Blackmore House

@vivienz when I was speaking to PYC about scaffolding, they mentioned that they can erect a single story without scaffolding if needed, using a fork lift or something similar, and could place other safety features, such as crash mats and air safety mattresses, to protect any workers working at height without scaffolding. Hope you can find a similar solution.

 

Great photos!

Your overhead cable worries me, and may be more of an issue than you thought.

 

It looks like 11KV, the standard for local distribution, and your supply will come from a transformer from that quite often pole mounted.

 

We have 11KV overhead lines just the other side of the road from us.  The "issue" they cause is restrictions on how close you can build to them.  I found this out when a neighbour wanted to build almost right up to the road edge, putting his building 4 metres from the OH lines. He was told NO.  As it happens, there was some network alterations going on, and he was able to piggyback onto that, and get the section past his plot undergrounded for a much reduced cost as they were making alterations anyway, so he was able to build.

 

When I looked into out own build, I was concerned it might cause us a problem. So I enquired of SSE the DNO here and was told no work within 9 metres of the OH line.  Then when you drill down into the details, it is actually no building within 6 metres of the line, and any work (scaffold, cranes, diggers) between 6 and 9 metres from the line you have to be particularly careful.

So we have built 6 metres from the OH line and had scaffold up 5 metres from it, and used a digger (carefully) right under it.

 

The fact it has ended up right above your building is a concern. Has your DNO agreed to that? I would want that in writing.  What is the clearance from your roof to the line at the closest point?  IF it's less than about 3 metres I suspect you are going to need a line shutdown just for the roofer to work on the roof. And taking the actual build, that could be a long shutdown, and who else would be off during that shutdown.

 

This may not be what you want to hear, but a diversion or undergrounding of a section of the line is what you really want but that is going to cost well into 4 digits.

 

It might be cheaper to move the garage. There will be some wasted money on foundations that will have to be moved but that is likely less cost than moving the line. You might have to re submit planning but should be able to continue building the house while that goes through.

 

Perhaps start a thread in the forum to discuss this rather then clog up your blog?

Thanks, Dave.  Our supply doesn't come from that pole, it's currently an OH supply via the neighbours.  I don't know the destination of the problematic one, but it does trouble me at the moment.  Before demolishing, there were already sheds with hard standing directly underneath the line, but I doubt that counts for much at present.

 

For the time being, I shall see what MBC have to say about it once they're back, then open it up for further input if necessary.

You could erect the roof trusses, complete with tiles and gutter etc on the garage slab, then jack it up to the correct height and build the walls up to meet the roof. 

Instead of a truss roof would a flat roof solve the height issue. The walls can be put up inside as normal then joists from the inside as well of trestles. Easy job then to sheet the roof out and cover it with what ever finish you choose.

1 hour ago, Triassic said:

You could erect the roof trusses, complete with tiles and gutter etc on the garage slab, then jack it up to the correct height and build the walls up to meet the roof. 

This might sound a strange idea but it’s based on a substation we built under power lines. Due to clearance issues we couldn’t erect scaffold, so we did as described above.

Thanks, both.  The garage is designed to have a flat roof, so I won't need to make any changes in that respect.

So if it's a flat roof why do they need a full height scaffold??

They can easily use the trestles at full height to spread the roof joists and set up the ply/OSB roof covering.

Or maybe they aren't allowed to work of trestles.

It's the scaffold erector that has raised the issue, not MBC. MBC are off today, back office at least, so I will be able to check with them tomorrow for a workaround.

what are the dimensions of the ground floor, looks large from the photos?

The ground floor is about 180 square metres, 120 upstairs.  We told the architect that we wanted larger rooms, not more rooms, and the downstairs is very open plan.

Here are the floor plans.

 

 

1120 - 103DIMS - Bagber Farm Cottage - PROPOSED GROUND FLOOR.PDF

1120 - 104DIMS - Bagber Farm Cottage - PROPOSED GROUND FLOOR.PDF

A well documented record of what is photographed above. Hopefully the issue causing you concern will blow over once you talk to the guys in the morning. The others above have suggested alternatives and I'm sure the builders will work off trestles. I know our stone man is and is happy to do so as our scaffolding went a week or so ago.

 

edited for typos.

Edited August 6, 2018 by Redoctober

We did our garage with  trestles not scaff.  Its a flat roof. It wasnt a problem.  Its a detached garage. We didnt have MBC do the garage though we built that in block and brick. Good luck.

I know an arborist who works maintaining safe vegetation distances around power lines. They operate with large cautious safety margins and these are designed to cope with exceptional conditions such as hot weather when the lines can stretch and droop, also an HT cable can spark to earth over a larger distance when humidity is high. The industry is highly regulated and they don't mess around with the safety distances, the last casualty he encountered was a dead horse.

