Am I mad to try and build my own home?

[tuftyfella]

So i have been looking into buying a house for some time now, a detached house as i hate living in a semi (although sometimes beggars cant be choosers...). Anyway i cant find a single detached house that i like, bearing in mind my budget for one isn't huge so i'm somewhat limited with choice. Then i had a thought, could i build a house and went off Googling and found the following...

https://www.homebuilding.co.uk/diy-icf-self-build/

i like the look, the layout (although i'd be changing it somewhat), doing away with the dining room and garage section for a start. The idea of working with ICF seems kind of fun and much more user friendly for something like this and for someone like me with literally no experience in any building trade, although i'm more than proficient at DIY. Coupled with the fact it does seem very DIY inclined it could save a tonne of money on the labour costs of the usual block build wall as i should be able to build it all and get it filled with concrete myself?

I'm working through some of the costs and volumes of materials, structural stuff i.e. concrete, re-bar, facing bricks, roof tiles and various other stuff, roughly accurate estimates for something that would be 10 x 8 meters (may drop down to 10 x 7) as well as drawing up plans on graph paper (anyone able to suggest some free software that doesn't have any 30 day trial crap).

By the way, i realise i'm probably underestimating how hard this is going to be but i'm up for the challenge.

So... lets assume i have the land with the planning permission, plans etc... am i mad to attempt something like this?

 

[tuftyfella]

The only thing that springs to mind is whether that build method comes under "traditional construction". I would say it doesn't and as such it may have buildings insurance implications once built much like a "prefab" does. I'm not saying this is prefab btw, just there may be more things to check than you think,

well going by http://www.icfa.org.uk/content/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/CML-Letter-2012.pdf from this http://www.icfa.org.uk/association-membership/ site it would seem so, i would obviously check with whichever insurance company i go for...

amateur response i know, again, still researching all this stuff, want to be as prepared as potentially possible.

 

[tuftyfella]

thanks for the replies and suggestions folks

the drawings i'm doing at the moment are just to help me visualise measurements and work out volumes of materials, also to make things easier when getting in touch with and potentially meeting an architect to draw up actual plans.

i have considered other cladding than bricks like for example http://www.brick-clad.co.uk/tier-naturalstone-cladding/ - (i like the slate) although i expect that would be rather expensive.

my plans have a somewhat of a hallway