not change radically and that the uncertainty will fall. In the worst case, that the cost rises unacceptably, at least we will have some sort of warning and can scale our ambitions back. Of course, you will see that the cost calculator came up with just about the same number as my much more complex work/cost breakdown. I expect this is happy co-incidence.

Electricity

We had mixed messages about the state of the power supply to the steading, although the seller said early on that Yes, it was there. On inspection, we discovered not one but two meter boxes, some dodgy-looking wiring in the steading building and a tangle of external wires that may have taken power to other buildings on the site. Later we looked at a photo from the ASPC website showing some of the wires going to our second, smaller building. I expect that the builders working on the adjacent site must have done the damage when they demolished the old farmhouse. The meters looked live and, during a visit in April 2014, looked as though the builders may have been using power from them – the covers had been levered off the boxes and damaged.

So we had several issues to sort out with SSE, the network power company for Aberdeenshire. Why were there two meters? Were they supplying the adjacent property as well as our own? Was our supply suitable for a domestic property? How do we get our meter away from the wall it is mounted on – it is the one that must be demolished and re-built.

Why were there two meters? One (a standard credit meter) was for the steading, the other (a pre-pay meter) was for the now-demolished farmhouse. I was not allowed to ask for the latter to be removed – I contacted the owner of the adjacent property, he contacted SSE and they agreed to remove the unwanted meter shortly after. Which they did.

The south-facing end of the west leg of the steading – we know this needs to be partially demolished and shortened.

Were either of the meters supplying the adjacent property? I could not get a straight answer on this, but we now think not. I have not heard anything after the second meter was removed, I expect this is for the right reason – it really was surplus to requirements.

Was our supply suitable for supplying a domestic property? We were told to get an electrician to check the wiring. It is obvious that the wiring in the steading is very poor and needs stripping out, I was more concerned about whether the incoming supply was sufficient.

How do we get our meter away from the wall it is mounted on? I tried various SSE phone numbers and ended up at SSE Connections & Engineering, who explained the process. They have an online form that looked intimidating to the uninitiated, but turned out to be creative and quite entertaining. They wanted diagrams showing what I wanted to do, I used Paint on my PC to doctor some of the photographs we had taken, drawing lines and adding text to explain.

I thought we should move the meter from the current location on the south wall of the west leg, all the way round to the north wall, to put it closer to where we would want the consumer unit. However, in order to run the cable on my property it has to go close to the steading wall, past what is currently a large side opening. We will need to fill this in and it may need proper foundations, in which case the cable may be in the way. It would then have worked its way past where we need to run our incoming water pipe and where we will be opening up the doorway to the garage. In the end we decided to move the meter just half way to the west-facing wall, well out of harms way – around 9 meters from the current location.

We submitted the form and SSE responded quite quickly, with a quote and a crude network diagram. Our supply crosses the field to our west on poles (3-phase), dives into the ground at the west boundary of next door’s property and goes underground onto our property more or less in a straight line towards out meter box. I was naïve and supposed that SSE would come on site, dig out the cable, re-route it and make good. Alas, I need to arrange everything including materials, they come along after I have uncovered the supply cable, I clean up afterwards. Fortunately I have both a digger man and an electrician on hand. I accepted the quote and paid the £498.37. I was asked to contact SSE Mapping Services for a more accurate diagram of where their supply runs. It arrived by email the following day and was actually no different to the first map, other than showing next-door’s supply – a useful nugget. I would not stake my life on the quality of their mapping.