Tony L

I've left lots of detail out of my story, because there's a lot to it & a full explanation would be so lengthy nobody would want to read it. The 1m instructions were given when a BCO visited the site & inspected 2m holes I'd dug either side of the house location around 3 years ago, before we properly got going with the build. I didn't think we had time for an argument. The ground was unstable & the trenches could have collapsed. The shuttering had been engineered to last just a few days & the builder & I thought, if we don't do whatever needs to be done quickly, we could end up having to spend even more money to satisfy BCO. I was discussing this with another local builder a couple of days ago & he explained BC are a lot more strict on foundations than they used to be just a few years ago, especially when it comers to nearby trees.

I've duplicated some of this story in my separate trench blocks thread. Thanks for all the responses here. The work continues. I have plenty of sympathy for the builder. He is working hard in conditions that are more difficult than we anticipated. I agree, the ground is eating my budget, & the BCO has cost me a fortune by telling me to pay for something to be done then telling me, on his next visit, that what he asked me to do (& I've paid for) is not what needed to be done, & a new plan needs to be devised & paid for. My email to the builder was not dictatorial; I set out some materials calculations & asked him to comment on them or correct them. I was seeking clarity on how much of what I'd paid £17,000+ for had been done & how much had not been done - ie how much of the £17k+ should have been deducted from the subsequent invoice I received, which covered implementing the new plan that was required because the BCO didn't tell us he was concerned about the tree, on his first visit. The new plan replaced the £17k plan - it wasn't a case of, "Do everything I told you to do & do this extra work as well.". I'm more inclined to agree with Joe's view, "get it in writing", than pay for an off site meeting during which the builder must attempt to explain loads & loads of figures & a fair amount of maths. There's too much to take in if I'm listening to it all, rather than steadily working through an email I've printed out & can write notes on. We've had a good meeting since our email exchange.

Yes, but what kind of blocks? 7.3N concrete blocks (100mm wide) are normal, but I couldn't even find 7.3N trench blocks (350mm wide) when I Googled - they're all 3.6N. My partner called Travis Perkins & Jewson & they both told her, they can supply 7.3N trench blocks, but they're unusual, so they don't stock them; they have to make a special order. What happened was, after the BCO had told us to dig an extra metre down (& still pour only 600mm of concrete in the trenches), he made a second visit, to see the 2m trenches, & he pointed out a tree, which meant we had to change our plan again & pour a lot more concrete. I think the trench blocks were ordered when the builder thought he'd be building up from the bottom of a 1.4m trench (ie top of concrete 1.4 below GL), then when we were given the new spec' to deal with the tree, the trench blocks (over spec'ed TBs) had already been ordered, so he used them rather than send them back. I'm annoyed because I've got 3 courses of TBs on top of the concrete & that's got us up to the level to put the beams down. What's built doesn't look like the drawing the builder is supposed to be working from. I was expecting the beams to be sitting on the inner leaf of a cavity wall made from 100mm wide concrete blocks, but he's going to put down 100mm wide DPC on the inner edge of the TBs & sit the beams on this. He says he told the BCO what he intended to do & BCO was OK with it. I'll just remind everyone, I'm new to this & there are vast gaps in my knowledge, but my thinking is: each of these £10.71 blocks (certainly the top 2 courses) could have been two £1.50 100mm wide concrete blocks, with a cavity between them, & the additional labour to lay the second £1.50 concrete block would still leave a good saving over each £10.71 TB. Am I right?

Thanks for the tip. I will hopefully remember this when I eventually get onto my roof. I expect the GRP solution means there are no visible joints, which would be a big bonus.

He did. The original quote, based on 1m trenches included: Block solid concrete 7.3Kn 100mm cavity walls. Fill cavity with concrete to within 150mm of DPC level.

Thanks. Something to ask about before I accept a quote then. I have these switches outside my office, for my a/c, & some kids turned them off a few times. I didn't realise I may be able to lock them.

