shuff27

Perhaps but they're the same bricks I used in the boundary wall (already built) which did not have to be approved, just 'in keeping with the neighbouring property' which is somewhat subjective. I submitted that wall as the sample panel for the house but afaik the PO has not been out to look at it, so if she rejects them after the 8 week period is up surely that's too late. I know it's irrelevant in planning terms but several neighbours have stopped by to say how much they like the bricks in the new wall!

Thanks for this. For clarification, all the pre-commencement conditions have already been discharged, these 7 are all pre-occupation ones: 5 relate to materials (facing bricks, roof tiles, window colour & profile etc.), 1 to landscaping plan & 1 to ecology (provision for bird & bat boxes).

There are some historical posts on this but I thought I'd resurrect it as the planning application backlog seems to be getting ever larger atm. So I applied to discharge my remaining conditions (7 of them in one go) on 24 Nov therefore the 8 week period expired yesterday, as confirmed by the council's portal which states 19 Jan as the 'expiry date'. 6 of the applications are still just listed as 'case officer allocated', 1 is listed as 'consults despatched' & actually shows a response from the ecology officer recommending discharge (it relates to bird & bat boxes). The remaining 6 largely relate to materials & contain nothing imho which could possibly be considered unusual. With the current long lead times, I've already had to order those materials to avoid the whole build grinding to a halt. I suspect that my best course of action is just to carry on building & let the PO get round to approving stuff in their own good time, on the basis that they have bigger, potentially more difficult applications to prioritise over mine. On the other hand, is there any benefit in informing the council that I now consider the conditions to be discharged by 'deemed consent'? My worry would be drawing unnecessary attention to my case & it may be better to stay under the radar. Any thoughts?

Just finalising my glazing order. I have 2 south facing bedroom windows, triple glazed, frame size 1050mm x 900mm. Supplier is offering the option of having those glazed in solar control glass (SKN176) instead of the regular low-e glass for an extra £100 per window. To be fair, supplier's opinion is that for a glass area of that size it's not worth the upgrade, but I do prefer a cool bedroom. Does anyone have any thoughts/opinions/experience of specing solar control glass?

I too dislike spots in bedrooms (& lounge) - in our current house we only use them when hoovering. In our new build master bedroom we'll be having a ceiling fan (with light) in the centre, 2 pendant lights (it's quite a large bedroom of 24sq.m.) & 2 bedside low level wall lights.

Yes you would think so but utility companies are generally too incompetent to do it that way. I'm actually having 2 separate road closures just for Anglian Water - 1 for the water supply & 1 for the sewer connection! Different AW departments, you know, so of course they can't organise both jobs under 1 closure...also, each closure costs me around £2k for the license from Highways.

In my experience Anglian Water are useless. I appled for a water connection last September & was given a connection date in December. 2 weeks before the agreed connection date they came to inspect my pipework & all was given the OK. On the actual morning of connection they phoned me to cancel it as their road closure license had been refused, excuse was that Gigaclear were already using temp traffic lights further up the road. Gigaclear had already been working on the road for 6 weeks, although apparently AW were unaware of this. I now have a new connection date in Feb, supposedly after Gigaclear have finished their works. I've been promised an investigation & appropriate compensation - watch this space...

I've applied to discharge all remaining 9 conditions in one hit. I note from the council's portal that my case has not been allocated to the original (experienced & reasonably helpful PO) who dealt with the original application & pre-commencement conditions, but to someone with the the job title 'student PO'. I would like to believe this indicates my case is seen as relatively trivial & not worth the senior PO's attention, but who knows? Does anyone else have experience of a student PO handling their case?

I submitted a section 80 to demolish a large disused garage on my plot. After 3 weeks I'd heard nothing from the council so I went ahead with the demolition as it was holding up progress & my groundworkers would have moved to another job otherwise. A week later received a response from the council asking when I intended to start the demolition. Sorry, already happened! But I did send them the demolition contractor's methodology statement & post-demolition report which showed everything was done properly. Never heard anything back from the council - my assumption is that they're too under-resourced to show much interest in my case.

Thanks for all the replies. I've emailed the supplier & referred them to the relevant sections of VAT notice 708, along with a copy of my planning permission. They're now closed till 5th Jan. Concrete (£3360) & boom pump hire (£475) are on the same invoice - so if I don't get any joy from the supplier can I still claim back the VAT on the concrete & would just have to take the £95 VAT hit on the pump? BTW the concrete price was £105 per cubic metre - best I could get from phoning every local supplier.

