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AliMcLeod

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  1. AliMcLeod

    Spot the Pipeline

    By AliMcLeod,

    Those beyond a certain again will remember Spot The Ball, the competition on the sports pages back in the 80s/90s.
     
    It was an action photo from a football match with the ball missing – you had to mark the picture with an X where you thought the ball was and send it in with your entry fee. If the middle of your X aligned with the middle of the ball, you won the prize.
     

     
    Except, it wasn’t quite like that. What actually happened was that judges also guessed where they thought ball was, and if your guess matched their guess, then you won the prize.
     
    I now wonder whether a similar process was used to provide documentation to us, and to the purchaser of our neighbouring plot, as to  where the oil and gas pipeline ran in relation to both our plots.
     
    Here is the location of the pipeline, as shown in the approved plans for the plot we purchased. More importantly, it is also where the purchasing of the neighbouring plot was told the pipeline was.
     

     
    And here is the actual location of the pipeline, updated after the pipeline owners had been out with their magic wand and a subsequent dig to perform a visual inspection of the pipeline:
     

     
    The ball is not where they thought it was!

    The pipeline owner has a legal responsibility (as defined in the Deed of Servitude) to maintain pipeline markers at boundary points, and you can see two of them at the border of our plot (roughly left of the markers) and our neighbours plot, at the front of the wall.  One is the original marker that existed when we bought the plot, and the second was added after the dig for a visual inspection. There is also a marker at the back of the plot, and that is where the discrepancy was - the pipeline was meters from where the approved planning document indicated.
     

     
    I never did find out how this could happen – we don’t know if the marker at the back of the plot was originally in the wrong location (the pipeline owners insists this was never the case) or where the architects who did the original planning permission got their information from, but someone messed up big time.
     
    I’d like to have thought the specific location of the pipeline would have come up during the plot purchase process, but whilst the missives etc clearly mentioned the pipeline it did not specifically state where the pipeline was in relation to either plot – that information was only part of the planning drawings, which were independent (from a legal perspective) of the plot purchase.
     
    Thankfully for my wife and I, the new location of the pipeline did not impact us in any way, and in some respects would make our life easier, as we were farther from the no-build zone. Our neighbours were not so lucky – they had to change their plans to move their house and shrink it using a stepped design, so as to not have anything on the no build zone. I’m not sure how far he explored any legal routes available to him, but it seemed he had nowhere to go as the purchase of the plot itself did not specify where the pipeline was.
     
    My learn from this: Don’t trust something because it is on a plan or a drawing. Ask questions and get confirmation. Caveat Emptor.
  2. AliMcLeod

    Missing In Action

    By AliMcLeod,

    So, after a flurry of initial blog posts back in March and April, I went quiet. Real life (home and work) got a bit mental and I just didn't have the time to post more. And, my wife and I have also done a fair bit of reflection on the way forward.
     
    I'd gotten about 2/3 of the way through the journey to where we are today. I've covered finding the plot, and the decision whether to buy it, initial view on wayleaves and servitudes, tweaking the design that came with the plot, clearing tons of mud from the site, issues with the design and selecting a new architect, changing the design to correct the flaws with the previous one and the consequences of that and finally, changing the internal floor plan with the new design.
     
    I was hoping to have more time to fully bring us up to date - as I said in my original post, I'm finding this post-documentation of the process quite cathartic - but that is looking unlikely, so thought I'd do a few summary posts covering the major events not yet covered (in no particular order):
     
    It was found out the 3 foot diameter high pressure oil and gas pipeline that ran through the border of our plot and the neighbouring plot (with a 3.5m No Build zone either side of the centre line) did not actually run through the border of our plot and the neighbouring plot as per the drawings provided by the builder - it turned out that it actually ran more through our neighbours plot, much to their obvious displeasure and to our obvious relief. It still don't understand how this was not identified during the purchases process for either of us. The fun of working with planning and their seemingly arbitrary ability to change their minds and make decisions based on what seems to be purely subjective opinions A restructuring at the company I worked for meant that my role was no longer required in the UK - I had the option of either moving to a similar role in the US or taking redundancy. My wife cares for her seriously ill mother so the former was not an option... The builder we had lined up to perform the build (and who had been contracted by our neighbour to complete their build) went into liquidation, with a significant number of creditors We had (and are still having) great challenges in getting agreement on a foundation design that works for a build on the sloping site, that does not put undue load onto the pipeline and that is not prohibitively expensive. eg. £40K for a proposed sheet piling solution - that was in addition to the costs of foundations The need (or not) for a Principal Designer (this took place before the excellent thread on the subject on this forum) Understanding our responsibilities and, perhaps more importantly, our rights, under the Deed of Servitude that exists over the plot in favour of the pipeline owner And finally, and most pertinently, that we're seriously considering just sitting on the plot for now, and coming back to it in a number of years when life is a little less complex (is it ever?)  
    I'll look to cover the above in the next few days.
     
