Kelvin

I spoke with a local building site and he said they often give it away but that site doesn’t finish until next year so no good. They’ll be worth more than half what I paid by the time we’re done so hiring doesn’t make sense. What I noticed when looking on eBay and FB marketplace is there are very few places in Scotland that sell them second hand and loads in England, especially the mid to north. Contacted all of them and they just come across dodgy af. Had I lived closer I’d have dropped by to have a look but a few were cagey about the address. Stolen to order maybe! I figured there’s a business in Scotland buying and selling good second hand fencing for a reasonable delivery fee judging by hard it’s been to source it.

My deal above fell through so have been hunting for more. It’s like hen’s teeth and the eBay sellers are hard work. Due to the length of it it’s not an easy fit on my trailer. Resolved to buy new which costs a fortune or take a chance on the dodgy eBay sellers and hiring a van to go and collect. However I tried GAP figuring they hire km of the stuff so must have seconds for sale. Sure enough they do so got 40 panels in good condition with feet and clips for £25 a panel inc VAT and only £30 to deliver it. Our panels will be up for a while and 40 can do our full roadside boundary as I’ve only got a few up just now. Worth trying if you’re struggling to get some.

My ultimate goal is to be close to off grid. That way I don’t need to deal with these feckers too much. We are for water and foul water. Electricity is harder of course.

Agreed @ProDave Octopus genuinely seem to be trying to change the market. I wouldn’t switch to anyone else. I hope they force the others to change but I doubt they will change.

Indefinitely I believe. Pre-digitalisation they’ll have physical copies archived. Some councils will allow you to request access which they can scan and make available to you.

Don’t rush it is great advice. We did or I did and there are things we would have done differently as a consequence.

I can’t agree more with @Thorfun While you should have a look at what has achieved planning near you, don’t just copy the neighbour. You can evoke whatever the style is to improve your chances or try for something very different as councils aren’t averse to this. Possibly a bit rich coming from someone who has taken a standard design and modified it a bit which is basically two rectangles with different roofs. However there’s nothing else like it anywhere nearby. His second point is the most important as I also know someone that got into a real financial hole doing exactly what you’re suggesting. He lost his plot and very nearly lost his house at one point. Clearly we don’t know your financial position and you sound like you are doing all the right research. We could have built and stayed in our previous house without bridging loans then sold up and moved into the new house. However I’m too risk averse to do that and, as it turned out, we would have got about £80k less for our house I reckon had we waited. Our old neighbour can’t sell their somewhat similar house at all in 6 months whereas we sold ours in a few weeks a year ago.

We’ve amended (by quite a bit) the 702PD by widening the porch bit by 1m and then extending it 16m across the width of the house (which is 17m) We also doubled the size of the dormer to get a shower and bath in. We’ve turned the upstairs into a master bedroom suite with bedroom on one side and an open plan dressing/sitting area rather than two bedrooms. Downstairs we made the lobby wider by stealing some space from the plant room and utility room. We also removed the kitchen worktop and cupboards along the back wall and changed the design of it slightly. I’ll send you the floor plans to a pm.

Dear. Mine cost £120.

Who is likely to switch it off? But yes every house I’ve bought with a professionally fitted alarm it was wired in rather than plugged in to a socket.

Really interesting stuff. My groundswork guy explained some of this to me when doing our foundation. Especially the bit about digging out the drainage under the slab and backfilling to the same consistency as the surrounding ground. He also wondered about the parallel two thickening layers in our slab that support the stairs. The SE design had deeper parallel Vs that then were filled with more concrete than the surrounding slab. He was more used to seeing blockwork doing the same job.

Pallets

Told the farmer that owns the field beside it and he’ll send a digger up to pull it back up. Still waiting on Scotloo calling me back about it.

I would still stand firm with the supplier. You just need to be cool and reasonable but firm. You said you aren’t that type of person. Few of us are so practice the conversation beforehand. Write down all your points and speak them out loud to your other half or into the mirror. Include what’s the minimum outcome that’s acceptable to you. Write down their counter arguments and what your challenges to those are. Rehearse the conversation. Don’t do it over email. Do it face to face ideally or over the phone if no other choice. Think of some ‘super’ questions to ask them e.g. i tend to ask if this was your xxxx would you accept it? Some folk might say yes to this but few do because you’ve made them put themselves into your position. If they do say yes think of an equivalency such as they’ve got a new car and it’s scratched or the panel fit is poor, would they accept it or ask for it to be made good. Use email to summarise your complaint, the conversation you’ve had and your expected outcome & when this will happen by. While section 75 is good the banks don’t fall over themselves to cough up. The supplier will try and argue you’ve accepted the windows so they need to know you haven’t.

@ToughButterCup couldn’t agree more. I followed the advice from @saveasteading so no skip. We don’t really have the room anyway. I’ve done one tip run so far as the garage had a lot of waste with it. Plus it seemed to come with extra everything which I’ve kept. Every night I’ve been tidying up, re-stacking stuff, picking up nails and screws, putting tools away in the garage, re-stocking tea bags/coffee/biscuits/water, cleaning up the rest area etc and writing up my notes on work done, still to do, problems and subsequent actions and then take a bunch of pictures and video before locking up.

We’re both perfectly chilled (well I am) Just sharing experience. 😉

My FiL (sadly departed) was an architect and working up until his 80s. He drew everything by hand and for the nicer builds did a watercolour painting of the build as he was a very good artist too. Most of his customers were ancient too.

Great point. I asked for these too. Normally they don’t provide them but they have been invaluable not least for the accuracy of our foundation and the wells for the steels but also for accurate measuring using the free CAD software you’re probably using too.

Yes but check the terms it is possible to extend the quote. SSE let me extend the quote another 3 months as I wasn’t quite ready.

Then there’s all the idiotic stuff that happens. Today the impatient Scotloo guy couldn’t wait for a van to move so drove onto the soft verge and collapsed it into the culvert. I’ve already complained about the speed he enters the site at.

Yep. My neighbour signed the easement for our leccy which just cost me a bunch of flowers. She then died a few weeks later!

Some folk are funny about water and easements in general. I’d do everything to try and get the connection made beforehand. Ultimately though you’re going to need a purchaser that will agree to the easement. Not sure why the bank of the buyer would have an issue. I can see your bank (if borrowing) possibly having an issue.

The should zero rate it. Ours was.

No it was all on my land and 2m on my neighbours. I did it all myself.

It’s not just the digging. Traffic control, safety stuff, maybe closing the road, re-instatement etc