15 ways to get the best from your builder
DAVID SNELL The author of Building Your Own Home, David is a serial self-builder and has been building homes for 50 years
Self-building is as much about building relationships as it is building houses. The one that you have with your builder is often the most important, as it is the most likely to be fraught with danger.
It’s an odd relationship, especially for many first time self-builders. While you are, ostensibly, the principal partner – remember the ultimate decisions, including the authorisation of payment, are all yours – it’s often the builder who is the expert that you are relying on and the source of the advice and the knowledge that enables you to make those decisions.
Here’s 15 of my top tips to navigate the relationship between self-builder and builder and make sure that you avoid any pitfalls along the way.
1 RESEARCH BUILDERS
The ‘go to’ route for anything these days seems to be the internet and there are several companies, many of whom advertise on television, offering lists of builders and tradespeople who have registered with them and, presumably, been checked
