Tony L

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.

I bought this Makita 36V DUR369AZ recently & I'm very pleased with it. It will convert to a strimmer, although I haven't tried this yet. https://www.powertoolworld.co.uk/makita-dur369az-twin-18v-lxt-brushless-cordless-brush-cutter-body-only?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIt7v-2PmfiAMVEYtQBh1amQBUEAQYBCABEgLuF_D_BwE There's no way I'll be buying a battery car any time soon, but for brush cutters, batteries do it for me.

I don't like this current fashion for high TV placement either. Some of our friends have theirs just a few inches from the ceiling - ridiculous. It's not comfortable to look at unless you're standing up. I suppose it makes sense if you have young, unruly children, but otherwise, high TVs are for sports bars, not living rooms.

Well done for getting this thread going, @puntloos. I'm only just getting going, but my biggest mistake so far was spending ages on a detailed design for PP, only to be told I'm not going to be allowed to build anything close to what I want. I spent far less time on my next several iterations of the design. The house got smaller each time, & eventually PP was granted.

@Alan Ambrose sorry, I didn't notice the notification from when you posted - I wonder if it's possible to set up to receive an email each time somebody says, "@Tony L". Anyway, yes, I'll report back once work starts towards the end of September. I'm guessing it's the dealing with the water table aspect of this work that you're interested in, so let me know if I've got that wrong.

Thank you, Mr P. That's good to know.

I’ve accepted a quote for site prep’, demolition & substructure for a 120 m2 footprint detached house, which we’re in a hurry to get on with, because our high water table will be at its lowest at the beginning of October. My partner is dealing with the structural warranty (we haven’t yet committed to a provider), & she tells me, the better (ie more thorough) the builder’s quote looks, the easier it will be to get signed up with a warranty provider. I asked the builder to resubmit his quote, which was received as an email, on his company letterhead, & add in as much detail as he can. The builder explained, they’re very good at building, but not as good at emails as us, & can we write out what we want to see in the quote, so he can paste it in? This seems like a good opportunity for me to help get the work off to a good start. If anybody has what they consider to be a well written quote/contract for this type of work & they’re happy to share it by posting below, or messaging me, I’d be very grateful.

Thank you very much for all the useful comments/likes. We got another quote then decided to go with the first quote.

Yes, an SE has designed the foundation. Everyone, & that includes you, knows this is more than 3 days' work.

Re. water butts: Good point. I heard somebody on Radio 4 a while ago explaining that if everybody who had room for water butts installed them & used them in this way, it would go a long way to alleviate the flooding that follows on from heavy rain. Re. building on mud: I am not expecting the bottom of the 1M trenches to stay dry for more than a couple of hours after they've been dug. We’ll be going straight down to 1M & shuttering as we go. We’ll probably dig a sump & put a pump in there just to keep everything as dry as possible until we’ve finished digging. I’ll ask BCO to come & have a look late in the day when we dig the trenches & we’ll have the concrete pour lined up for early the next morning. I was planning to stop pumping as soon as the trenches are dug. The theory is that if I’m pumping silty water all night long before the concrete is poured, this will be removing fine particles from the soil around the foundation trenches so this soil will become weaker & less able to support the foundations once they’re poured. Already, there’s the minor concern of the plywood & OSB shuttering that will slowly be rotting at the sides of the concrete, so I don’t want to make the soil weak as well. So unless someone persuades me otherwise, the concrete will be poured into trenches that may have up to 50cm water in them. When they dug their foundations next door, I lent the builder my pump & he kept the trenches dry until the concrete was poured. The BCO told him he need not have pumped the trenches. Any more opinions on the £59,500 quote would be most welcome, please. It’s looking expensive compared to @Jane W’s £30,500 quote posted yesterday, although this was for a slightly smaller (but irregular shaped footprint), & my £59,500 includes, demolition, drains, manholes, connection to main sewer & ducting for services.

Thanks for the advice, but there's no clay. The quote says "no allowance clay master", but I think the builder probably just says that on all quotes where clay master hasn't been specified, to cover himself, just in case.

