Temp

I would write to the planning officer copy the chairman of the planning committee pointing out the errors (Don't call them lies) in the planning officers report. Wherever possible compare your house to those around it already approved. Our application was helped by having a street scene drawing that showed our house and the buildings either side as viewed from the road. Two versions, one with trees and one without.

We used a prime contractor and he employed two general builders. One mostly did foundations, bricklaying, roof tiling etc. The other did mostly woodwork, plumbing and insulation. There was a lot of overlap between these two and they put up our guttering together.

Regarding the tender documents... Each bidder will send you a quote that includes a lot of assumptions. There will also be provisional amounts included for things like the windows, kitchen, second fix items, landscaping etc. This means you cannot just compare the bottom line on each bid as the assumptions and provisional sums may be different. The cheapest bidder might be the most expensive if he has allowed a lot less for something compared to others. What someone has to do is go through the bids and adjust the bottom line to ensure they are all made on the same basis before you make the comparison. If its a very large project you might wish to pay your own QS to estimate the build cost. Decades ago there were reports of builders colluding over their bids and using a QS would give you a sanity check (at a price).

Would moving house be easier?

How much was the quote for the two storey? Did it have a pitched, tiled roof? Does the single storey design have a pitched or flat roof? How many square feet? Any known complications like building over drains? Why not call or write to the planning officer and ask for an update on your resubmission? Quote him the planning application number. It's now 8 weeks since your original post and your application went in before that so they should have made some progress. There maybe correspondence between him and the Architect on the planning web site. Sounds like the Architect has stopped chasing them as you haven't paid him. That wont help speed things up. You may have to be get a bit proactive. We were living abroad when we applied to build in the UK. Our application dragged on for nine months before decided our Architect wasn't proactive enough. I had to start arranging meetings myself, book aircraft flights, hire cars and hotels to bash heads together.

I know this is for your garage but I recall reading somewhere there was going to be an Approved Document for service entry points. The idea is so new houses can have fibre broadband later. Did that come to anything?

+1 Some fill valves are supplied with pressure restrictors for use on mains pressure systems. Perhaps they left that in?

Concrete. See.. . http://www.nhbc.co.uk/Builders/Technicaladviceandsupport/TechnicalGuidance/61/filedownload,37205,en.pdf

MOT type 1 can vary a lot. We used crushed limestone which contained some dust and was a bit sticky. After being driven on, rained on and baked in the sun it was set up like concrete. Only put it were you really need it or you will need another digger to remove it. It can form a water proof layer so potential run off issue. If you have any trees nearby they might suffer. I suspect it's quite Alkaline? Not sure how other versions like crushed concrete behave.

Hire a wacker plate as well?

I guess the message has got home already but the tax man can be pretty cunning... If they went and asked your bank about the loan you took out to build one of the houses you want the bank to say it's a self build mortgage not a business loan or anything like that. Be careful what you put on social media etc.

I had to get a water main diverted to build our house. I got a quote from the water co but it included VAT. It took ages to get them to agree they should zero rate it. Even then they said they could only do so because I was connecting to the diverted part. This is nonsense because I couldn't built without diverting the main so it comes under works that "enable a house to be constructed" (along side things like demolition). Any way point is I'm glad I got it sorted and got a new quote before I agreed to them doing the work. I can just imagine them sending final demands for non payment if I agreed to their quote inc VAT but only paid ex VAT.

No no that's all wrong :-) I'm sure what you meant to say was that it's your lifelong ambition To build your dream house to live in even if it takes you A few goes to get it just right and you have to move a few times in the process. You're sure it will be eXtremely hard building and keeping your day job at the same time but you think you will manage.

Sometimes you just rocked up and Homebase and found particular rolls of Insulation was cheap that week due to a subsidy from the energy co. Sadly no longer.

I don't think its always necessary to use 110mm ID round pipe. I think the building regs allow soil pipes to be 80mm diameter in some situations?

I forgot to mention that it's possible to level boards with a router. There are several vids on youtube that differ only in the design of the jig..

You could try asking a local timber merchants if they could plane it "in between jobs".

I've done some work with green and fully seasoned oak. How bad is the twisting? I agree it would certainly be a lot easier to find someone to put it through a planer/thicknesser. However I think if the twisting wasn't too bad, and you can live with it being a bit rustic, I reckon you could get away with an electric plane and a bunch of spare blades. If DIY would be inclined to just plane the top surface of each plank. I would use packing between the un-planed side and steel frame or a carefully profiled cross member. Never leave anything made of steel (like the plane or other tools) on the oak even for a short time. When you get back from lunch and pick it up there will be a black mark on the oak and more

I got a whole years worth of pre app advice for free. ?

Leaking carbon monoxide at low flame so a valve needs replacing? Something about that doesn't sound right.

They forgot the energy needed to drive to work from your rural retreat.

Will they be expecting private building control companies to check you have complied with a planning condition?

As it stands it looks just like a layby. I think a low stone wall and perhaps even some gates would look good.

I don't think the law allows them to make it a building control issue. I think the only way they can do it is through the local plan.

Mostly they make it up. They draw a mental line around the existing development. Some level of "smoothing" is applied, the don't always follow existing property boundaries exactly or there would never be any in fill plots. That's why other documented boundaries can sometimes help.