Thanks for the encouragement. I said I'd update, so: Confidence in the builder is waning. I'm too busy to trouble you with all the details right now, but the bill for the first lot of extra work was £17,700. The BCO made a second visit & decided a tree he hadn't seen on his first visit would require yet another plan to be devised. This second BCO visit resulted in another bill for extras from the builder. I said, "But now you're not building everything that was included in the first bill for extras. The invoice lines on the 2nd bill might be OK, but you should have gone on to deduct some of what was on the first bill". The builder has now agreed a small deduction should have been made, but I think it should be much bigger. His explanation of the various costs is not clear. I want it all explained in an email so I can pick through it carefully. He says he's not good at email & he's pressurising me to run through it all at a site meeting.

I have a bit of a dispute going with my builder who’s dug footings, poured concrete, laid 3 courses of trench blocks & should be going on to top this off with B&B floor then dig drains & make a connection to the sewer. We’re building a 1.5 storey house, block inner & block outer walls with render. After a visit from BCO & SE, we needed to abandon our plan for 1m trenches with 600mm poured concrete, & dig deeper trenches (1.95 across about 25% of the trenches & 1.65 deep on the rest) & pour more concrete, to take the level up so there was no more than 650mm of “trench block/underbuild”, to quote the SE, below B&B. The builder said he’d not allowed for any trench blocks o in his original quote, however, his invoice for extras resulting from the BCO visits includes £3215 for trench blocks. That’s just for the blocks – he’s also charged £600 for extra sand+cement & £2400 (95m2 @ £25, yes rounded up by £25) to lay the 300 trench blocks & 500 regular size concrete blocks. The builder says the trench blocks cost £10.71 each. I said they should cost him less than £7 each (before VAT). He said they’re expensive because he’s used 7N trench blocks. They’re 440 long x 350 wide & I think they’re 220 high, but I may have the height wrong – some of these are 215 high. My first question is: how can tell if what he’s used are 7N trench blocks? My understanding is, it’s unusual for this type of block to be used in this situation. Are 7N & the usual 3.6N trench blocks different densities? How much should one of these weigh? He didn’t allow for any trench blocks in his original quote – he was going to build a cavity wall straight off the concrete at the bottom of the 1m trenches. He hasn’t yet explained the benefit of the trench blocks over using regular blocks + cavity.

It's disappointing to hear the vendor is not offering sufficient help. I'm in Surrey & I'll be shopping for an ASHP at some point during my build. Would you share the name of your vendor, please so I can be sure to avoid them? A message, rather than forum post would be great, if you don't want to run the risk of defaming these people on a public forum. I hope you overcome your problems soon.

My partner spoke to Openreach a couple of months ago, because we'd stopped using the line that was on the house about 2 years ago & we wanted it reconnected. She didn't mention the new house - it didn't seem relevant; we just wanted a phone line that worked so we could ditch the 4G router we'd been using & have reliable internet again. I'm not convinced anybody will be laying fibre to the houses in our road any time soon - the houses are quite far apart. I wish I'd thought of this sooner. The run goes across the driveway & just a few weeks ago, we dug a new ditch & moved the services for the caravan into it, then made good so the muck away trucks, etc could drive over it. Never mind - it's only a small mistake.

Thanks, everybody. So the answer to my problem is: the detached garage. Why didn't I think of that? Virgin isn't an option down my road & I have Virgin at my workplace (my own small business) & at my mum's (which I look after), so I know I wouldn't choose them even if I could. So the next thing I need to decide is: do I let the builder put the copper telephone wire in the same 110mm conduit he's using to run SWA from the garage to the house? I'm planning to have my elec meter on the back of the garage, out of sight. The meter will be about 20m from the consumer unit, in my utility room. I'm concerned the elec will cause interference on the copper telephone line. I suppose a separate run, at least 1m away, would be best, but I don't really know what I'm doing, which is why I'm here.

