Thedreamer

Having the trees around the site will really help the house to settle into it's surrounding landscape. Up here vegetation is quite barren and often new builds can look like they have fallen from the sky. I remember when we had a green roof and tin foil look in July 2018. ?

Usually wind and watertight is the next big stage after foundations. We aimed for that when we were building and taking the first drawdown. We had our roof slated but I believe some even consider a roof membrane as being sufficient. But having the windows and a doors is definitely needed for that stage. Why not use the funds to get those installed and then request the second valuation. It might even be worth contacting the valuer to ask how that would impact their valuation, a quick five minute call might help.

You won't be able to take any meaningful research from this and the other connection costs posts. It's all dependent on the site and with all utility connections best to assume nothing until the quote has been provided. For our site we had a electricity pole on our field but it couldn't support another household so had to go back to the transformer.

Yes a bit of joke as if you were self employed and showed net profit of £70-80k for a few years you would have been fine. Banks and building societies should view zero hours contracts as being comparable with sole trader/partnership income.

It's quite common up here for a house site to be decrofted from agricultural land and given to a family member. My thinking is that they would feel it could become difficult if the house was repossessed and it had an joint access with somebody else living in an ex family members house. Land is land, but a random site purchased has a different emotional value to family land.

There is not much choice in Scotland. As @Conor says Ecology is one a few members have used. You get a lower interest rate depending on your SAP rating. I went with the Scottish Building Society I like this one because I could use a RCIS surveyor to provide certificate and I didn't need an architect or structural warranty. I feel the fees are reasonable. Other choice buildstore, although they are brokers. Lots of fees but might be easier to get as your broker will do some of the work. Finally you got the revolving credit fund via Scottish Government, looked at this but put off by the 9% overdue interest. You also need to have a mortgage promise which also put me off. As far as I am aware that is it. I had to provide an letter from my employer confirming my contractual salary.

There are not loads of lenders in Scotland. Might be helpful if you say who are planning to go with? I had regular overtime from working a hour later for three years and my lender wouldn't take this into consideration. My employer was understanding and agreed to change my base salary to incorporate this extra hour. The amount they were prepared to offer was a lot less than the expected calculation on the lenders website.

Not heard of that. When reviewing our plans I had a few items (fixing and materials) that were difficult to find.

Yes and no. A small fee might be chargeable if you have any queries or questions over the plans during the course of the build. There also might be times when they need to provide more information to trades during the build. Finally depending on how confident you are, submissions will need to be made via building standard portal during the build process. I did my own commencement and request for temporary habitation. I agree with @Dreadnaught regarding the plans.

Hi @Tammie Do you have photos during the construction of house? I've just moved into our self build timber frame house. Our flooring is carpet, the thickest underlay the supplier had and 22mm chipboard.

I noticed that on the last blog entry, I hope the admins can change it back. Sometimes I have typos which I spot later.

That @ProDave Yes it certainty is. I've learned so much on the way. On the electricity usage, that 9-10 kwh includes our mini heat pump on the 260ltr cylinder. I've set this to do four hours in the morning and four in the evening. I don't have underfloor heating and no traditional radiators so I expect this will be fairly cheap electricity for about half the year and then higher electric bills in the winter. Having access to the firewood will hopefully allow the stove to be really utilised rather than being an expensive ornament.

Thanks I hope so. This is a build of necessity to provide a home for my family where prices are too high to buy on the open market. Yes loving the two bathrooms, just nice to have a shower in the morning and not have somebody bashing at the door.

There was not much in the way of progress from the last entry as we were already close to moving in. The plumbing was completed in the last entry and connecting some final electrical fittings was done soon after. After a decade since putting in outline planning it was time. Our furniture delivery has taken longer than anticipated and we are living with a bean bag for the living room seating and a mattress on the floor for our bed. But we are here. The first few days were spend getting used to living in a new space. As a family four we had spent the last six years living in a relatively small space, it is now great to have a room for each of our children and an extra bathroom. I am pleased with how the house is performing from an energy use point of view. We don’t typically get really high temperatures here and the external average temperature has been about 12c over the last few weeks, the house temperature has remained a comfortable 20c. I have been monitoring our electricity units on a daily basis and we are using between 9 to 10kw which is promising as my hope is that we can go six months or so in the year without heating. The real test will come in the winter as the electricity usage will probably be double, but we plan to make good use of our centrally placed wood burning stove. Once we are furnished, I’ll post some more photos. For the moment just enjoying the new house with the family. The next jobs are: - Ordering decking for a small decked area and for our access ramp - Spreading gravel around the house site - Gardening - Putting more material on the access road - Order some down pipes Thanks for reading.

Going for a treatment tank with an air blower seems to be more one area where pretty much all members agree on here. If you are installing a soakaway yourself and have access to a digger and the correct stone prehaps it would be cheaper. Our tricel tank is operational and although we had some problems with damage on transit (three tanks have come on site!) pleased with how it is now functioning.

So interesting that no concrete is on site. Are the bales from fields fairly close to the site?

I'm struggling to see this idea taking off.

Hi, we had those black spots on our Siberian larch. When the timber starts to sliver it's less visible. On ours it was more prevalent on the sides that get less sunlight. Our timber didn't have the bark on it so not sure on that mould, but as it's open to the air it it won't be rot or cause for concern. The cladding needs some time to settle to it's new surrounding as it's a natural product. If you are planning to treat it I would leave it for a bit before putting on a something like osmo. Thanks

Our was with SHEPD/SSE and wanted a temporary supply. We built a box Trench dug, ducting laid and draw cord Cable pulled through ducting Then connected and SHEPD left a cut out Meter was installed when we could have an appointment Electrician installed a couple of sockets and little consumer unit. Power ready for trades Hardest bit was the paper aspect, wayleaves and negotiating the connection fee.

@Sunnyside Probably worth updating location on profile, mortgage availability varies greatly across the UK.

Tiny house are great if you want that lifestyle. The government should just build more qood quality affordable homes. In our community it was announced on Friday that after 21 years they were building six new affordable starter homes. Would have been great to have one of those ten years ago.

If you are going for a fairly standard build, do you typically test at the end? We were supposed to have an air test before locked down but it got put off and we are now pretty much completed inside.

I usually review the financial statements with caution as the figures are going to be historic. I'm more interested in other filed documents at Companies House such as: has a recent security been granted, overdue accounts, changes in ownership/management and winding up notices.

If I was committing a bit of money, I would be doing a companies house search. https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/

Further to the above, our solicitor also had to receive our first drawdown don't know if that is standard practise or a quirk of the building society.