AliMcLeod

@Stones The way I explain it is that we'll be living in the house for a good number of years and I'd rather it be a house that we didn't have some niggling annoyances with over a few thousand extra £ now which will be forgotten about in a few years.

Yes, its a 30mph limit and all the neighbours had the same visibility splay condition as part of their planning. We've got full planning permission (with conditions) at present.

We have planning condition to provide 3 off-street parking spaces, and a turning area, but nothing more specific. There is also the need to maintain 2x60m visibility splays and there is a 600mm height restriction along the front of the plot. The service strip runs there, so we're limited to what we can do there anyway. So no need for a road, just a driveway (at a gradient not exceeding 1:10) This screenshot from Google Street View shows the entrance in relation to the lam post and traffic island. Out plot runs right up to the kerbside.

Site access will have to be carefully managed. The intention was to build across both plots at the same time, but that may no longer be possible, so it will be from the roadside, via the whole punched through the wall. We do have a few meters either side of the house to get small diggers past the house (but up a slope), but it will require careful planning to get the big diggers in and out of the top of the site before the house goes up. There should be no issue with needing to move any road furniture. Our roadside entry pretty much aligns to where the whole has been knocked into the wall, and you can see the road furniture in relation to that from this topo survey excerpt. Its too late to store any topsoil now - it was all taken off site. It could have been stored at the top of the plot (there is a bit of space there). We've been told that if we want anything to grow, we may have to bring new topsoil onsite.

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.

@Ferdinand I thought that sounded expensive too, but I was in no position to argue an alternative. There would be the need to do a soil-shift there (the current plan is to build the trench around that area), and additional tanking, and I think it also changed the foundation design with respect to the pipeline. I did ask about leaving it as a ventilated void, but that was still the majority of the costs. Once I get to posting our final (well, most current) foundations, i'll be able to ask such specific questions. It is another area where I'd love some input.

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.

@TennentslagerYes, the pipe owners are quite correct to ensure its not put at risk. Its quite important to the energy supply in Central Scotland. Hint: Grangemouth is over the other side of the river from our plot. @Alexphd1 When I asked the builder about using that space, he quoted a additional figure of around £40-50K due to the extra tanking etc requirements. As for raft foundations/ICF, one of the things I want to ask the experts on this forum is what other foundation options might be possible, although I realise no-one will be able to advise due to the. Our structural engineer has said the option he put forward is the optimal one for the site with the pipeline.

@ProDave Those were the initial founds - the latest founds aren't quite 5 meters - we've removed around 2000 tonnes of soil across our plot and the one next to us. However, the foundation design that was approved by the pipe owner is actually more onerous (and expensive) than the one you see here, as they involved steelwork and this kind of foundation (strip foundation?): We weren't involved in the technicalities of the early plans (left that to the builder) but sheet piling was not part of the original design. However, adding sheet piling was later suggested after the plot next to ours started their dig and the sand (which the boring report identified) started giving away under the pipeline. But, the sheet piling introduced £10Ks of additional costs, although introducing sheet piling (and keeping it in place) would have meant we'd be able to reduce the trench depth and therefore concrete costs. So, your second sentence about reducing the depth is exactly where we're at now. But just because we were told that the 45 degree angle and no load on the pipeline was all we needed, it does not mean that the pipeline owner agreed . Our responsibility with regards to the pipeline (as per the servitude) is not to damage it/put load onto it. But, unbeknown to us at the time (the SE was engaged via the builder, not sub-contracted by us), it seems the foundation design that was finally approved (require for planning consent) was effectively dictated to our SE by the pipeline owners SE, and everyone expected us to pick up the bill. The pipeline is the same one that forced the moving of T In The Park, so we're not talking some local farmer here... It'll definitely be the subject of future posts. @FerdinandThe coal station has already closed, so no more coal trains - just the occasional train to help with the decommissioning and a tourist steam train every couple of months. I'm not too concerned about HS6. I suspect funding will stop after HS2

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.

@Ferdinand Thank you so much for the feedback. It is hugely appreciated and I wish i'd found this forum (or its predecessor) 2 years ago. However (and I'm doing this purely so as to not have you waste time, not because its not useful), we have changed the internal floor plan so I'd suggest you hold off for now? Hopefully this is coming across as intended, not that i'm not wanting feedback. In general, we've kept the same house footprint, but have changed it to two mono-pitched roofs and have moved rooms around internally. The living area is south facing, over the Firth of Forth. I'll try to get to posting the current floor plan as soon as possible, and from the reviewing the above, much of your feedback will still stand. Thank you again.

Thanks for your comments. This posts I've done, and those to come, are retrospectives of the journey we've had to date. I'll get into more details in future posts, but will do quick responses to the above for now. @TheMitchells Yes, it is/was a complicated structure, and once I get to the end of the story, you'll see that the design has changed, due to both usability and complexity/cost. I do like trains too @ProDave Although we've changed both the external house design, and the internal floor layout, the function of each floor has pretty much remained (garage, gym, utility room in basement, living area, guest bedroom(s) in middle floor, bedroom/family room in top floor). We've not gotten to building control stage with that new design yet (a long story, both literally and metaphorically). We've got full planning approved with conditions and Stage 1 warrant nearing approval pending some final details from our structural engineer. The Stage 2 warrant design is in progress with our architect and he is confident that we have both accessibility and fire regulations (since we're over 3 floors) covered. But, we won't know for sure till it happens.. @Ferdinand The original house was architect designed, but it has changed. I'll get to how the design changed, both externally and internally, in later posts. We've addressed the family room/loo issue, but not sure about the muddy boots/basement one. I'm actually getting nervous about putting our final floor plans here, as I know I'll get great feedback and will be tempted to change things further...

