Episode 31 – Self-builder Orlean McCaffrey shares her tips and advice building her home in County Fermanagh, including: – Planning restrictions– Choice of how to build the house and who to get to build it– Home cinema design– Microcement kitchen Read the full article here Favourite More
Few people get to wave at the fishermen passing by when they’re out in their garden, but Saoirse Fitzgerald does from her Co Cork home – the dwelling the lighthouse keeper used to live in. In this article, Saoirse talks about: What state was the lighthouse keeper’s dwelling in, and how did you approach the […] More
The challenge for architects is to get the houses they design in the countryside to blend into the landscape. When it came to his own home, Andrew O’Brien came up with an ingenious solution by incorporating concrete interiors. In this article we cover: How did the project come about? The process was the same as […] More
Kitchen and bathroom design – Self-build advisor John Corless chats through the dos and don’ts of designing the most used rooms of the house. Favourite More
Working out your house plans – Self-build advisor John Corless runs through the basic principles of proportion and making internal spaces work. Favourite More
Episode 20: Building your home with stone usually means building a cavity wall with the external leaf solid stone. This method tends to have costly knock on effects on the foundations, window detailing and structural supports such as lintels. An alternative is to use stone cladding, or slices of stone stuck to blockwork with an […] More
Episode 8: Planning permission is the first stumbling block to building or extending your home. This episode Patrick O’Reilly, Managing Director of niplanningpermission.co.uk and irelandplanning.ie, gives us the low down on how the planning process works in NI and ROI and how to increase your chances with your local authority. We also discuss which projects […] More
Episode 6: The building regulations for ventilation (part F) and energy efficiency (Part L) are coming into force on the 1st November 2019 in the Republic of Ireland; we chat with Mark Shirley of 2eva.ie to find out what it all means for your self-build in terms of heating systems, ventilation strategies, major renovations and […] More
Episode 5: Dan and Jessica hired every tradesman and did a lot of the work themselves, from tidying up the site every evening to laying floors. We chat about what it takes to design the house of your dreams, how to get it built and keep a positive outlook. Check them out on Instagram @seaunahouse […] More
Episode 4: The Climate Action Plan launched in June 2019 promised that homeowners in ROI would be able to sell electricity from their PV panels back to the grid by 2021. Brian Denvir of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland explains what kind of feed in tariffs are available in Europe and sheds some light […] More
Episode 3: We have a chat with Belfast-based energy advisor Patrick Waterfield about how you will generate heat and hot water in the home. Some of the main points we cover are: Boilers vs heat pumps Underfloor heating vs radiators Fabric first approach How the building regulations affect system choice The situation in NI ROI […] More
Whether you’re building new or renovating, you’ll need to determine early on how much your windows and doors will cost. Simply because they could drain the budget. What do we cover in this article? In the days when our grandparents were building their homes, they kept things simple and bar a few exceptions these methods […] More