    But before I go, I have had small snatches of time where I've been able to read sections of the forum, and I'd like to reiterate what others have said: this place is a brilliant resource and is frequented by an immense number of people who are willing to help others by sharing their knowledge and experience.  I have already learned so much, and for that I thank you.
     
     
     
     
     
     
  3. AliMcLeod
    We were making good progress with the architect; we had agreed on the new external look and received an updated internal floorplan, which was a big improvement over the layout that came with the plot.
     
    We received the first draft from the architect on 7th July 2016, and agreed on the drawings to submit to Planning on 18th August.
     
    During those 5-6 weeks, my wife and I sat with the plans, "walking" through the house, working out how we’d use each space, and going back to the architects with suggested changes, questions and tweaks.  Looking back through my records, we had 7 revisions of the drawings, though at one of those was solely a request for the addition of dimensions to the drawings.
     
    The main changes we made during this process were:
     
    Kitchen
     
    The original plans had bi-fold doors, but I’ve heard bad things about their long-term air-tightness, particularly in areas where the wind can gust to fairly significant levels, so we replaced this opening with sliding doors. We discussed a number of options here: 2 doors or 3, multi-track or single track, all sliding, or some fixed panes, but ended up with a single fixed glass pane and a single slider, with the overall width aligning with the window in the bedroom above for external aesthetics.
     
    Living Room
     
    As with the Kitchen, we changed the bi-fold doors to sliding doors. The wall of glass is south facing over the River Forth and will be battered by storms for parts of the year – there was no way I’d have subjected bi-fold doors to that sort of weather.
     
    Living Level Bedroom
     
    This was the major change we made to the plans. My wife has a joint condition that could cause mobility issues in future years. We didn’t know this when we bought the plot with a fairly steep slope and designed a 3 storey house with a lot of stairs and with our master bedroom suite on the top floor…
     
    In partial mitigation of this, we decided to combine the two smaller bedrooms on this floor into a second master bedroom suite. This would give us the option, should the need ever arise, to relocate ourselves to this level.
     
    At this point, we also briefly discussed whether we could introduce a lift into the design somewhere, but the cost put us off somewhat. Looking back, I now wonder if we should have at ensured we could accommodate that in future, although it is not necessarily too late to do that.
     
    Entrance Hall

    I’ve not mentioned this so far, but one of the features we did like the original plot plans was a glass floor in the entrance hall, to allow light to flood into the basement. That had disappeared from the plans, so we added that back in.  With us combining the two bedrooms, we also manged to address the issue we had of limited storage just inside the front door and added new cupboards there.
     
    Here’s the floor plan that was submitted to planning. We also extended the terrace at the front of the house, to allow us to set up a table and chairs to enjoy the view. This seemingly small change would cause us all sorts of problems in future.        
     

     
    Master Bedroom Suite
     
    We didn’t think the location of the bed in the previous design made the best use of the views over the River Forth, so we moved the bed into the middle of the room, sitting in front of a false wall (probably to be around shoulder height). This provided us with more storage (we envisage a shoe store on the back side of this wall) and also a dressing area of sorts behind that false wall. This change meant we had to change the windows, to accommodate the new location of the built-in wardrobes.
     
    Upper Hall
     
    I asked the architect to make the double height area above the entrance door a bit deeper, so we moved the door to the Family Room to the north a bit and got rid of the store cupboard at the top of the stairs.
     
    Family Bathroom

    We added a rooflight into the family bathroom, since it had no natural light.
     
    Here’s what the upper floor plan looked like
     


    The basement area remained largely unchanged:
     

     
    The externals changed a bit to accommodate the new internal layouts:
     

     
    And a sectional view:
     

     
    It was now in the hands of the Planning Officer.
     
