HIGH POINT
“The end product; we absolutely love our house. It fits our life really well, the kids love it, it’s great for parties and we’ve got room for friends to come and stay. Also we’re really appreciative of the people who were involved in the building of it, overall it worked really well.”
John. He also advised adding an overhang over the front door, to provide some shelter. “Simple things – thinking about the house as a functional family home.”
Utilities, often a cause of self-builder angst,
were largely stress-free for John and Helen, although costly. They had to extend the nearby water and electricity supply to the site, and added a private soakaway. “That was expensive because the soil up here is heavy clay and we had to dig out 120 metres,” says John. “We were fortunate we were doing it on our own farm and there were no issues with access.”
MAKING PROGRESS The couple were already aware of Scotframe, not only because they’re local – they also have friends who’d used them previously. They narrowed the quotes received down to three firms, but their friends’ recommendations of Scotframe “played a big part” in their final decision. It was through friends that they also chose their main contractor – a friend’s family has a housebuilding company, RD Morgan, which John says was “a big draw”. They had heard stories about builders “turning up and then disappearing”, so they wanted to be able to trust whoever they decided to work with. “It turned out really well, we had a great relationship during the whole build,” he says. John credits the subcontractors with being a big help with various aspects of the project. One
54
www.sbhonline.co.uk
They had already paid a structural engineer to prepare drawings, but these had to be redone by Scotframe’s team
in particular, Aqua Leisure, helped hugely with the pool, something they’d been struggling with as being relatively inexperienced with such a construction. They considered delaying it as cost estimates were spiralling, but “he came through and helped us out with contacts and things that managed to get it back to something sensible and manageable,” explains John. Their main contractor also advised putting hardcore around the outside of the property to avoid it becoming a “mudbath,” which also provided a good base for scaffolding.
Their main contractor also took it on the chin when a storm caused damage to the interior. The Nordan windows, which John and Helen arranged through Scotframe, ended up being delayed by 12 weeks. To get the house wind and watertight the builder put up plastic sheets to enable them to continue work. However, a
may/june 2021
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
