recoveringbuilder

Can anyone tell me what they’ve paid for a water connection. We have paid Scottish Water just over a thousand pounds to be allowed to have water but they will not do any of the donkey work, we have to make a road crossing ( B road) pretty narrow crossing install ducting and water pipe and bring it to a boundary box. Then needs to be inspected by SW and closed up and reinstated, we have just had a quote for nearly £7500 for this work and think this is way too much, any comparable quotes please

Yes I’m having a bit of trouble with the blog? want to keep it running as and when happening but want to also put in all the troubles we’ve had up to this point and I’m not sure where I should be writing tbh! Also doing it from my phone I have difficulty finding the blog altogether! Yes the cottage is in the background

Here’s a taster

Yes definitely deep flow and plenty of clips, on our last house after a lot of snow we lost 90percent of the gutters, this was in the first winter after the build and we phoned manufacturer to complain, rep came out and said with the roof pitch we should have had a much deeper gutter and more clips, they did however replace it for us.

So day 4 since the tf arrived and it’s truss day- we have a man with a telehandler who assured us he can load them all and has done many times, the joinery firm wanted us to hire a lorry with a hi-ab from a friend of theirs but since it was a very high rate ( in our opinion) and the fact that he also charged traveling time at the same rate we decided to trust our man who has done a few things for us already with no problems so fingers crossed it all goes well -my heart is in my mouth and for once I’m glad I’m working today and can leave hubby to deal with it . I won’t repeat myself on the first bolt from the blue that hit us just before we started it can be read about elsewhere in electricity extortionate price and this has not been overcome yet although we are in talks with SP energy and I will let you know if or when it comes to a conclusion!but with the cottage sold and already some financial output into this project we had no option other than to go ahead and this we did. we thought we were getting off lightly when we applied for the water connection and paid just over a thousand pounds however we did not realise that the water company did not do the road crossing for us and when we started looking for someone to do this we couldn’t find anyone who was interested in such a small job.We were very naive in this as although we’d built twice before we had built on the site of some old glasshouses so water was already on site and hubby made the connection.We advertised the job on one of the sites-my builder and immediately were approached by a small outfit who said they could do it in two days and at a reasonable price so we gave them the go ahead to sort it all out,all went well , they did the crossing , put in ducting backfilled and were coming back next day to put pipe through and tar. It all seemed to fall apart then when we were asked if we could pick up the tar but with a Mini Countryman this wasn’t an option which we told them and they agreed to come out with the tar at the start of the week. We spent a terrible weekend listening to all the traffic bumping over the crossing and on the Monday morning when my hubby phoned to see what was happening the guy became very cagey and said he’d had a missed call from the local council! It turned out he had no permit to do this work and we were left with the problem to sort out. We managed to get another firm to retar and are now waiting on this firm obtaining the relevant paperwork to do the job. Just shows you how you can be taken in! So , off I went to work and when I returned 4 and a bit hours later-voila! Trusses to both sides are up, the middle section has two A frames which need welding on Monday before the remainder of the trusses are fitted , a good job done today

This house is 260m2 so not as big as our last self build but a good deal bigger than the cottage, although we lived in a small part of the big house you had plenty of walking room if you can understand that! I could wander around when I felt like it and we had room to get away from each other! While in the cottage I used to go through from the kitchen into the small hallway and was always struck by the same thought-where’s the rest of it?! Hopefully this time I’ve got it right!

So this is the 3rd self build we have tackled, the first being a 168m2 bungalow 26 years ago which we lived in for 14 years, this was followed by 18 months in a caravan while we built a one and a half storey 385m2 house, that was the build that nearly did for us, fraught with problems, friendships ruined, but it was a beautiful house.After living in it for 8 years and with the family gone we found ourselves rattling about in it and although we were living mostly in the kitchen/sunroom we still had to heat it all! We decided to downsize and when a cottage came up with a couple of acres on the same road we decided to have it, being animal lovers and with a selection of dogs, cats and chickens we were seduced by the grounds and didn’t give much thought to the actual size of the cottage but within a few months I decided I couldn’t live in a quarter of the space I’d been used to so we set about obtaining planning permission in the grounds, it took two applications before success but on May 10th this year we sold up and moved once again to a caravan on site. So this was to be the build without problems, we’d spent night upon night doing the budget and were quite comfortable that it could be done on time before winter and in budget. I might have been a bit arrogant at that stage after all what could go wrong, everything was priced up , labour was booked in , no surprises in store after all we’re old hands at this now. What is the saying? Always expect the unexpected! So the first problem to occur was the electricity quote, we have two plots we are marketing just under a mile up the road and had asked before putting them on the market for a quote for water and electricity, electricity came in at £1500 for the two so in our naivety we expected to get a quote of around £1000 after all there’s a pole in the garden! This was not to be, we still haven’t sorted out this issue and I am in talks with SP energy having put in a complaint, we will see where this goes and it is taking some of the excitement out of the build but as the old saying goes- I’ve never died a winter yet! Water has been another thorn in our side, not the actual price but finding someone to do it and it makes me so glad that we put the rest of the build into the hands of a building contractor, I vividly remember the trouble we had on our last build trying to secure tradesmen then keep them on the job, it was a total nightmare and delayed the build by months when my hubby and son in law had to learn new trades and work at it after a days work and every weekend, this put us off doing it again until now.

I would @newhome if I could work out how to?

Today’s progress report; not too bad in my opinion, trusses arrive tomorrow, steels to go in, welder on Monday then we’ll see where it goes from there, bit different this build from our previous ones in that a building firm are doing a lot of the work therefore they’re organising who comes when and we just need to know what we need to get in for them

Hello from Central Scotland, we have just started our third self build although it’s 26 years since the first one, kit was delivered yesterday and I’m posting today’s progress under the electricity extortionate price heading, probably too far away for you but you’re welcome to visit if you happened to be in the area

It’s started!

