Back in 2004, gaining planning permission to build a new home in a rural setting in NI was quite different to today. Then, the only real chance of success was to find a building that could loosely be described as ‘habitable’ in that it had a serviceable roof.
[powerkit_collapsibles] [powerkit_collapsible title=”COST&SIZES” opened=”true”] Site cost: £60,000 Site size: ¾ acre Project cost including all site works and interiors (to date): £150,000 House size: 2,800sq main house Current value: Overall, house prices in NI are still falling so this is really impossible to estimate. What I would say is that individual homes like ours have been much less affected by the downturn than other sectors of the market. [/powerkit_collapsible] [powerkit_collapsible title=”BUILD SPEC”] Walls: Outer leaf of cedar/stone cladding or rendered blockwork, 50mm ventilated cavity. 50mm thermal insulation on 9.5mm OSB fixed to 140x38mm timber studs @ 400mm centres to timber frame specification with 140mm blown recycled paper insulation between studs. Air tight vapour control layer fixed to inside of timber frame. 50x35mm timber battens fixed to timber studs with 50mm hemp wool insulation between counter battens to provide service duct with 12.5 plasterboard drylined. U value: 0.17W/msqK Floor: 50mm liquid screed on 150mm thermal insulation on 500 gauge vapour barrier on 150mm site concrete on 1200 gauge DPM on 25mm clean blinding on 225mm min. compacted hardcore. U value: 0.17W/msqK. Roof: Natural Slate on 38x25mm timber slating battens on breathable membrane on C16 kiln dried treated roof rafters @ 400mm centres to timber frame detail. Ait tight vapour control layer pinned to underside of ceiling joists with 300mm Warmcell blown paper insulation in roofspace with 12.5mm plasterboard screw fixed to underside of rafters. U value: 0.16W/msqK. [/powerkit_collapsible] [/powerkit_collapsibles] Alan Molloy and his partner Sharon Daly didn’t have to look further than the field next to Alan’s family home in Co Down, to the old farm steading Alan had played in as a child and so, naturally, close to his heart. Following successful negotiations with the farmer to buy the old farmhouse with its outbuildings, Alan duly applied for outline planning permission for a replacement dwelling. It doesn’t take much imagination to know how Alan felt, two weeks after lodging the application, when he came down the lane one morning and found the dust settling on a digger which had just finished demolishing the farmhouse! Enquiries revealed that the farmer had sold the stone in the farmhouse to someone else three years previously. Fortunately the planners were reasonable, Alan and Sharon got their permission to build and there was enough stone left in the outbuildings for what they needed in the new house.
“We bought the site when I was in my early 20’s with not much saved so waiting three years before starting to build allowed us to save for the build and use any spare time we had to gather information and ideas. I’m afraid that as soon as we heard of anyone self-building we invited ourselves over for a look around! In fact people were very generous with their time, sharing ideas and answering our questions. Our architect encouraged us to create a book with a montage of all our ideas, with the result that his first design we hardly changed at all and the internal layout only slightly. The cedar cladding was his idea and we’re delighted with it, it’s very striking.”In 2007 the foundations were poured, the timber frame arrived, was erected – and the construction industry began to go into recession. Making a virtue out of a necessity, Alan took the next six months as a sabbatical, working full time on the house instead. Although they were living in Belfast, over 20 miles/35 kilometres distant from the site, there was always a hot meal and a bed available at his parents’ house up the lane, allowing Alan to be on site at hours of the day he would otherwise have spent sitting in the car, driving to and from, which saved a lot of time and effort, not to mention petrol cost. About this time, Alan’s father suffered a brief illness from which he has now thankfully fully recovered after a long convalescence. Being from a farming background, he was naturally very active and with a former career as a joiner/foreman, there couldn’t have been a better person to have on site when Alan was absent.


“He really was very, very helpful” said Alan, “apart from just being there to check off deliveries, having his advice, expertise and experience made a big difference to us. From their many visits to friends houses, Alan and Sharon had decided upon an open plan layout incorporating a kitchen, living and dining room with a sun room off and a separate formal living room on the ground floor, the centre of which is double height above the dining area. The stairs rise out of the entrance hallway and into a study with, to one side the master bedroom with en suite and walk in wardrobe and to the other, a bridge forming the edge of the void below leads you to two double bedrooms and a family bathroom. There is underfloor heating on the ground floor with radiators on the floor above, fuelled by a log boiler which also provides hot water, in addition to that obtained from the solar panels. The house is zoned upstairs and down with TRVs on the radiators and thermostats linked to the boiler. The upper floor was constructed using I beam joists with an acoustic layer below the plywood covering with a finished wood laminate surface. On the ground floor the covering is of 600 x 600mm Brazilian slate tiles, which resulted in an unexpected two weeks hard labour for Alan and some very good friends, as Alan explained. “The slate had to be finished with a spray on sealant which sounded the easiest thing in the world. The trouble was I put it on too thickly and it dried to a hard grey finish which took three of us two weeks of scrubbing to get back to how it should look. I won’t forget that in a hurry!”





Alan Molloy, Builder and Joiner, Downpatrick, Co Down M: 078 25517339