selvbygg

I am in the process of going down the TF route, if the housing market doesn't collapse, and have been talking to Norscot. I must say they have impressed me so far.

Does anybody have any experience of ASHP from Cool Energy? I became aware of them last week when I visited the Sunamp factory and after looking at the Cool Energy site they seem to be considerably cheaper than a lot of their competitors. I was told at the time that they were not accredited by a scheme that allows you to claim RHI but as it is likely to be included in a smallish house I don't think the RHI payments would amount to much. I know very little about ASHPs so do they vary in performance and efficiency and if so do the Cool Energy units compare favourably and are they reliable? Any advice or recommendations welcome.

Thanks ProDave your comments have been really helpful. We are at the very start of something that we have both been mulling over for a while and have recently decided to go for it. My sister has lived in Inverness for perhaps 30 years now and in her job grading B&Bs travels frequently North and West of home so she is a great source of information on local communities. I first thought that building a house would be the tricky bit but I am quickly realising that perhaps negotiating the minefield of finding and purchasing land may be the difficult bit!

Thanks Christine I will have a look at them. Not sure why the font is strange, perhaps I will have a look and try to change it.

That's your age Steve!

With you on that one Ed. Having been a regular visitor to the Highlands for the past 30 years the overall warmth and friendliness of the Scots is something I cherish.

Thank you for allowing me to join the forum, I can see already from a couple of posts that this was certainly the right thing to do. Our hope, that being my wife and myself, is to move up to the Highlands, find a plot of land and build a house on it. Seems easy....not! So I am going to rely, a lot I think, on the wealth of experience of the forum members. We had a preliminary search of the area surrounding Inverness, which is close to family and the Cairngorms for all the other stuff we do and decided that a radius of 15-20 miles from Inverness would be about right. My first question is does anybody have any advice, or experience, of finding land and going through the purchasing stage and applying for planning permission. From what I have seen a land owner quite often gets outlying permission for land that they want to sell which immediately adds a price premium. This is something I want to try and avoid! Any advice on land buying or contacts for land in the Inverness area would be greatly appreciated. Secondly we have looked at Scotframe as a supplier of a kit. Is there any experience out there of them and what do you think. Thanks in advance!

The Englishman here! Embarrassingly admit to being born in England but as the country seems to be suffering from a widespread mental illness at the moment we have decided to move up to the Highlands to be with my family and live a simpler life in Britain's most beautiful place.