The Fish

Thanks all for welcoming me. When I'm established in Scotland it would be good to meet up with those of you who are nearby, Oban is about an hour away so hopefully should be able to meet up with Cpd providing the floods have subsided. Floods are a good topic to start things off - the house is next to the sea, and we've had a long and convoluted journey to this point, mainly because of the risk of storm surge flooding. The land we're building on is just above peak spring tides. SEPA (Scottish Environmental Protection Agency) sprang a surprise on us after we'd bought the land, refusing our planning renewal on the grounds they'd changed their flood risk model and the minimum floor height they would accept 0.6m higher than in the previous application. That was the lowest of the low points so far! All sorted now, with considerable expense in architects, planning and engineers fees, and some unnecessary work to prove we'd made a start on the old planning permission; we're installing flood vents sourced from the US to flood the underbuilding when the tide rises to prevent the walls collapsing or the building floating off.

Hi, I'm just starting a new build holiday house in Argyll although live in Oxfordshire - bit of a commute for building work but we love the west coast and hopefully it will be worth it. I've already found lots of useful information on build hub as a guest - thanks to everyone who has contributed - and expect I will be using the site more and more as I get into the build.