Do builders bamboozle female selfbuilders?

I come from a family of formidable women. As a child I spent hours of agonising embarrassment as my mother argued the toss at supermarket checkouts. When my children were growing up it was a family joke that whenever my wife returned an item to the local Waitrose the manager hid.

When we embarked on our first self build, my wife was the logical choice of front person with our main contractor. She had worked as office manager of a small building firm and spoke fluent builderese. My construction experience at the time was limited to some rather shaky DIY shelving.

All this has coloured my view of a woman’s role in self build, and indeed most other activities. In other words, I haven’t really appreciated any distinction.Most selfbuilders, after all, are couples, who generally work together with varying degrees of involvement. Lone selfbuilders are comparatively rare and lone females, in my experience, even more so.

One of the most impressive was a widowed Dutch lady in the West Country who project managed her own timber-frame eco build while running a small farm. Her enthusiasm and obvious competence made the whole process sound a near breeze. She got on well with her builders and architect. Only a recalcitrant local planning department caused her problems. But latterly I have begun to suspect that this lady was the exception who proved a very different rule.

It started with a request for advice from a family friend. She had recently had a brick-built garage in her back garden converted into self-contained accommodation, including a kitchenette and en suite shower room. The flat roof had been fitted with a large triple-glazed roof light and a new polished concrete floor installed with electric underfloor heating.

Several months later, however, the roof light had cracked, the bitumen roof was lifting and there were signs of damp around a door, window and the floor. A local building company, recommended by a neighbourhood friend, had done the work, though most of it had been accomplished by a single workman who had since vanished.

The original contract, it turned out, had specified a fibreglass roof. Both the very expensive custom-made roof light and the electric heating – which is cheap and easy to fit but much more expensive to run than water-based heating – had been suggested by the builder. Our family friend, who has little experience of building, saw no reason to question this.

Now, after much complaining, he was offering to install the promised fibreglass roof and remedy the other problems for just a few more thousand pounds. Deeply unsure, but wary of changing horses at this late stage, our friend accepted his offer.

Even more alarming was the experience of a lady selfbuilder building in the garden of her existing home. Again her builder, who was well respected locally, was recommended by a friend – described as ‘not quite an architect’. Keen to create a well-insulated home, the lady was alarmed to find obvious gaps in the flooring insulation. When she pointed this out to the builder he insisted there was no problem; after all his years in construction he knew what he was doing. Later the client found that the gaps had been sealed with cement.

Even worse, after agreeing an initial price for the project, the builder began to demand large additional sums but was reluctant to provide invoices. By the time the lady consulted our Ask An Expert panel at the recent SelfBuild & Design East show, her budget had been exhausted and she was approaching desperation.

“Be prepared to ask questions and keep asking until you have answers you understand.”

Now every self build has its crises, rogue builders exist and even the best get into trouble. Building is an unforgiving business. It’s physically demanding, unpredictable and heavily reliant on physical strength and manual dexterity: all usually regarded as male attributes. It’s also extremely conservative.

From that mindset it can be easy to regard women clients as ‘softer targets’, less likely than their male compatriots to be interested in the practical details of a project. That can encourage less scrupulous tradespeople to recommend options, or materials, that suit them rather than their client. And, very occasionally, do far worse.

So how do female selfbuilders combat attitudes of this kind? The simple answer is: the same way male selfbuilders, and couples, do. Only perhaps more so, at least initially.

When you’re hiring a main contractor listen to the recommendations of friends or family by all means, but check out their work and talk to previous clients (if a contractor can’t put you in touch with any this is not a good sign).

Then repeat the process with two other candidates – perhaps found through the Federation of Master Builders (fmb.org.uk) or the government-endorsed TrustMark scheme (trustmark.org.uk).

If you don’t feel confident enough to do this, think seriously about hiring an architect or an experienced project manager to supervise your project. They’re likely to charge between eight and 15 per cent of your overall budget, but should save you at least their fees in terms of cost saving, efficiency and peace of mind.

Alternatively, opt for a package builder offering a ‘turn-key’ service; typically these involve timber frame manufacturers providing kit homes. Or investigate custom build where a developer provides a plot with services and planning permission and typically offers a range of designs which they can build for you.

Whatever approach you choose, it will involve a steep learning curve, so be prepared to ask questions and keep asking until you have answers you understand. Knowledge is power on a building site and the more you have – or tradespeople suspect you have – the more seriously they will take you.

Failing that, cultivate a volcanic temper. It worked wonders for my wife on our self build.

₀₅₁₈