    Next, I'll share a little bit more on the various other options we discussed during the design process, including the size/position of that north facing window at the stairs.
     
     
  4. AliMcLeod
    Based on our brief, our architect had taken the original designs that came with our plot, utilised the same house footprint, and had come up with a new set of designs and internal floor layouts.
     
    We had two choices for the external design - a flat roof or two mono-pitched roofs. After a little discussion between my wife and I, and with to the architect, we agreed on the two mono-pitched roofs design.
     
    The house to the west of us had an almost flat roof (they initially submitted plans for a flat roof, but the planners insisted on a 5 degree gradient), and the proposed one to the east had the same plans as those that came with our plot, albeit a little smaller, with a mono-pitched and a dual pitched roof, with dormers. We spoken to the owners of the house to the west, and they said that planners were adamant that they could not have a flat roof. We felt we'd get the same decision if we wanted to go down that route, but we also felt that the two-mono pitched roofs would add a bit more character to the house and fitted in better with the overall streetscape.

    So, this was our new house design.
     

     
     
     
    Now, this seems obvious to me now, but what I hadn't quite realised at the time how much roof layout of the the original design had reduced the internal foor space of the house. After we'd made the decision to go with the two mono-pitched design, we let our builder know and asked for an updated cost plan.
     
    As part of our brief to the architect, we'd also reminded him that we lived in Scotland, so probably didn't need there balconies, so this was reduced to one. This was bound to save costs, we thought, and made sure our builder took that into account.
     
    However, our builder soon got back to us asking if we'd realised that the new roof design had increased our floorspace from around 250 m² to around 340m² and, even with the simpler roofs, and the removal of the balconies, that would therefore increase the build cost. The change had also increased the ceiling heights from 2.4 meters on each level (from the bottom up) to 2.5m, 2.675m and 2.5 meters. Finally, he pointed out that the change of slope on the roofs to under 20 degrees meant that we could not longer use slate for our roof and would have to either use a membrane or aluminium zinc, with the resulting additional costs.
     
    Overall, the above increased our build estimated cost by around 20%, including a doubling of the cost of the roof (it would also mean changing soffits, fascia, downpipes etc).
     
    That amount was starting to eat into our contingency, but was something we could afford, even if it eventually meant a little bit more on the mortgage.
     
    Looking back, I do wonder whether we could/should have shrunk the house a bit at that time, saving some costs but still having a house that would still be big enough for our needs - we don't need that space day-on-day but do have family visiting from London and Dublin a few times a year. And, more space is good, right? 
     
    I've been happy with our architect, but the changes to the house design, and in particular the reduction in the roof gradient precluding us from using slate, has taught me to always think about, or ask about, the potential consequences of any other proposed changes.
  5. AliMcLeod
    The first decision to be made with the new architect was how to change the external house design to remove the lack of head height in the roofspace, but stay within the existing footprint. 
     
    In the napkin sketches, the architect had suggested two mono-pitched roofs to replace the existing dual-pitched roofs and we immediately liked that design. However, he didn’t immediately just go with that design and at the start of July 2016, he sent us through a couple of options, one with a flat roof and one with a sloped roof. Before giving his preference, he wanted our opinion:
     
    Option 1:
     

     
    Option 2:
     

     
    I initially preferred the flat roof option, whereas my wife preferred the sloping roof. I'd be interested to hear what others think and I'll share what we went for in the next post.
     
    Our brief to the architect had let him know that we liked the open plan living/dining area of the original house design, and the location of the kitchen – although north facing, we like a kitchen that opens onto our back garden as we like to barbecue - yes, even in Scotland!
     
    Here were the revised floorplans at that time:
     

     

     

