The Only Way Is Up

Iain Hendry of Oakwrights, which designs and manufactures oak-framed extensions, garages and homes, takes us through the self-build process

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What are the most common mistakes made by self-builders? What steps should they take to avoid these?

 There are all sorts of pitfalls awaiting you as a self-builder, and some are harder to avoid than others. If you are planning to build on a plot of land that has never had a house on it before, it can be very easy not to budget correctly in the early stages for things like formation of access, servicing, power, water and gas, and rainwater and foul drainage. If you don’t allocate a portion of your budget for these, you’ll have to make sacrifices elsewhere. The least-bad outcome of this might be that you end up with an ordinary, off -the-shelf kitchen rather than the designer model you wanted. A far worse scenario is that the build quality suffers.

At Oakwrights, we specialise in green oak-framed builds, and if this is your desired route, it’s well worth engaging with the right specialist team early on. All too often we meet clients who would like to incorporate the aesthetics and solidity of a green oak frame; they’ve had the design done by a third party, though, and we have trouble getting a frame to work with their plan. Oakwrights Scotland’s architectural team, however, will ensure your design brief and desired frame detailing work perfectly, both visually and structurally.

The insulated envelope of an energy-