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.

What railway line? I thought that was a big ladder!! The line is pretty much disused - it used to run the coal to Longannet Power station, which closed last year - there's an infrequent train to help with the decommissioning but that will stop once complete. There is also a local group trying to get Scotrail to open it up as a commuter line to connect West Fife to east Central Scotland, but by all accounts there's no economical viability. It's a risk we're willing to take. A stream train goes past every few months, which is quite nice.

Yes, we know the house. We are to the west of the Forth bridges, whereas they are on the other side - unfortunately, we don't have a view of the bridges due to the line of the coast. We actually contacted the owners of that house after the show was on and we got a guided tour of the house. They are a lovely couple and got an absolute bargain with their plot.

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.

Hi All, thanks for the additional warm welcomes: I've just posted my first blog post. Its really just another introduction, so pretty light on details, but I'll add more specifics in my next post

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.

Hi all, thanks for the kind welcomes. Stupid question, i can't see where I can create the blog. Is it restricted in some way?

Hello all, I’ve been reading the forum for a few weeks now and thought it was time to introduce myself, share our story and hopefully get some advice. I will contribute where I think I can add something, but we are inexperienced self-builders and there are so many experts on this hugely valuable site. This was meant to be a short introductory post, but has ended up anything but! The plot we own is 0.24 acres and sits on the north bank of the River Forth in Fife, Scotland, looking over the water to the Lothians. The plot came with full planning permission for a south facing 2.5 story contemporary house built into the sloping hill (3 stories at front, 2 stories at rear). The plot was one in the middle of 3 plots, with a 2 story build already taking place to the plot on the west (self-build with the owners project managing and sub-contracting), and the plot to the east was already sold and a local builder selected by the plot owner. We purchased the plot in the summer of 2015. I work full time and my wife cares for her mother, and with no previous self-build experience between us, the safe choice for us was to go down the main-contractor route (I'm not sure whether than qualifies us as self-builders). We decided to approach the builder who was (meant to be) soon starting the build on the house to our east, and, taking into account the shared mobilisation costs, he came up with a quote to build the planning approved house that fitted with our budget and expectations. It all sounded so easy… We first viewed the plot back in January 2015 but, other than lifting a few hundred tonnes of soil off the site, we’ve not yet broken ground. We’ve been through quite a journey, and the path forward is still not 100% clear. Our journey has involved: Buying the plot (against our solicitors recommendation) with a 3 foot high-pressured gas and oil pipeline running along its east boundary, which restricts development in a 3.5m strip of the plot due to a Wayleave agreement and the owner of which has to approve our foundation design (planning condition) Selling our home and moving into temporary accommodation for what was meant to be 6-8 months, but we are still living there 20 months later Realising our builders structural engineer solution to any issue was “more concrete and steel” resulting in the approved strip foundation design being 4 meters deep (and therefore very expensive) Appreciating the difference between an architect and a builder appointed technical drawer; the latter created the first draft warrant drawings based on the the approved plans, without recognising that having only 5 foot 3 headspace above an en-suite toilet is perhaps something you should be pointing out Finding an architect to replace the technical drawer and redesigning our house, taking into account the restrictions of the pipeline Dealing with planning and the seemingly subjective means by which they make decisions Realising that, despite giving them your budget, architects are wont to designing things that are expensive but by that time you’ve already convinced yourself that you need! Getting the dreaded call finding out that our builder had gone into voluntary liquidation, costing us our timber kit deposit which was not passed onto the timber kit company, despite us having confirmation that it was Not feeling so sorry for ourselves after finding out that our future had neighbour lost significantly more than us Having to find a new builder Spending too much time building a 3D model of our home and using that to annoy the architect by suggesting changes to his design Learning way more about house self-building than we ever intended to. I hear myself having conversations with builders now and think “I wouldn’t have understood a word of that just 12 months ago” Finding out that house building (or not house building in our case) is stressful, causes arguments at home and can test the best of relationships Realising that, despite all the problems, issues and stress, I’m still managing to extract some enjoyment from the process But, now wondering whether we should just move to another home and sit on the plot for a few years until we have a bit more time to invest in the build And I’m sure there’s more.. I’d quite like to do a series of posts covering the above. Some of that is for selfish reasons - I think documenting our experience would be quite cathartic - but it might also help others avoid some of the pitfalls we’ve made, and hopefully also be of interest as some of the challenges we have, whilst not unique, cannot be that common. What would be the best way to do that? I was going to split it up as multiple replies to this post, but that does not seem right. I see there is a blog section here, but I’m not sure if anyone can have a blog. Alternatively, I could host it over on Wordpress. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts, and thank you to the regulars here for providing such a educational, informative and entertaining forum.