MikeSharp01

Thanks all, just sober now - agggghhhhhhh what have we done!

Hi All. Got our planning permission today after 9 months of work and about £8K in fees and dispersements, first time through, did a pre planning session with the council, only 6 conditions, 2 Normal, 3 easy, and one interesting - means we have to obscure a couple of landing windows so we cannot see the neighbours or perhaps they cannot see us! Anyway as soon as other half gets home from the opening of the new Tate extension we will crack a bottle of bubbly!

Ah the great digger debate is swirling. If you think you can get into trouble with your private digger take a look at pic below of a professional at work last week on next doors demolition. Took five of them, and they needed another digger, all day to get it out, I have the video, putting the track on took 4 hours, the hydraulic adjuster broke and they needed my grease gun to get into the adjuster cavity. Anyway the funniest bit is that it fell into a ditch I had dug, with my mini Takuchi, for my neighbour the week before for his power cable and they knew it was there. Thank goodness my little 1.5T tracks are just about carry-able!

Hmmmm. Very interesting... so your two phases cost £1260 did I read that right? My quote is £1909+VAT I guess for what looks very similar, you can get a hint at the desktop study from soilscapes (Cranfield) it only gives you the 1Km square (free) I could get closer and pay a little I guess. There won't be any contamination, the house was built on a field in 1911 and no quarrying, gravel extraction etc has been undertaken anywhere close. As it will be a passive slab I guess the SE might have an idea of the scope needed, I don't want to skimp but I also don't want to spend more than I need. Thanks for the details I will give it some more thought.

Great Checklist - first one, soil survey! Any idea what to ask for when requesting such, I have a quote, several K, which has 2 x 8m boreholes and 16 samples, the site is brown field. I am wondering if I have under or over specified. Any thoughts anyone.

Hi. Mike here from Kent, was building a new echo home on the Kent coast near Whitstable, then I wasn't and now we are again, planning permitting, due next week. Was on ebuild but a bit lapsed as we were stuck with boundary issues that all but killed our project ( I now know a lot about boundary issues that I would rather not have needed to discover). Retired university academic, still do a bit to keep my head working, but would rather be building the new place. Look forward to engaging the collective brain on our project and contributing where I can. Mike