     
    We liked what the architect had done, but, as is often the case, its not until you see something in front of you that you realise you want it changed, so we did go back and make some further alterations to the internal floorplan. I'll cover those in a future post.
  6. AliMcLeod
    It’s September 2015. We had our plot, we had approved planning permission, we had a builder who was about to start a build in the plot next door to ours and who had provided a build estimate that fitted with our budget. What could possibly go wrong?   18 months later, and I’m still not sure I can adequately answer that.   On the positive front, the 120 year old Farmhouse we’d put on the market a few months earlier had sold for a price we were very happy with. We were less enamoured with the local estate agent who tried to get us to accept a lowball offer put in by a chancer. And I was (and still am) frustrated that I gave in to SWMBO and went that commission based estate agent rather than one of the fixed fee ones. I am more than happy to pay professionals for their skill and expertise, but am still adamant this estate agent did virtually nothing to accommodate the sale. They could not even get simple things like the wording on the house schedule correct – it took 15 revisions before it could be signed off, with room names, room sizes, distances to nearest amenities etc all wrong multiple times.   We moved out of that house and into our temporary home at the start of October 2015. We’d only be there for 8-10 months and in our new home by Christmas 2016 (© Every home renovation show ever broadcast) or so the builder told us.  We were excited and looking forward to life by the sea (ok, Life by the Firth).     But the next few months were frustrating. Looking back, we didn’t really know what we were letting ourselves in for. The main problem was making progress with the detailed design. We first approached the architect who did the planning drawings, and had a couple of meetings with them, but then they were completely unresponsive (in our experience, a running theme with many so-called professionals in the building industry). Even getting a quotation for the warrant work provided impossible, so we eventually gave up on that and asked our builder for a recommendation.   Our builder recommended a design agency they had used previously, stating that since we had approved plans, we did not really require an architect and all we needed was someone to take the plans and create the technical drawings to take forward for our building warrant. We decided to go down that route in the middle of December 2015 and arranged a meeting for January 2016.   It's said that you get what you pay for, and that proved to be the case here. Whilst the design agency were technically competent, and they did what was asked of them - they took the plans and created warrant drawings from them – there was absolutely no feeling that they were in any way invested in making the design as good as it could possibly be. They were not designing a home, they were creating some lines on a computer screen.   A perfect example of that was highlighted when we identified a couple of very basic flaws with the approved plans, yet the design agency did not notice those until they had been pointed out to them. I'm sure many here will spot the issues:     It was my own inquisitiveness that meant I spotted the  issue before we got to timber kit design stage. Other than the initial marketing images, we did not have a 3D model of the house, and with two roofs resulting in a fairly complicated join in our master en-suite, I wanted to visualise how that room would work so started creating my own 3D model. You can see that roof join in this picture:     I had drawings with room sizes, but wanted room heights, so I asked for section views and eventually got the below.
        However, even at this point, the design agency did not seem to comprehend that there was an issue with the two en-suites on that floor. One of them only had 1.6 meters (around 5 foot 3 inches) headroom in front of the toilet! The agency sent this through with a "as requested" response, not the expected "oh, I see what you mean, that headroom is not enough" comment.   Nor did they notice that the roofline at the rear of the building meant that you could not walk around Bedroom 3 with a double-bed placed as shown on the plan!   We did make some changes in an attempt to mitigate the issues - we increased the roof ridge heights and widened the dormers to allow people to walk around the bed, but it was hard going. We were effectively driving any improvements, and the design agency were acting as computer operators. When asking their opinion or making a suggestion the response was typically "what do you think?"   There were some changes we made that we were happy with - I've always liked a double height entrance space, so we removed the vestibule and added a void above the front door, we removed the back door from the kitchen in exchange for more sliding doors (although for some reason they were shown as bi-fold), and also made some other tweaks. This was the final set of designs we got from the design agency, in April 2016.            During those winter months, the builder also continued to work with structural engineers and the pipeline owner on getting approved foundation designs - that too was turning out to be a bit of a marathon that would rumble on for months to come.   With us changing the roof lines, we had to go back to planning, and were advised to go for a Non Material Variation, but Fife Council kicked that out and said we had to go back to full planning. £100 wasted there due to bad advice - we were later told it would never be accepted as a NVM due to the ridge height changes.   If we had gone ahead with that build, I think I would have been ok with the house, but we were not happy with compromises we were having to make due to the rooflines and definitely not happy with the service provided by the design agency. We felt like more could be done with the space we had, but were struggling to find a route to getting there.   By chance, we had tickets for the Homebuilding & Renovation Show in Glasgow in May 2016, and sat watching a talk on self-building. The talk was about why having your own brief was so important. Almost simultaneously, my wife and I looked at each other and both knew at that moment that we needed to pause and rethink our house design. We bought the plot with full planning and never even wrote our own brief.   Since we were already having to reapply for full planning, we decided we'd do it properly this time - it was time to find a new architect.   Reading the above, you'll notice that the timeline is quite stretched. While this was ongoing, we also had real life to contend wit:   I was made redundant from my job in January 2016 due to a major restructuring in the American Software company I worked for. I was offered a role in the USA, but that did not work for us as my wife cares for her mother, so I had a period of time where my time was spent was on finding a new job. Alongside that, my wife's mother went through a period of bad health, with 4 hospital admissions between December 2015 and March 2016. She had very little time to give to the process.   During such times, you have to focus on the priorities in life and other things just have to be put on hold.   Next up: Selecting a new architect.    
  7. AliMcLeod
    Its nearing the end of May 2016, and we’d owned our plot for 10 months. In that time we had:
     