Another thing I’m finding once again is that everyone you deal with thinks you must have a bottomless pit of money, absolutely fed up having to say my budget doesn’t stretch to that, even the kit firm are at it now, our spec on the plans was an oak staircase with glass balastrade and our quote included that , then they send us to staircase manufacturers to pick what we want , after doing so we get a call from them saying the one we’ve picked is nearly 5k over what they include, had to tell them then that’s no good we haven’t budgeted any more for it so you’ll just have to give us what you’ve budgeted for!

Can’t help you at all but welcome and really admire anyone with the staying power to diy hope it all goes well

Ha ha I already emailed her about a month ago and never even got an acknowledgment, seems they only want you at election time!

Different electricity network and obviously realise connection charges in rural areas are way off the scale

So this is driving me crazy, can’t even look forward to the arrival of the kit next week, so yesterday I sent an email to sp energy telling them this letter forms a complaint. I had spoken to a chap up the road who lives near their transformer and he told me there had been a plan to increase capacity and in fact ducting had been put in but then the plan was shelved. I had also looked at the boasts on there website about keeping their infrastructure in good shape to accommodate future calls for more power bla blah blah . In the letter I told them I felt they had looked for the easiest solution for them with total disregard to the cost for me , I quoted some of their boasts then I finished off by saying as for the pole in my garden I have no agreement with you to accommodate this pole therefore since it is of no good to me perhaps I should make an application to have it removed. 9 o clock this morning they phoned me giving me a reference number and telling me I would be contacted by a design manager in due course, this being stage 1 in the procedure. Sure enough 10 minutes later I get another call and this time it’s from the original person I dealt with. He starts off saying he doesn’t understand what I’m not happy about—Really! 25k and he doesn’t understand? He thinks he’s going to browbeat me until I say just a minute here’s my husband, so hubby tells him in no uncertain terms why we’re not happy, asks for an overhead line- oh we don’t do that now, no of course you don’t you want to update your infrastructure at my expense,he then says well if we can’t get an affordable supply I want the pole removed, do you know what he said? Then you’d be cutting off your supply!!what supply?! It ends with my hubby asking for the complaint to be escalated to stage 2 , by this time he’s stuttering and stammering, turns out he’s not even a manager just a team leader! However it has been escalated and we await the next stage, annoyingly if we lived north of dunblane we’d be able to apply for a grant for the connection, I’ve got my fighting hat on now-bring it on!

Thanks all, think we’ll sand and gravel it and get pipe in and photographed then filled in for now, once the site is cleared up we’ll catch it and divert to the burn at the back , do think it’s a spring as the water comes from a different direction and theres no one connected above us and I’m sure we heard there was a spring, thought it would have dried up by now in this weather, long time ago we lived in a cottage and the water was fed from a spring and during the summer we ended up with no water! Happy days!?

So, digging the trenches for water pipe, a week late as the first contractor let us down, they were to do the road crossing and hubby doing the trench on our side, water board instructed us it has to be 750mm down, lots of old clay land drainage in there but none seem to line up and all are blocked and 1 of them is running constantly can’t stop it just keeps filling up the trench, there was nothing when the foundation was excavated further back the site and it seems unlikely that it’s just run off since we’ve had 7 weeks of dry weather barring a couple of days of rain, vaguely remember the son of a previous owner of the land mentioning a spring and not really in a position now to do anymore digging as there are piles of soil everywhere as it is and the kit due next week, will the water board be happy about the pipe running over the top of this?

We all get to the stage we wish we hadn’t started but as we are on our third self build I think it’s a bit like childbirth, you forget all about it once it’s done ?

Howdens will give you an account as a self builder, we have had our account with them since our last build in 2007 , our kitchen came from there then , large kitchen with d/washer,w/machine and built in microwave and hood for cooker , central island a lot of units £5,500 , was still looking good when we left in 2016 however the new owners were going to keep it until they got a joiner in to do other work and he talked them in to a new one and organised it for them through howdens-£18000!

I’m wondering why you haven’t gone to your bank for the mortgage, when we built our first house 26 years ago our bank gave us the money in stages we even had a visit from their area manager to see how it was progressing which ended in him giving us enough carpet for our hall and lounge! Our second house was mostly funded by the sale of the first but nearing the end we ran out of funds and had to apply to the bank for a mortgage, they sent out a surveyor to put a value on what had been done and released enough money for us to finish, both times we had the mortgage within 10 days much easier dealing with them when they already know your financial situation.

Yes we’ve made enquiries about powerwall and tesla but we’re advised that owing to the size of house and all the equipment we’d need we would be as well getting the electricity connection and that came from one of the companies! Afraid we’re going to have to suck it up but we will wait as long as we reasonably can in case anything happens with the other plots

Well things are moving on now, engineer has resurfaced and kit firm now have all the stuff they need, really surprised today when they phoned to ask me my choice of door handles! Beginning to feel real! Water connection getting sorted tomorrow, the only heart sinking moment is when we stop and think about the reality of the electricity connection which we still haven’t sorted out, still waiting to hear from the owner of the other 5 plots but we’re beginning to think we will eventually have to find the funds to pay the whole thing unless we want to use a generator, trying not to be too hasty but it’s one of those niggling things that takes all the excitement out of the project, trying to do this build without a mortgage which should be doable but would be a bit ironic if we had to take one out to get power?

Yes it’s 1.5 people per bedroom

you can get a downlighter specifically for showers we had one in our last house