The concrete was poured this week & my builder has just started laying trench blocks today. Before we knocked the old house down, I took the BT copper wire off the apex of the roof & fed it into the our static caravan, which is our temp accomodation. A friend who knows more about this than me came & installed the wall box in the van. I’m fairly sure he installed two boxes, so our telephone wire that’s outside goes into one box, under the van & this feeds into another box by the skirting board inside, & we plug our router into this box. I asked my builder to put some conduit across the garden & through the wall below ground level, thinking I’d have both telecom boxes, as described above, in the corner of a room at the front of the house where I’m intending to build a cupboard – so they’d be hidden. He tells me, I must have the BT box on the outside of the house (above GL of course), so BT can maintain it. This may be the preference of Openreach or whomever, although they may be happy to have their box out of the weather; my preference is to not have their ugly box on show. Should I go with my plan, or the builder’s plan?

Good point, ProDave, but is this something that ever needs to be done? I suppose you could have the underground pipes passing through one of those cheap plastic inspection chambers if you're concerned you may need to bleed, in future. To answer Joe's question (although it was directed at Nic - sorry, Nic): I'd planned to put my ASHP against the wall on the south side of my house, which would mean it would be a prominent feature in my small patio + back garden area, but these things are so ugly (& there's the noise & cold draught to consider as well), I'm thinking it may be well worth be worth the additional installation, running & maintenance costs to put it out of the way, against the boundary hedge to the east. That would put it about 4m away from the house. This would mean the pipes would have to go underground, & if they're underground they may as well come up into the house through the block & beam floor. Please have a go at dissuading me. While I'm on the subject, I'll just ask, do I have to have one of these electric isolator switches, as shown in the picture, below? Does it have to be outside, near the unit or can it be in the house? The electrician who made this video explains it must be at least 200mm away, but he didn't mention a max. distance.

That's good to know. Thanks for sharing, & congratulations on reaching the VAT reclaim stage of your project.

I'm only a few weeks in to my build, but it would have been far better to start digging during the first week in August, rather than the first week in October. It rained for the whole of September.

I pay, because the quote I accepted was based on 1M trenches & me supplying all the wood for the shuttering (which I did, but the builder said it was too risky to use my old reclaimed ply & OSB). Fortunately, the spec' on the poured concrete hasn't changed - it's still 600 wide & 600 deep, but there's an extra metre of block work to go on top now, & a lot of extra muck away. I'll report back once I have the bill for the additional work.

Thanks for this. I need as much advice as I can get really - I'm a total novice. Fortunately, I have full confidence in my builder & his team. I wish I could say they same about the Arch Tech, who's turning my design into proper drawings. I think they're going to pump the trenches as dry as possible before they pour so they can get all the battens out - some of these are below the level of where the concrete's going. I didn't ask, but I guess the builder decided that on some sections, the pegs that are holding the bottom of the plywood in place aren't strong enough to last several days on their own.

I don't know the spec' of the builder's pump that's being used. It's small - it would fit in a regular sized builder's bucket. I bought a similar (slightly smaller) dirty water pump from ebay for about £20, to keep my test holes dry when we dug them - it just sat in a bucket with a few holes drilled in the sides (so it wasn't in the mud). If I'd been managing the dig myself, which was the original plan, I was going to look out for another couple of pumps the same, to be sure I had enough pumping power. If you get them used from ebay you can likely sell them without loss, once the job's done. If you buy a second hand pump, make sure it comes with the hose. Yes, I found stat's & graphs with water table heights for my area. Sorry, I'm too busy to try to find these again now. I should have made an allowance for the recent climate change effect & got organised to start in August. It looks like the warmer, wetter winters that climate change scientists were promising us for the UK 15 or so years ago are with us now.

The BCO who'd inspected our 2M test holes was away, so his colleague came along & he had a different view. One option would have been to stop work & initiate a protracted argument with BC, but my builder decided to do as he was told, & I'm happy with his decision. Our next inspection is due tomorrow - LA BCO wants to check everything immediately before the concrete is poured on Friday. I think it will be OK. The warranty inspector doesn't want to come again until he can see DPC.

