Gus Potter

Agree, you might open a can of worms.

Yes there are some parameters that you breach at your peril. Daylight and over shadowing of neighbours are one, traffic visibility splays another for example. Folk often bend the permissions a bit.. but it's a risky business! If you do deviate from the plans then you should ask yourself, how confident am I that if I get pulled up I can get an amendment to planning? If I come to sell and a surveyor spots this are they going to write your house value down? If the house goes on fire for example could the insurers use a non compliance to angle towards refusing a claim? It's best to check these things so you can make an informed judgement.

Lovely looking house and a great job, well done!

Good observations, none of which I disagree with generally. Your house is often the most valuable asset so take time to read the fine print when the detailed insurance terms and conditions come through. I had one Claim where there was a bit of initial push back, gathering of information and a bit of SE by me reporting on a house on the south coast of England. The gable end of the house was next to the public pavement, lots of prams being pushed and pedestrians walking by, major HSE risk that they clocked once pointed out to them. The thing was so badly built and so expensive and difficult to fix that the warranty provider settled, from memory in about four months after I got involved. The warranty provider bought the house back, paid all costs; professional fees, legal fees, a bit extra for finding another house, removers cost and some ancillary stuff. Some claims can be pretty straight forward and get dealt with relatively quickly. It's not always that bad in terms of reaching a resolution. Some providers are using Claims handling companies.. the clue is in the name.. just how do they make their money? Obviously by making the Claims process as easy as possible and being helpful by not indulging in; gate keeping for example, offer up suggestions to the house holder at what is a stressful time for them .. or some may suggest not?

Hamilton Leonard Insurance Brokers, just changed their name to Roxburgh. Ask for Allan Burns, always helpful. 53 Moss St, Paisley PA1 1DR Phone: 0141 226 5161 Website: https://roxburghinsurance.co.uk/

Absolutely none. In simplistic terms I design it as the SE, take that liability on, check with my insurer in case they want to add a bit of an uplift to be compatible with the warranty providers reasonable terms. The warranty provider runs my design by their Engineers. They analyse the risk, add in a bit of a hassle factor for them and make their premium offer. You can pretty much insure anything. It often called gambling, it's just on houses rather than the horses.

From memory the regs for an ensuite are less strict, the door is the obvious weak point. My normal minimum spec for an ensuite wall is plasterboard each side with a minimum density of 10kg/ sq m (see Gyproc Wall 10) on a minimum of a 70mm deep wall stud. Then 50mm of Rockwool RW45 acoustic insulation. If you can stretch to a deeper stud then all the better. Depends on you ceiling height as there is a bit of structural design creeping in here as you don't want the wall too slender so the whole wall vibrates as a unit. . You need an air gap between the Rockwool and the plaster board as the air gap filters some bands of the sound frequency. If you pack the wall tight with insulation it has a detrimental effect. If you want to keep your guests happy then fit a good solid door, a good lock that gives them confidence, a good fan and a nice handle on the door! The regs between rooms are often different.

Try a broker that is Scottish based, we have lots and lots of timber clad houses. It's worth a call just to get a bit of advice.

Very much agree here. Most self builds are unique, start with a basic design that has a fighting chance of working and then adapt for specific design.. that is the fun part. They are indeed. I've done some adjacent to mine shafts with highly contaminated land, one on really soft sand on an airfield up near Nairn in Scotland, one daft one next to a canal in the Norfolk Broads, they really are bespoke animals. Down Norfolk way I did one where we basically "floated" a single storey building on the peat. This leans towards folk doing straw bale or oak frames with wattle and daub as it really maintains the design and environmental ethos. This takes a leap of faith and careful design of the drainage and service connections to a building that can rise and fall quite a bit. The building itself needs to be pretty flexible. The movement can be huge! But these are worth a shot when the piling option may be expensive. Piles in deep peat also need to be designed for bending as the wind pushing on the side of the house needs to be transferred to the competent soil deep down. I don't think it's conservative per say, we know the mechanical properties of their insulation. Things can start to go wrong it there is a late design change, poor design coordination between the different work packages or unexpected ground conditions, or most common a setting out error. That is why I want to understand the Client's capability, how much hands on control they have. Using PIR insulation sheets and fitting them together on site allows for flexibility as you go, maybe you need to pay for a bit more labour but at times the risk / economics stack up. Some Clients want fast and quick and are happy to take the risk that something minor can throw a spanner in the works. They rely on the Contractor to sort it out.. but then a dispute can arise.

