Paul Munro

Hi, Currently at timber frame stage of a self build in Argyll. I asked Scottish Power Networks for a quote to supply a grid connection and they have come back with what I would consider to be a totally astronomical quote of £17k. My next door neighbour built on the adjacent plot around 5 years ago and he paid £3.5k (and states that the cabling duct is about 20 feet from my plot entrance. When I queried this with SPEN they came back and said that there is no capacity on this to splice into and that I have to have a supply from further up the road (around 70 metres away) hence the high price. They have stated that a large proportion of this cost is the digging up of the road but it is a single track road with trenches either side of it so I am at a loss as to why this should be so high. Has anyone got any advice as to how I can appeal this? Also SPEN have stated that I can use an different contractor for this part of the work (which drops their price to £1.6k) but that they must be an approved contractor...... Again any advice as to how I would go about this and whether it would be worth doing would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Thanks for the advice guys...... Kind of ruling out steel then I suppose...... Is there a saving to be made between timber frame and traditional block and brick then?

Hi, New to the forum and looking forward to gaining knowledge. I am about to embark on a self build in Argyll. The plot is purchased but that is it so far... looking to build a 4 bedroom detached with garage (around the 180-200sq m in size) but concerned about the recent sky rocketing prices of materials. I will PM the build bringing trades in as I need. My question is should I be looking at any other types of build rather than the timber frame route I was originally planning? Would steel frame and block be cheaper now due to prices of timber? should I consider any other method's of construction? Thanks in advance