@Alan Ambrose you asked me to report back when we started to dig the trench foundations. Just to recap, we have a high water table. I did some research - it's usually at its lowest during the first week in October, so I booked the groundworks team. Then we had the wettest September I can remember. We dug some test holes a while back & the BCO came for a look & told us we'd need 1M deep trenches. This is what had been specified on the new build right next door to us. We were expecting to have to shutter the trenches to prevent them collapsing between the dig & the pour. A different BCO came to inspect the trenches once we'd started digging. He told us he wanted to see 2M. Due to the ground conditions, this work has been very much more difficult than digging 1M trenches. As the pictures show, I don't have a nice, neat 60cm wide trench describing the outline of my house. The reclaimed boards I'd collected to deal with the shuttering were deemed too weak to risk using for these ground conditions. OSB (as they used next door) would also be too weak, so the pictures show lots of very expensive plywood, & 2 x 4 braces (these won't be left in). The water you see in the pictures is being pumped - if the pump is off overnight, it's up over the boards the next day.

My understanding is, if something's not included on the plans for the newbuild, you won't be able to claim VAT, so you should apply for an amendment to the original permission, rather than a separate permission. Perhaps your LA will tell you it's too big for an amendment & you must have separate PP, in which case you won't be able to reclaim VAT, & if this happens, PP is probably a waste of time & money, because you just need to make sure your garage meets all the permitted development rules & you won't need PP, although you will still need BRegs approval if > 30m2 garage floor.

You say, "only Openreach can do this work". I'd be very surprised if that's true. Perhaps only Openreach should do the work, but if they're charging you £633 to send their salesman round to price up the job, I think they are abusing their monopoly position & you have all the justification you need to get any old telecom engineer to come round & do whole the job for £200 or whatever. & why run a new cable from the box? It sounds to me like you just need a connector & a couple of meters of new cable on your house. I have incurred a large unexpected cost on my build today: I planned to dig the trench foundations at the start of October, because, historically, that's when our water table has been at its lowest. With the weather we've had over the past month, the water table is very much higher than expected. I have a large supply of reclaimed OSB & plywood that's been sitting on my site, to use as shuttering, to stop my foundations caving in as they're dug. My builder called this morning to say it's all too damp & the braces are just punching through the boards, so he'll have to buy new ply (to run the whole length of the foundations x 2 sides). He says OSB won't be strong enough as the ground is so wet. I don't know how much this will add yet, but it will be a lot.

Will do. I'm here to learn. & I agree with you about the cladding that's just left untreated, to turn grey like a cheap garden fence panel.

Some good comments, above. For me, planning was a lengthy process of negotiation & compromise, so I'd say start with something bigger & bolder than you expect to be given permission for then the council get to say "no" many times (which my local planning dept loved to do) &, hopefully, you'll end up with permission for something that's still worth building. If there's a lot of back & forth with the planning dept after your initial deign is refused, you can save a ton of money by doing the drawings yourself. You don't need to provide beautiful architect's drawings each time you submit an amended proposal. Re cladding: yes, a lot of the natural wood coloured cladding looks terrible after it's been up a few years, but some of it still looks good. I think it's a case of using a good UV resistant varnish. There's been so much of this natural wood cladding going up over the past 10+ years, I think it might be looking old fashioned soon. I favour black. They've had black cladding on the new build next door to us for 3 years now, & it still looks like new. I think zinc standing seam roofs look great - much better than slate. & if the zinc is too expensive, you might look at products such as Greencoat PLX, which are the same tech - ie made from a roll on site, but they're painted steel (big choice of colours), rather than zinc. A good slate roof can look beautiful, but most new slate roofs I see look terrible. I think the problem is that Welsh slates, which are perfectly flat, have become prohibitively expensive, so people use cheap stuff such as Spanish, & these slates contain impurities which causes them to warp. If you're considering standing seam & you don't know what oil canning is, look it up, because it's something you need to be aware of.