    Pretty much decided on a builder, although we’d not signed anything contractually Cleared around 1000 tonnes of soil off the site Found out that the approved plans that came with the house were unworkable for anyone whose ancestors originated  from somewhere other than The Shire, Middle Earth Come to the conclusion that while architectural technicians are great at CAD, but they are not necessarily thinking of your project as a place where someone has to live Even ignoring the usability issues with the house design, we realised that us not having an opportunity to present a brief  in the process meant that the house did not really work for us Self-building (or not, as is our case) is stressful  
    We were sat at a talk the Homebuilding and Renovating show in Glasgow and has just decided that we needed to find a new architect.
     
    And, what better time was there to do that was there than at that show?

    So, we spent the next few hours speaking to some of the architects that were there, with differing impressions.
     
    The one major constraint we were imposing was that, because of the existence of the pipeline along the edge of our plot, and the assurance from our builder that the foundation plan was close to being approved by the pipeline owner, we were very reluctant to change the footprint of the house. Doing so would have meant coming up with a new foundation design which would have meant significant rework for the structural engineer, and extra cost for us - it wasn’t just  redoing the drawings, but pages and pages of retaining wall calculations. I’ve always been pretty good at maths, but this stuff is gobbledygook to me!
     

     
    We didn’t limit ourselves to architects at the show though – for the following few weeks after the show we also researched architects in the local area, looked at websites and asked people we knew for recommendations (although we didn’t know any self-builders so accepted this would not necessarily provide a rich vein of options). We spoke to quite a few architects during that time – some were put off by the constraint to use the existing footprint, some by the complexity of the site. Some didn't even bother to respond, which in my mind was Darwin's natural selection at play. We eventually had a short-list of three architects, all of whom we met on site.
     
    We had put together a high level brief detailing what we liked about the current house plans, what we didn’t like so much, and also what other requirements we had, and shared that with the architects. In reality, we would have been happy with either one of the short-listed architects – all had good ideas about how the house and the plot -  but in the end we chose based on a mix of cost, flexibility and relationship
     
    One of the architects wanted to charge based on 6% of the build cost and would not shift from that. I am strongly against such a charging structure and it effectively ruled him out. Whilst our brief was to use the existing footprint, one of the other architects spent a lot of time suggesting alternative layouts for the site – he had some were great ideas, and I wish we could have had the flexibility to do so, but it put a concern in my mind about his ability to follow the brief. He worked on a fixed fee per stage, but his costs were also a fair bit more than the architect we finally chose. We got on really well with the architect we finally chose. After meeting on site, we sat for a coffee and he actually spent some time sketching alternate designs on some napkins (I wish I’d kept those) and he also fully bought into our need to keep the same house footprint. A week or so later, we got his fee proposal through and confirmed that we’d be going ahead.  
    The whole process from first contacting various architects and instructing our selected one took around 6 weeks and after a period of feeling low about the whole process, we were re-invigorated and looking forward to things finally starting to move forward.
     
    Next up: The first designs from the new architect
  8. AliMcLeod
    It’s May 2015 and around 4 months since we first saw the plot and 3 months since we decided not to buy it. There were various reasons for this:
     
    The was a train line running along the rear of the plot, serving the local power station There was a BP pipeline running through the border of our plot, imposing a 3.5 meter no build zone on our plot We’d never done anything like this before. We were not self-builders. Buying a plot was for people on Grand Designs or Building the Dream, not people like us who bought a house, moved our furniture into it and painted a few walls. The extent of our renovation experience was replacing a lean-to sun-room with a conservatory – that room did extend out beyond the original floor space, so required planning permission, but we had very little involvement in the whole process. It did not involve a 3 foot high pressure oil and gas pipeline. And I was not a trainspotter.  
    This sit map shows Plots 11 and 12.
     

