Direct Route

A direct route is when you physically and mentally project manage your build. What this means is that you have to look and find subcontractors , arrange for materials, oversee the build and make sure that it is up to the standard.

To put it another way, you are the building contractor, you make all the decisions, spend the time on site and gain all the profits.

This is the cheapest route to build your house if you are prepared to spend the time on it. It could also be the most enjoyable route as you feel a sense of satisfaction at the end when you see the results.

But be warned, this is not for the faint hearted as there is a lot of challenges involved and you need to keep your stress level down and deal with the problems as they come up.

• Always plan everything in advance.
• Make sure that you do your homework on your sub contractors by getting as much details about them as possible.
• Always talk to your subcontractors and discuss the project with them. They might have a better suggestion or solution for you.
• Keep a close eye on the budget and stick with it.
• Do not panic if something goes wrong, there is always a solution for every problem.
• Try and do as much as you can yourself as this would save you money but only tackle the things that you are confident you can do
• Make sure that the site is safe and appropriate health and safety warnings signs are in place.
• And please, please, please make sure that you have some sort of self build insurance for your project. This is the most expensive investment that you might make in your life, so do not put yourself in a danger of loosing it for the sake of saving a few hundreds of euro’s on an insurance policy.

Good luck and enjoy the process of self building.