Thanks, @nod. Sorry, I forgot to explain: I dug two test holes either side of the new house location, 2M deep, & I pumped them dry & BCO came & inspected them, so I think they're unlikely to change their minds on the 1M deep requirement. There was a new build, next door, two or three years ago (their GL is slightly lower than mine) & they were given the same 1M instruction on their foundations.

Thanks for the responses. I haven't sought other quotes. I'm very short on time at the moment & I was hoping I'd receive a few positive or neutral comments here, & that would be enough for me to decide to go ahead with this quote. I will make more time when I come to consider who will do the work for the next stages. I am particularly keen to go with this ground worker because I know of his very good reputation as he mostly works for a local developer who is good friends with my brother in law. Originally (ie 4 years ago, before the project was put on hold), I was planning to pay him a day rate & pay for everything he needed, but things have moved on; he was unwell for a while, & he brought a general builder he sometimes works with to our recent meeting. The quote has come from the builder, so I'd be paying the builder, who will be doing the work together with the ground worker I'm keen to work with. @Mr Punter, no, I haven't considered doing anything special under the beam & block floor. Ideally, I'd have my B&B a little higher above ground level, but the planning department have been very insistent on a low ridge height, so I have no room to play with. I have received permission to put all the rain water from the roof into the drain that's taking the waste water (that's what happens with the rain water from the bungalow that will be demolished), because a soakaway is not feasible.

Hi everybody This is my first post. I’m going to demolish my approx. 100 year old bungalow & build a detached house (13.5 x 8.8M footprint) + detached double garage. I have PP. I’m in Surrey, & my plot has a very high water table. Due to the water table problem, if I don’t get everything in place now, so that the foundations can be dug in September, it would make sense to wait until next September, so really, I need to make some quick decisions. I’ve received this quote (below) & I’m keen to know whether it seems reasonable. I will make sure setting out is included, if I accept this quote. The ply that’s mentioned is for the shuttering that we’ll need to use to stop the foundations caving in (due to the water that will seep in within a few hours of the trenches being dug). I bought a job lot of reclaimed plywood boards for this purpose some time ago. I’ve attached a drawing to show the substructure plan. This was drawn by an SE about 4 years ago, before the project was put on hold. I realise the regs have changed, so I’ll be getting a new drawing showing a 150mm or perhaps 200mm cavity, but this gives you an idea of what’s involved. There’s around 60 linear metres of trench here. BCO have told me I’ll need 1M trenches, 60cm wide, with 60cm concrete. The site plan shows the new house & garage. I’ve drawn the drains in, in red & the circles indicate the access chambers that are included in the quote. & here’ the quote. It’s a shame they didn’t break it down, with a price for each line. The existing garage is a large single, made from very flimsy wood, so that will not take too much effort to demolish, although it has a corrugated concrete asbestos roof, so care will need to be taken with this. I reckon the demolition is £5K max. It’s an almost level site now, as the garage area was dug out some time ago, so there’s already about 3 loads of muck away to go (£1,000?) & the quote covers this too. Please see below comprehensive list of works to be completed and quotation for this work. Demolition of existing bungalow and garage Dig out and remove existing foundations Removal of hardcore and waste material from site Dig foundations (an allowance of 1m depth by 600mm wide trenches) Form shuttering (ply supplied by customer) Concrete foundations (depth to be advised by building control) Lay in ducting for gas, water, electric and NTL to receive services by others Lay all foul and rainwater drainage including manholes Build up block and brick footings to receive block and beam flooring Allowance for three courses of bricks in Staffordshire blues Lay block and beam floor Allowance of 1.5m of hard standing around new property plus a hard stand area to the front of the cabin for storage of materials No allowance Clay master Sheets of plywood (to be supplied by customer) Base for new garage - awaiting designs/spec Total: £59,584.00 (Net) I’m sure this would have cost a lot less if the project hadn’t been put on hold four years ago. Do you think this seem reasonable at today’s rates? cropped GFP with foundations.pdf