ProDave

I think the site, a building plot in that area is valued at about £50K as there are several within a few miles on the market at around £50K right now. So it becomes is the building in that state, with all the planning issues worth £100K. If you could be sure you could keep it and adapt it to satisfy planning, and then satisfy building control then it might just be. But my guess is (without looking it up and reading the PIP) it will have the usual Highland clauses about being traditional design, 1 or 1 1/2 storey etc so it would be an uphill battle to get that design through planning. Then your next battle would be building control expecting them to approve a building that probably has no proper foundations (certainly none that they have witnessed at excavation stage) and a structure that they have not seen with the structure exposed. So I expect the only way to get a legal building there is dismantle it and start again. So is there £100K worth of re usable materials there if you dismantle it and start again? It is all so stupid and avoidable if you had followed the procedure.

Who is this Eve Wilder? you speak as if she is a well known rich person. I have clearly led a sheltered life, I have never heard of her.

I used the intello for the complicated bits like the Tony Trays, where it's chief benefit seemed to be the woven mesh embeded in it made it very tough indeed, but it was expensive, so for the "simple" stuff just plain walls and roof, I used the very much cheaper Protect Barriair.

Most go back after encountering the midges. One season is enough for those soft southerners. Re rainfall. What i like here is it rarely rains for long. I still have memories of Oxfordshire winters when the rain was lashing against the windows and it didn't stop for days on end. My BIL was surprised how much it rained when he moved to Wales. He should have asked me first, I have many memories of soggy camping holidays.

Isn't that the cost of building it? then add on the cost of running it, fuelling it, decommissioning it........

This is definitely a reason to fit PV but I am not sure it is a reason to fit more PV to an existing install. What I am seeing is the cost of electricity Vs the cost of Kerosene, is making a diesel generator set up as a CHP unit is starting to look attractive.

Several of us only have heating downstairs. The one and only time so far the house got too hot one summer, I coerced the ASHP into cooling mode and it chilled the floor downstairs, but that did nothing to cool the bedrooms upstairs that were the rooms that were really too hot. That is where I am considering adding an FCU in the 2 main bedrooms that will do cooling when needed and could also do heating if we found we needed it. So far the cost and work involved has not yet been justified by the very few times we would actually use them.

I might be forraging for more firewood to use the stove more than i do presently.

An interesting parallel to this one, is near us someone bought a plot with PIP a few years ago. so far he has done nothing with it, other than erect a Yurt, and has been living in that for a few years now. I have not heard of any enforcement action about that site.

Yes, round these parts you should be able to get a good plot for about £50K, that is what we paid for ours. There are of course plots, particularly closer to Inverness, with higher asking prices. But move half an hour outside the city and you get good prices.

If you are looking for a plot in that area, this one caught my eye https://www.hspc.co.uk/Building-Site-For-Sale-Plot-and-Croft-3-Easter-Kilmchalmag-Ardgay-IV24-3DP 28 acre owner occupied croft with PIP for house all for £49K

The SAP report should show what your house has been designed to, which hopefully will be a lot better than the bare minimum. I would want to be talking to your architect to re design the building to improve those values you have at the moment.

From the estate agents particulars: "Building project for sale. Due to unforeseen circumstances the current owner has been forced to pass on this unique opportunity to build a home set in approximately 0.8 acres, in a sheltered plot close to Loch Migdale. The plot is surrounded by mature woodland in a picturesque location. It comes with planning in principle (19/00212/pip), however full planning permission and building warrants are required and the existing wooden structure will need to either be altered or removed. This offers an exciting opportunity for someone looking to build a new home in one of the most picturesque parts of Scotland and we are delighted to have been asked to bring this opportunity to the market." "General Information: Services: Mains Water & Electric are available but not connected. No septic tank has been installed " So I was right in my assumption that it would get planning. Just what was the owner thinking? It had planning in principle. All he had to do was apply for full planning with the final house design, and then a building warrant. but instead he just built this wooden building with no planning or building warrant, and has not connected it to any services. The owner knows how to waste money. No way is it worth £150K as a plot. It might be worth that if you could keep and complete the existing building. But it seems the wrong building for the plot. I have not read the PIP and any restrictions it has, but I am pretty sure you could have built a normal size 2 or 3 bedroom house.

The crazy thing is, this is in an area with very low density scattered housing, and there is a fair chance it would have actually got PP had he applied for it. but I guess now it has been built without, it's removal has to be enforced so as not to set a precedent. I also guess by building it on timber bearers he thought it might be classed as a portable building, but that does not avoid PP, just building control, but as a 2 storey house it would fail that as well. Someone has wasted an awful lot of money, either through ignorance, or arrogance?

I know that one. I drove past it in late summer on my way to do another job up that way. But I didn't know it had been built without PP. There is another one brewing up close to that. Opposite the house I was working on (finishing an extension that is now signed off as complete) someone has set up what can best be described as a "shanty town" in a paddock, where he has sited a static caravan that he is living in, together with a collection of sheds, workshops and other buildings. So I expect that one to be subject to enforcement action soon, but I guess being told to remove a collection of tatty sheds and caravans won't make the front page of the DM. Loch Migdale is a lovely place to go for a walk.

That's a bugger. Do let us know what an MCS registered company charges to change it. At least it has failed during the poorest quarter so the loss in FIT is relatively small. My guess is they will just replace the meter where it is without rewiring it.

My experience is they will be happy to check it, and even if it turns out not to be at fault they won't charge you. It might be that what you are seeing is just a conduit that is containing the cable and the cable inside is fine and it is just cosmetic, but you really want that diagnosis from the DNO

Report it to your DNO as a DANGEROUS condition. Important you use that word to get their attention. And don't touch it or poke it while you wait for them to attend. Their cable, their responsibility to fix it, but expect part of your garden to need digging up to feed a new cable in.

The obvious suggestion has to be open the extract vent terminals a bit more. You won't know anything for sure until you get it balances with an anemometer.

There looks to be a (probably plastic) terminal enclosure on the side of the compressor. If you can get the lid off that and take a photo of what you see inside that might help.

My "add an earth rod to your PME" was intended to apply to a situation where you are allowed to use PME. e.g. the sub main that feeds our house is PME and I have an additional earth rod at the house reinforcing the PME earth.

But in a house with mvhr you do NOT connect a cooker hood to the mvhr ducts, that would indeed be bad. You set up the cooker hood to recirculate with a filter.

PME is Protective Multiple Earthing. There is nothing wrong with adding to that with a local earth rod. I have once encountered a house where the Outer PNE conductor of the concentric feed cable had failed and the N / E of the whole house was floating somewhere close to L potential. It was really weird as you didn't get a shock touching e.g. the radiators or kitchen sink. This is of course the reason for not connecting PME to a caravan as standing on the ground next to it and touching the metal skin would be very bad indeed.

Another with a recirculating hood and mvhr. We did use the kitchen for about a year before we installed the hood, it did not seem to cause a problem, but it just looked wrong without it.

That test would enable you to determine the power of this heating element. If it is low, it might be possible to just buy an isolating transformer to power it as a permanent fix.