     
    Ours is Plot 12.
     

     
    Whilst the existence of the pipeline and no-build zone was an obvious inconvenience, we’d spoken to the builder aligned to the plot, and because we had planning permission and because we were assured that good progress was being made on getting the foundation design approved by the pipeline owner, we were comforted in that respect. We trusted what we were told, But with the benefit of hindsight, that trust was misplaced.
     
    However, from my hazy recollection of those discussions 2 years ago, it was actually the existence of the train line that was the ultimate decider in us not purchasing the plot at that time.  As far as we could ascertain, only 4 trains ran per week, but they were long, trundly, noisy trains, with carriages filled with coal, and this did not really appeal to us.

    So, we walked away.
     
    But, 3 months later, we were back looking at the plot. We’d spent those intervening 3 months looking at other houses for sale (we’d still not yet put our own home on the market) but couldn’t find somewhere we both loved. Perhaps critically, we revisited the plot one day and started speaking to the lovely couple who were building the house on the plot to the west of ours. They had previous experience of self-building, at varying levels of involvement, from instructing a main contractor through the project managing and arranging all the sub-contractors themselves.
     
    We met with them a couple of times thereafter, and it’s fair to say that they allayed many of the concerns we had, particularly the minimal impact the railway line was having on their lives, although at that time, their build was still in progress and they were living in a caravan on-site.
     
    I can’t remember exactly when we made a decision to buy the plot, but things moved fast once we did. We agreed to meet the builder on-site, and within a week we’d put in a note of interest on the plot and put down a small deposit to have it removed from the market. We also put our own home on the market at the same time (to release capital), and changed our own house search to find a temporary place to live whilst the build was to take place.
     
    It took nearly 3 more months to conclude the purchase of the plot. It was during this time that we first heard the phrases Wayleave Agreement and Deed of Servitude from our solicitor.  Wayleaves have been discussed on this board before, so I won’t go into details, but in our case, it effectively gives the pipeline owner the right to access the ground above and around the pipeline. The Deed of Servitude is the legal document in which these rights are documented. Interestingly (and this will be the subject to future posts) it details the rights and responsibilities of both the pipe owner and plot owner with regards to the pipeline. We finally legally owned the plot in the middle August 2015.
     
    More time than really should have been necessary was spent on getting a decision as to whether we could actually place a fence on the boundary of our plot (which was shown to be directly above the pipeline), but we (and the owner of the plot to the east of us) had discussions with the pipeline owners Wayleave team and finally got confirmation that there would be no issue here.
     
    During these discussions we also got more information about the positioning of the pipeline in relation to the plot. This side elevation shows the run of the pipeline underground (though we've since organised a significant soil shift since this was created):
     

     
    This drawing also showed the results of the discussions that had already taken place regarding the foundations for the approved house. The depth of the foundation, we were told, was to ensure that no load was put onto the pipeline. We had also met with the  architect who designed the house, and he explained that so long as there was a 45 degree angle between the bottom of the foundations and the bottom of the pipeline, then the pipe owners were happy.
     

     
    We never knew at the time, but the foundation design is something that caused (and is still causing) much angst in our build process.
  9. AliMcLeod
    I just realised that I missed a couple of things out from my previous post.
     
    In December 2015, a boring rig was on site to do its thing for a mineral report. This was required (in addition to the coal authority report) to identify whether there were any coal seams in the area, and also to get a general view of the underground minerals which would feed into decisions on the preferred foundation design for the structural engineer. This was arranged through the builder.
     
    The drilling was to take place across both our plot and the one to the east of ours. Unfortunately, due to reasons that are still not clear to us, only one borehole was completed in our plot. You can see here that R03 was not completed. We’re still not sure if this could come back to bite us.
     

     
    The bores that were completed went to a depth of 30 meters, and did not raise any concerns about building on the site. This is an excerpt from the Mineral Report:
     

    More visibly, towards the end of February 2016, we did a soil shift on the site (again, instructed via the builder). We lifted around 2000 tonnes of soil across both sites
     

     

     

     

     

     

     
     

     
    This is how the site was left. The trees at the back of the site were meant to be removed, but the team ran out of time. We chased this afterwards, and it was always going to happen, but never did. I’ll get to the reason for that in a future post.
     

