Ten steps to building your own home
Building your own home is a challenge, but it is one that you can handle if you have patience and are willing to start watching your dream slowly come to life. Here are essential steps that will help you get to the finished result you have in mind.
First of all, you need to engage with a respected architect that you can trust. Put your plans down on paper and plan how the project is going to proceed. As the old saying goes, fail to plan, plan to fail. A good architect will give you an insight to planning permissions, potential building restrictions and give you a detailed plan of attack.
Once you have the plans in place and are confident of each step you are going to take it’s time to prepare the home site and outline your construction basics. Begin by clearing the site, staking out the plot, and getting a temporary electrical panel and other utilities out to the building site.
Laying the Foundations
The next thing you will do is start to build the foundation of your home, at which point you will have officially started your project. It’s usually a good idea to bring in a company that specialises in foundations to take care of this essential task. If you have a builder they will do the same.
If the foundation is a slab then the next step will be to get electricians and plumbers out to run the lines under the slab. If electricity is going to run through the conduits then they will need to be placed at this point.
Once all this has been done it will be time to pour the concrete slabs on top of the slab that will form the garage and the general slab of the home. Doing it all at once will save you money compared to bringing back a concrete contractor a second time for the garage or other additional areas.
Taking Shape
Next you need to get your joiners in who will then start to build the house itself, and the building site will start to look more encouraging! You will see the frame of the home go up first, followed by the outer surface material and the roofing.
Now that you have walls, it’s time to get electrical and plumbing contractors back into the home to run pipes and electrical wires in the walls before the plasterboard goes up. This is also the point in the build when you will need to have your insulation installed.
With all of the behind the scenes work done, it is now time to install the plasterboard, prime, and trim, so that the walls actually take shape in the home.
Nearly There
At this point, you just have some final touch-ups to take care of, such as interior painting or any ‘minor’ jobs you may need to do such as trimming the doors and skirting boards and installing the bathroom and kitchen counters.
As the house nears completion, you need to lay whatever form of flooring you have chosen. You may want to call a company to thoroughly clean the home because after all of this construction there will be a good deal of mess.
You can finish up your home build by pouring the driveway and taking care of your outside landscaping. Of course, you will also need to have your final inspections, so that you can safely move in.
If you are planning to build your own home in Northern Ireland get in contact with Alastair MacNab architects to properly plan your project and keep you on the right track.