Can you build a house for less than £150,000? Well, we’ve probably all read case studies in magazines and online where the happy self builders claim to have built a house for significantly under £150,000! But the unanswered questions are:-

“When was it built and what does that include?”

These articles often don’t tell you when the project was finished, and it could have been many years ago, when costs were significantly lower.

Does the headline number just comprise the bare build cost or did it cover the whole project? There is (a lot) more to a self build house than just materials and main construction costs, as we’ll show later.

So yes, you (probably) can build a house for less than £150,000; just don’t expect to build yourself a mansion.

You’ll have to be prepared to get stuck in, do a lot of the work yourself (or call in favours) and manage the project at the same time. That way, since you’re not paying many outside contractors (only those legally necessary such as an electrician, and a Gas Safe plumber if you’re installing gas heating), you’ll save considerable costs. You will definitely still need to be canny when sourcing materials and goods, possibly even looking for second-hand or ex-showroom kitchen and bathroom items where possible.

By opting for a comprehensive log home kit, you can save yourself lots of time in researching and sourcing the materials to build your house. With a kit, just about everything you need is included; doors, windows and even brackets and screws. You’ll also be able to crack on with the build straight away once the kit is delivered, and avoid any hold-ups owing to late deliveries or the wrong items being supplied.

Let’s look at an example of a compact one-bedroom house, of about 50m2, with an open plan living / dining / kitchen area, a double bedroom and a bathroom. You could purchase a fully residential log house kit, with a specification designed to meet or even exceed current UK building regulations (see here for the English regulations).

The kit would typically cost you around £60,000 + VAT from us. This includes doors and windows, our optional stylish contemporary metal profiled roofing, and delivery costs (although we’d need to check this depending where your site is). See the Advice Centre article here for what is typically included in one of our log home kits.

But of course the kit is not all that you’ll need. There’s a lot of other things to consider, as building a log home is very similar to building any other home. You’ll need to factor in design, planning application and building control fees up front, as well as any reports and surveys needed. (We have a useful guide to all the other up front costs you might need to consider – just contact us to request a copy!)

Then you’ll need to add in costs for demolition (if applicable), service connections, scaffolding, groundworks, and foundations. And that’s before you start actually building your house and fitting it out to suit your needs.

You’ll need to decide on heating, hot water, wiring and plumbing as a starting point for the other things you’ll need in your home. Choosing your kitchen, bathroom(s), flooring, tiling and decor are the same for any house build, but you’ll need to be acutely conscious of your budget.

You can make significant savings if you’re willing to shop around for materials.

Tiles, for instance, are available at a wide range of prices; and cheaper ones can often look similar to more expensive, well-known brands.

You can save on flooring costs by opting for laminate rather than expensive engineered timber; or low-cost carpeting where appropriate. We can provide pine tongue and groove flooring with your log home kit which is also a cost effective option.

Budget bathrooms usually perform the same as expensive brands and can save you a small fortune, though it is worth using a professional plumber to fit them unless you feel really confident.

Likewise with the kitchen – the carcases are similar across most of the brands and it is the doors that make the difference. If you are skilled, you can make your own plywood doors similar to those you may have seen on television programmes, though that’s only an option if you like them! Looking out for ex-display kitchens at a local showroom could also save quite a lot, especially if you’ve designed the floorplan to be fairly flexible. Composite worktops cost much less than solid timber or granite, though either way it’s worth using an experienced kitchen fitter as most of us don’t have the right tools for cutting and fitting worktops. There is still a lot you can do to save labour costs, if you have the time and energy.

If you’re paying a main contractor to actually build your log home for you, with them providing all the trades and managing the project, we’d usually suggest budgeting at least twice as much as the cost of the log home kit. So the overall build project cost is likely to be around three times the kit cost.

The actual cost will depend a lot on the finish you want, and the options you select.

You should always have a good contingency fund available as well (10% of the overall budget is typical).

In the end, the costs shown here are for an ideal situation and since every plot and every self builder is different, they won’t fit every circumstance.

If your plot is sloping, on made up ground or heavy clay for instance, it’s likely that groundworks will cost (a lot) more than we’ve allowed for in our assumptions.

Likewise if you also want solar panels or must have a ground source heat pump, you’ll need to budget significantly more.

But if you’re comfortable with organising everything, doing a lot of the work yourself and accepting some compromises, then in conclusion, the (compact) £150,000 house is just about achievable! A family sized home is more likely to come in nearer the £300,000 mark.

Get in touch to find out more about our smaller house designs and arrange a no-obligation chat to discuss how to go about building yours.