Edited August 7, 2018 by epsilonGreedy

Wow. Good luck Vivien, @ProDaves comments make for pretty scary reading. I hope a simple (and cheap) solution is forthcoming.

I'm sure we'll get there.  Directly under the wires, there was already a concrete hard standing for some sheds that disintegrated over the last couple of years.  Also, the wires continue over our field and an access track for the farm next door.  The farm workers regularly go scooting along the track in a JCB with loads of animal feed in the raised up bucket and I haven't seen any crispy farmers lying around, so we should be able to work something out.

The clearance under the line will be enough for normal road traffic, you can probably look it up but that will be a minimum of about 5 metres.  It would not surprise me if the standard height of the poles is 6 metres, hence the "no build" distance being 6 metres so if the pole fell over the line would not hit the building.

 

In the unlikely event of a pole failing in this case, the line could come into contact with the building. Ouch.

 

Rules change over time. In the past houses were build under pylons (talking 205KV or more) I am sure that is no longer allowed.  I used to regularly drive past a nice neat row of bungalows but one of them was stepped back from the rest because it had a 132KV pylon in the front garden.

 

4 minutes ago, ProDave said:

The clearance under the line will be enough for normal road traffic, you can probably look it up but that will be a minimum of about 5 metres.  It would not surprise me if the standard height of the poles is 6 metres, hence the "no build" distance being 6 metres so if the pole fell over the line would not hit the building.

 

Those rules have started to be applied to wind turbines and I have seen a couple of reasonably sized ones refused as if they fell they would be onto a road.

 

National Grid used to produce a guidance document for developers about developing near power lines but I can't find it on the website

1 hour ago, PeterW said:

Those rules have started to be applied to wind turbines and I have seen a couple of reasonably sized ones refused as if they fell they would be onto a road.

 

And up here I’ve seen several that have blown over within a few miles of here. The latest one I saw was one of a pair on the local sports ground. Lucky no one was hurt tbh. 

Ouch. My comments. I feel focused slightly on possible regulatory action.

 

1 - We had some of these moved, but may have been 33kV, when we did our big PP. We were faced with having a swathe through the middle which was pretty much house width. Fortunately we had a Wayleave with the right to make them move it all. There is a thread somewhere which explains the stuff, but this is oversailing so different.

 

2 - The process to switch it off is IMO a nonstarter. There may well be 500 or more people supplied by that, and to do such work *must* have a long process. Lots of notices, consultation, applications etc. Takes months to plan if not emergency. unless something is happening already.

 

3 - You have practical alternatives which is good, if you are allowed to use them. the jack up option is like putting your first floor on acroprops to repair the downstairs wall. Parents did that to a listed building and rebuilt a whole facade. Perfectly normal technique, but you may need a bit of redesign on the roof as it will need to be self-supporting.

 

4 - You need some more piccies showing where the thing is in reality, taken along the line of the wire to see the actual distance from the house. If you have a known dimension in the pics it would help so the distance can be estimated. Could be something very simple such as a known 2 or 4m piece of wood on trestles level with the closest point. it may be beneficial to put a time lapse camera on it along the line if you have them around, so you can see how far it moves in any wind that comes along.

 

5 - I think at some point you are going to need to talk to the LPA, and there is a risk that someone may just try and say no (though I think they will be sympathetic). It might be beneficial talking to your been-round-the-block wise owl just for their feel for the situation; it will have happened before though only occasionally.

 

Since you have an architect it might be worth asking them if they have had one, or to call in a favour or ask their oldest local architect friend. An alternative might be a quiet chat with an old hand at building control, or even someone in the electricity company, but personally I would want an informal idea first from someone not links.

 

6 - I would perhaps avoid spending money on the garage bits for now until you have a better idea which direction this is going. Sure you have done that anyway. The rub is that some stuff is interdependent of course, and you cannot do eg the slab in 2 bites.

 

7 - If it is a comfort, I do not think that the LPA will stop you In your tracks as long as you are not doing something in specific violation of THEIR requirements. IMO the ones with the big spanner will be the utility, but they will want a workable solution too.

 

As this must happen sometimes, I am sure there are ways .. just takes a bit of work to find them.

 

Ferdinand

Edited August 8, 2018 by Ferdinand

If you go for the jack it up option, I’d use GRP to cover the flat roof, you wouldn’t want to have to go to repair a leak in felt.

For mbc purposes I see no reason why the highest point of scaffolding would be higher than what they're building.  The roof membrane installers should have a high hand rail...but given its single storey and not exactly urban they'd probably 'overlook' it, especially if you had air bags/crash mats.