Thanks for your comment, much appreciated. Yes, we need to be cautious here. One thing I don't want to do is level false accusation, or identify any specific claim. As I've got a bit of experience with this stuff it's not always the case that the Client has covered themselves in glory. Sometimes they have inadvertently cut corners (just made a genuine mistake), not followed the design drawings, or just don't disclose to me the full facts. While I decidedly don't like the approach some of the warranty providers adopt (deny, delay defend) you need to get to the bottom of how the Claim comes about and the prior communication between the parties. Only then can you see what you have to work with, worts and all. This is a summary I generally agree with. Now faced with this often the home owner does not often know where to turn to. More potential expense. Some warranty providers sub contract out the site inspections and the inspector has to hold a certain amount PI insurance cover. The warranty providers shed as much liability as possible onto the inspectors and their (the inspector's) insurer's know this. This may be prompting the request for additional reporting.. driven by the inspector. You need to ask if the inspector is covered / employed directly by the warranty provider or if the are sub contracted for example. As a word of encouragement I have come upon this kind of thing before. It often takes few frank phone calls to sort it out and the actual reason given for asking for additional reporting.

Now you need the will to live these days. I don't do this regularly (primarily as an SE) but for one reason or another I end up representing Clients that are making a claim on their warranty. I've done this for the last 15 years or so. I spent some 20 years as a building Contractor before that, cutting my teeth and learning how devious folk can be at times. In some ways I'm a poacher come game keeper. It's not part of my core business, I do it as it's good for my soul and I don't like to see domestic Clients getting taken advantage of. That said, over the last 15 years I've recovered on behalf of Clients a few million quid. The amount of money is less important, for me it's about justice and holding folk to account. What I've noticed in the last few years is that some of the warranty providers are more and more sub contracting out to Claims handling services. 25 years ago lots of the warranty providers withdrew from the market. At one point there was the NHBC and Zurich pretty much. Now we have lots of new entrants.. and it seems to me that there is a bit of a race to the bottom. The terms and conditions are a bit of a minefield for the unwary. There is a common case where they initially come over all friendly but then tell the Client they need to employ an SE like me at their own expense to provide a report. This happens even if the Client has provided photographs that clearly show there is a problem. It has come to my attention that they (Claims handling services) are ramping up the; deny, defend and delay tactics.. always been the case but recently I've noticed that they are cherry picking part of my SE reports and trying to fob the Client off. Even to the extent that they will quote part of a paragraph of my report.. which totally changes the context. Often young folk just can't afford this so they throw in the towel. It's a disgrace. Now this may be a genuine lack of understanding .. or a deliberate intent to defraud the Client. I'm happy for them to dig themselves a hole as often when doing a warranty Claim I'll turn it into an HSE (safety) issue. This makes folk personally liable and risks the HSE getting involved.. a big black mark if you are a warranty provider. My question is. Are folk finding Claims handling services helpful or not when you think you have a case for making a Claim.

Now is the time to really look after the materials you are using to build. In this weather if you press ahead you may be making a rod for your own back later.

All good points. Burying any gas pipe in an inaccessible position is fraught with danger. You need to consult a Gas Engineer. Now with much more air tight houses and the potential for negative air pressure we need to be extra careful.

As you say it kind of looks like the house has been previously altered. Would need more info to comment further as an SE / try and put a ball park cost on this.

To add a bit to this. it's not just your confidence it's mine also. I need to be confident we have a good, buildable and well thought out design. If not things will go wrong on site, or later latent defects will materialise in the design and that reflects badly on my business.