Building your own house

The issue with the way you are building i.e. poroton blocks, pre-cast floor slabs, (hollowcore presumably), vaulted ceilings etc. is that if you don't have an engineer or architect produce working drawings for you will find that there could and most likely will be descrepencies in design between the 'fitting together' of all these different elements.

Assuming that various suppliers are going to provide the various elements.

What an engineer or architect would do is to ensure that he has all the trade literature and design specifications from each company (technical details/dimensions etc) in order to piece the building together.

This is one of the advantages of timber frame as they each have there own system, allbeit similar, that they can produce the working details from plans, elevations and sections.

I would suggest you go back to your architect and see what he suggests.

As for the electrical points, you can get someone to draw these up for you also but it is really as simple as having a spare plan and sketching on what you wan't. The builder/electrician will price accordingly.

Just try to foresee everything that you would like i.e. plug socket there, tv point there etc. as some will take advantage if you change you mind half way through. Extras can add up!

Good Luck and keep us informed.
 
Hi Garbow,

Thanks for the info. I won't be going direct labour route hoping to go with contractor - have heard good things about homebuilder and have seen their work. Hopefully sometime next year we will start to build.

Angela