Kelvin

You said in the op that one of the options is to discharge into a waterway. Is this just the EA saying you can (generally after exploring all other options) or there is a waterway/ditch nearby you could discharge to?

Yes but it still isn’t compliant which is the issue for the buyers.

Sheesh. I really feel for you. I know how stressed I got when we were selling our last place. It started off really straightforwardly as we got a buyer for way over asking within a week. The conveyancing was going really smoothly to begin with. We had our offer accepted on a plot of land and had found a rental place after 5 months of getting nowhere. Everything was finally lined up perfectly. Then our sale fell through or rather our buyers sale on her house fell through twice) Then a whole load of stuff was uncovered about our house. Then the mgt company for the 8 barns got really difficult resulting in an argument on the doorstep of the guy that did the accounts. At one point we had a house we couldn’t sell. A rental we couldn’t move to. A plot of land we couldn’t start to get planning permission for. A war looming in Europe set to turn everything upside down. Plus I’d quit a highly paid job to take on the self-build. It was a perfect storm of all the risks I’d written down 7 months earlier. We got through all of that eventually. I’m telling you all of this because things tend to have a way of working themselves out. You just need to find a path through it all.

Reference being cutoff. When you bought the house this drainage access etc would have come up, what do the legals say on all of this? For example the driveway at our last place was owned by the estate (was part of a manor house) but the 8 barns had legal right of access/enjoyment etc. We were all jointly responsible for the upkeep so paid a monthly mgt fee to a service mgt company the home owners setup. We had a covenant in place that everyone had to sign when a barn was bought/sold. Do you have any idea about why the land owner is being so difficult other than some folk just are? Is there some angle they are playing? They are holding you to ransom it seems so they must have a reason for this. Generally it’s money!

I had similar query on this thread. Some useful info in case you hadn’t seen it.

We had a similarish issue with a previous house sale and as @ProDave suggests we used the ubiquitous insurance indemnity to deal with it. The problem with these is once you start formalising the problem, which it sounds like you have, then you can’t take out the indemnity. It’s better that’s it’s resolved properly of course. If the landowner won’t budge then it might be worth talking to them to advise that your hand is being forced to report a breach of discharge to the EA because you and your neighbours potentially have unsellable houses. You could also maybe speak with a solicitor to get some advice. Your home insurance policy should have legal cover if you elected to include it. It was this kind of situation that made us resolve to never buy another house with a shared anything or having something we rely upon on someone else’s land. Let us know the outcome. Good luck!

Have you spoken with the owners of the other properties? This impacts them as much as you if they are considering selling in the future as they have potentially unsellable houses. It is a bit of a catch 22. If they insist on hearing it from the EA then they’re inviting the EA to find you all in breach. Do you have a quote for the cost of the works?

Quite right too. Don’t stop asking. It’s your house and money. Sometimes it takes three attempts at asking why to get the answer.

And my SE report had several errors on it. Blindly following what you’re told whether it’s the medical profession or the building profession is a folly in my opinion. The very best professionals should be happy to explain what/why/where/when/how. You’ve already questioned why render over lathe has been specified for my block wall for example.

I saved my mum from being given the wrong combination of drugs due to terrible hand writing and the general confusion between departments in hospitals.

The document is written in terrible hand writing. At some point someone needs to read this and turn it into material and installation for the build. If you’re paying a professional the presented work should be clear and easy to read.

Your SE report is hand written?

In our case the PiP said much the same about a house in the local style 1.5 storey. Draw a big circle around the plot and find every house in the area. Take pics of all the different styles. Then go onto the planning portal and search for every new dwelling approval going back a couple of years.

It’s a standard line so don’t sweat that too much. Have they actually said the house style you’re interested in won’t be permitted? I assume not.

There’s another Aberdeen based kit company I quite liked. Will dig out their name from my notes.

Hello and welcome. Perthshire here. JML SIPs has a good reputation who I think are up your way. Can you hear the turbines? We have 3 turbines 1.75km north of us and surprisingly very occasionally can hear them. It needs to be windy enough to get them spinning but still enough to hear it.

Quite. Our weather tight cost including 3G windows, insulation, external and internal membranes, kit build, delivery and machine hire is £755/m2 and that’s quite dear.

As above will be specified in your SE drawings. Our foundation block needed to have a minimum compression strength of 7N/mm2 and a minimum density of 750kg/mm3 so we chose the Mannok Aircrete 7. (7.5N and 760kg/mm3 )

Preferable to wheelbarrows. That’s a lot of cement to wheel.

Given the weight difference they must have different compressive strengths. What has been specified? We used Mannok Aircrete 7 300mm trench blocks largely because it was all I could get delivered to Scotland. They weigh 22kgs though. We used the digger bucket to transport the concrete from lorry to trench. We have reasonable access hardcore all the way in and around the site though and the digger has a lot of reach.

You say that but as I said I know people who have successfully claimed on them. If you don’t need the warranty for a mortgage or you don’t think you’ll sell within 10 years and you are confident in every stage of the build you can choose not bother.

In my case I felt £1000 for peace of mind relative to the overall cost of the build was inconsequential regardless of what insurance the contractors had.

Summary of the summary of the summary. Poorly designed houses perform poorly. It’s all too complicated for most folk. None of the houses were particularly airtight either.

Ours is with Protek and just under £1000 for 12 months. Similar level of cover as above.

Impressive level of research. What’s still unclear to me is how do you achieve passive standards of airtightness and in a free running ventilated house ? As @ProDave already pointed out in Scotland anything under 3.0 ACH requires some kind of mechanical ventilation albeit as @JohnMomentioned it doesn’t need to be MVHR it’s just that there aren’t many alternatives. As @SteamyTeaasked what was your airtightness result if measured?