I have video evidence of the supplier operating the pump as I thought building control might want to see it as part of their remote inspection - they're all on holiday too!

Just to revive this thread - today I had foundation concrete poured. The supplier refused to accept that it should be zero rated for VAT, even though I had pointed this out last week when I paid their pro forma invoice. The guy operating their boom pump was the company owner as most of his employees were already on holiday. I felt I had to pay what they asked, including the VAT, as this was their last day before a 2 week closedown & obviously I didn't want to leave the foundations open for 2 weeks, plus the likelihood of concrete price increase in the new year. Can anyone advise my best course of action if they refuse to zero rate & refund the VAT I've had to pay? Should I notify HMRC?

I'm including everything - professional & planning fees, service connections, groundworks (many loads of muckaway ain't cheap), plant hire etc. And not forgetting rental costs of £21,600 over my expected 18 month build schedule which started from buying the plot in April this year. Saving grace with the rental costs is buying an equivalent new build would have meant stamp duty in the region of £25k. I'll report back next autumn whether the project has resulted in any financial uplift...but that should not be the only way of evaluating a successful self build.

I'm at the design stage for MVHR. My supplier is ADM Systems & their designer who is working on my layout says that low is no problem as long as they're high enough to avoid any external blockage, e'g. snow drift. So mine will be at approx 1m above ground level. The added benefit is shorter ductwork from the unit - internally they'll be concealed beneath the half landing of the staircase.

Already using my neighbour's power & water - my plot used to be part of his garden so I could argue he's already had a decent gift worth £216k from me!

My hired mixer is diesel - already plenty of use for my massive brick boundary wall!

I've established that my timber frame contractors will only need somewhere to charge batteries for power tools, which can be done off an extension lead from my helpful neighbour's supply. So is there any benefit (or requirement for other trades) of having a temp supply power externally (Western Power will do this on request but charge extra), or should I just arrange for the supply to go straight to the permanent meter position on the wall of the house? I'd be interested to hear what others did.

I believe scheduling accurately is often an issue for self builders even in normal times. Long lead times increase unpredictability. Hence I've ordered roof tiles now on the basis that my timber frame is due around mid February. But what happens if that's delayed and my brickie for the facing walls takes on another job because I'm not ready for him? Constantly having to think 10 steps ahead is stressful...but I was kinda expecting that.

Worst lead time so far is 5 months for ordinary clay roof tiles - already ordered them even though I haven't even done the foundations yet. English bricks were also 4-5 months, got round that by buying Belgian bricks which amazingly were delivered in about 3 weeks.

Agreed. My budget is based on £1500 per sqm, but that was based on costs 9 months ago. I'm now anticipating an overspend of approx £30k which is going to make life difficult.

My offer on the plot was accepted in February and we completed the purchase in July. If I had the choice again I would have opted out, but it's too late now. Means doing more of the work myself and going for a cheaper finish. Materials prices and lead times are crazy. Yesterday I had a small victory - after much phoning around managed to find an independent building merchant with 227 creasing tiles in stock and bought the whole lot. The national chain sheds were quoting "after Christmas".

I'm guessing (without knowing the split) that most on this forum are doing new builds rather than renovations/extensions. AFAIK the A2A variety of heat pump won't provide DWH, while A2W will. If that's the case the latter would be a more obvious solution for most of us here; it certainly gets a lot more coverage.

Looking to order my roof tiles now (still at the digging foundations stage ?) as they're generally on 5 months lead time. My designer has suggested Sandtoft Humber in Tuscan colour (i.e. reddish brown) as they're what was used on the neighbouring property so shouldn't be any issue getting them approved under discharge of conditions. It seems ridiculous that I have to order & pay for them before discharge (my LA is taking the full 8 weeks just to discharge very basic uncontroversial conditions) but that's where we are right now. Just wondering if anyone has any other suggestions for clay tiles, keeping in mind that due to budget they'll have to be the machine-made variety (my roofer doesn't rate them but hey-hoo) & not the nicer but much pricier hand-made variety?

Need the detail. Everything I've read so far has been about grant to replace an existing gas boiler & nothing about installing an ASHP in a new build.

I've had an estimate (not a final plan as I haven't yet finalised my kitchen unit layout) from Screedit, one of those contractors which install the UFH kit & screed as a package. They recommend 100mm pipe spacing when being run off an ASHP which seems logical for a lower water temp source - have other ASHP owners used this configuration, or just gone with wider gaps e.g. 150mm?