     

     

     
    We’ve also since found out that, contrary to what we now know should be best practice, the topsoil was not separated from the other brown waste before it was taken off site. This will potentially costs us when we get to landscaping our garden. Another item added to the list of the many things we've learned in this process.
     
  10. AliMcLeod
    In my previous post, I explained how we came across our plot when out walking close to where my mother-in-law had moved over from Dublin.  It came with full planning permission for a modern house built into the hill, as shown on the boarding on site. Interestingly, the boarding was from a local builder (which I’ve blurred out here)
     

     
    This is the image shown on the boarding:
     

     
    Here’s another sample image of the house:
     

     
    “Our” house would be the one on the right  – the plot on the left had been purchased separately and the owners had instructed their own architect and builders to build a different style of house.
     
    At that time (January 2015), we were looking to move from our old Farmhouse to a more maintenance-free life and bought into the idea of a new house. Whilst we knew our existing furniture would not necessarily “fit” within the contemporary style, we were both agreed to look into things further. At this point, we knew absolutely nothing about self-building.
     
    So, towards the end of January 2015, we contacted the number on the site boarding to enquire further. The builder advised us that there were 2 build options:
     
    A house purchase process, where we’d effectively pay them a fixed price for the plot and house as advertised (they also provided a spec-sheet), but where we’d pay what was then called Stamp Duty. This would involve an up-front deposit then staged payments Purchase the plot from the existing owner (the owner of the architect company who designed the house) and then engage with the builder to undertake the construction of the house.  
    We were obviously attracted to option 2, as it would save on the considerable stamp duty, and going with that builder would also result in additional savings due to the sharing of mobilisation costs, shared project manager, economies of scale etc, as the neighbouring plot had already been sold and work was due to start in May 2015.
     
    We continued dialogue with the builder, and over the following days and weeks, got more details about the site.  Here was another 3D model of the approved home:
     

     
     
    Here's the site layout showing our plot as the only one available:
     

     
    And the floorplans
     

     

     

     
    We also got elevation views:
     

     
    However, it was during these discussions that we started getting concerned about two specific areas around the plot:
     
    There was a train line running along the back of the plot, serving the local coal power station. We emailed the power station to ask for the timetable, and their response was that due to "strict policies and security we are unable to release any information" regarding the train timetable. We had a chuckle at that and instead spoke to local people who told us there were around 4 scheduled journeys per week. I made sure that information did not fall into nefarious hands. The was a pipeline running along the border of our plot* and the plot to the east of us (the one where the build was due to start in May), which imposed a 3.5 meter “no build zone” either side of its centre line.  
    (*) This turned out not to be the case, but I'll come back to that in a future post.
     
    You can see the latter on another site plan we received:
     

     
    Another benefit of going with the builder aligned to the plot was that they already had a relationship with the pipeline owner (BP) and were in the progress of getting their structural engineer get agreement from BP on the foundation design –this was (understandably) a planning condition from Fife Council.
     
    However, after much soul-searching and many discussions, and 3-4 weeks after first viewing the plot, we decided the risk was too much for us and contacted the builder to say we’d not be taking things any further. We then resigned ourselves to finding another home on the existing housing market.
     
    In the next post, I’ll explain why we changed our mind and  bought the plot, and start introducing the challenges the pipeline has placed on our life.
  11. AliMcLeod
    Prior to purchasing the plot we’re planning to build on, we lived in a 120 year-old single-storey Farmhouse sitting in 1/3 acre plot with lovely views looking down onto a loch a few hundred meters down the valley. We loved living there, but with our daughter heading off to university in Autumn 2014, we realised that we did not need a 5 bedroom house, and the annual maintenance was expensive both in terms of time (tending to the gardens) and money (regular replacement of the slate tiles due to the high winds we often encountered).
     
    In addition to this, my wife’s mother, who lived in Dublin at the time, was suffering from bad health, and we moved her over to Scotland in December 2014 so my wife could take care of her. We didn’t have long to find her somewhere to live and she moved into a house not too far away (roughly 7 miles). Except, not too far away turned out to be a 30 minute journey each way, due to traffic, so decided that moving closer to her would be beneficial to them both.
     
