HIGH POINT
“Getting the timber frame completed was both a relief and very exciting. We could walk about inside it and begin to see the size of the rooms and where the doors would be.” – Roger Southcott
ROGER’S TOP TIP
“Never buy without visiting the site and read between the lines on adverts. If a plot seems cheap, there’s a reason.”
paying an extra £2,000 to get everything back on track. Reflecting on the row, Roger’s not sure the couple could have done much more to avoid it. “We thought we had everything tied down watertight by using a standard JCT (Joint Contracts Tribunal) contract but got involved in an argument over semantics.” Despite this experience, Roger still recommends using this form of contract: “Some companies don’t want to work to a JCT because they see it as restrictive, but in most cases it should offer protection both for you and the contractor.”
Other delays in the construction process for the Southcotts included dealing with nesting bats at the site, which cost more than £7,000, and an archaeology dig that meant a bill for double that amount. Says Roger: “We had to dig the entire site to a one metre depth. They did apparently find a Romano-Anglo Saxon lime kiln. The experts looked at it and then filled it in again. It was a total pain and took months to do.”
LAYOUT & MATERIALS
These bumps in the road aside, Roger and Lucy are delighted with their self-build, which had the finishing touches to the internal fit out applied during 2019. With a footprint 20 per cent larger than that of the bungalow that preceded it, the new structure responds to the sloping site by
january 2020
having three storeys on its eastern side, including a basement level that is partially underground, and one storey on its western side. Roger is understandably very pleased with the circular hallway: “It’s amazing,” he says. Two spiral staircases within the hallway give access to the basement and the first floor, while a feature chandelier is another attention-grabber in this impressive space.
At basement level the house has two bedrooms and a bathroom, the garage, a plant
www.sbhonline.co.uk 21
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