    At this point, self-building had not even cross my mind and we did what most people do when they want to move – we scoured the estate agent websites for a suitable new home for us in that area. This was early January 2015.
     
    Whilst I was confident our current house would sell – it was a unique property, and there was, and still is a, trend for Edinburgh folks to sell their properties and move over the Forth Road Bridge to Fife where you could still easily commute to the central belt of Scotland but get at least double the house-space your money – I knew that it might take some time, since the house was at the upper end of the local market, price-wise.
     
    But, I was learning something about myself during our house search. We viewed a number of great houses, but none of them really jumped out at me as somewhere I’d prefer to live rather than where we were living at the time. I wondered whether I was just being overly-fussy, but I’ve since realised that I wanted a house that was a bit different.
     
    For that reason, we didn’t put our house on the market immediately as we wanted to find something else first, and, in retrospect, I wasn't sure I really wanted to move.
     
    We first came across the plot towards the end of January 2015 when out walking. It is literally (and by literally, I mean literally, and not the vernacular used by teenagers today) a 5 minute walk from where my mother-in-law lives.
     
    The plot had a big “PLOTS FOR SALE” sign stuck in the ground, and another sign by a local builder who was advertising a Planning Approved house design that could be built on the house. We later contacted that builder, and I will explain how that tale ended in a future post, but there is a reason that the board is blurred in the picture below.
     
    The plot is the middle one of 3, around 760 m2 and is south facing over the River Forth to the Lothians. Between the plot and the river is B-road and a shingle beach. It grabbed our interested pretty much immediately. The plot to the west had a self-build in progress, and the plot to the east was purchased back in 2012, but no build had yet started.
     
    I’ve been told that pictures are always good for a blog, so here they are (these were taken later in the year, after we’d purchased the plot).
     
    View from the Plot, looking over the River Forth. It looks a lot nicer when the tide is in.
     

     
    View of the Plot from the roadside. The boundary on the east is roughly where the two markers are at the bottom right, with the plot running parallel to the house to the west. Those markers are important and will likely have a future post dedicated to them…
     

     
    The plot from a little further back, standing on the other side of the road:
     

     
    The above doesn’t really show the scale of the plot, so here’s the layout:
     

     
    In the next post, I’ll share why we initially decided not to buy the plot, but then changed our mind, and hopefully get to showing some house plans.
     
     
  12. AliMcLeod
    A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse - Shakespeare’s Richard III, Act V, Scene IV
     
    Hello, and thanks for stopping by.
     
    Firstly, apologies for the title of this blog. 
     
    I can’t really say that I’m a big fan of Shakespeare, but I was struggling to think of a title for the blog, and, like Shakespeare himself, I do like a play on words. 
     
    By way of explanation, for those not from Scotland, the region of Fife (the location of our plot) is known as the Kingdom of Fife.  And we’re trying to build a house in Fife. So it kind of fitted. To be honest, I'm quite proud of it.
     
    My wife rolls her eyes when I do things like that, but it keeps me amused and (mostly) out of trouble and I can now tell people that I quoted Shakespeare today.
     
    Coincidentally, after looking into the meaning of the Richard III’s words, I think it is very apt in the context of our self-build experience to date. It is those experiences (past and present) that I plan on sharing.
     
    I’m not one to overly expose myself online (stop snickering at the back) so won’t be going out of my way to give our personal details away, but I won’t be obviously obfuscating my identity either. So, the actors in my own play are me (full time IT Consultant, currently self-employed), my wife (full time carer for her mother), our daughter (now at Aberdeen University), and two cats. 
     
    I’m not sharing our full names (I perhaps should have thought about that before choosing my username), but the cats are less concerned about identity theft – they are Ziggy and Fleur. I can share pictures of the cats on request, as is obligatory on the internet. Any requests for pictures for me shall be referred to a local shrink.
     
    Anyway, I’d better get onto why this blog exists… our self-build.
     
    I’ve already made a post to the Introduce Yourself forum, and that gives some background to how we got to where we are at today, so rather than repeat that here, here's a link:    
     
    That should provide a good understanding of the past experiences I intend to share over the next days/weeks. And, once our build does finally start, I’ll continue to do so share our progress.
     
    I’ll leave this first blog post there. On the next entry, I’ll share information about the plot, including a few pictures.
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