Kelvin

It’s a beautiful looking house. Ours is on a sloping site too but it’s too rural for that kind of look so we’ve cut and filled the hill. It’s an ambitious overall cost/m2 as the others have suggested.

What we've said above is the right course of action. Few house sales are straightforward and they become ever more complex if you have private water supplies and/or treatment plants etc. It is stressful though as you don't know what you don't know until you need to know! When we sold our house in 2021 we ran headlong into a whole list of problems that we hadn't been aware of when we bought the new barn conversion from the builder 7 years previously. It nearly cost us the sale. However, through a combination of me being tenacious and some indemnity insurance we managed to get through the conveyancing process and complete the sale. The lenders are becoming increasingly stringent on all this stuff it seems. If your buyer is a cash buyer then it's often a bit easier. This won't make you feel better but there are many stories of problems caused by not knowing what you need to know until you need to know it. I was chatting to the digger driver the other day and told me of a nearby house being built that's run into a problem. The owner has spent £1.1 million so far and hasn't finished. It's only now he's started looking for water via a borehole. He hadn't worried about finding water because he's in Perthshire so drill a hole anywhere and you'll find water and there's an existing borehole 800m away servicing 8 houses. However, some 8 boreholes later and 7 different companies and they can't find water...

I don’t know how grey it is. The legislation states clearly enough that you can’t meet the GBR if you are within 30m of a public sewer at any part of the boundary. It also talks about connecting to the sewer if it’s ‘reasonable to do so’ and, if not, you need to apply for a permit. I guess your argument is that you upgraded an existing septic tank so it’s an existing discharge and there are some qualifying points for this but it also states that if those points apply to you AND you meet the GBR criteria you don’t need a permit. Therefore, based on what you’ve described, it seems to me that you do need to apply for a permit and you were misled by the installer either intentionally or through their ignorance. The problem with all of these kinds of situations is that there is no substitute for doing everything you can to understand the rules and how they apply to your situation before you do anything. While it might be reasonable to rely on the ‘experts’ ultimately the onus is on the homeowner. As above you could take our an insurance policy to indemnify the buyer against any future liability or claims. Be careful though as if you intend doing this you need to make sure that you are careful who you inform about the problem as you could nullify the indemnity or not be able to take one out i.e. if you contacted the council or the EA and they recorded that you had. I’d definitely look into the indemnity though if you have a keen buyer especially in the current housing market.

That is odd. I’d try another office or speak to someone else. Our house insurance, some equipment and the animals are through NFU and we added the plot of land to the overall policy (land owners insurance) They made it clear that as soon as we started groundworks it wasn’t covered and we’d need site insurance which they don’t do. We went with Protek which cost £1066 for 12 months.

@crooksey Yes this is how we did it. I organised a percolation test as part of the due diligence when buying the plot. This determined the ground suitability for a soakaway, the size and where to locate it. Then as part of the planning application we had a rough drainage design done. The SE did another detailed drainage design as part of the warrant application. Ours was complicated by the fact that only one area was really suitable for the soakaway, there are two boreholes nearby, and we have a running water course through the bottom of the plot. Fortunately the ideal soakaway location is perfectly cantered to meet all the distance regulations.

Inner square and outer square.

Yes light definitely centre of the tile. It will look wrong otherwise and annoy you to the point that 5 years from now we’ll be watching the news to see someone has gone absolutely postal in the supermarket screaming at the lights.

I had a bit of this with our timber kit - “we don’t do that”. I can understand it from their PoV in that they want to do what they’ve done before because it’s easier for them. But it’s your house and your money so insist. They might well want to charge you more though.

Other than convenience in that the kit erection is to watertight. I had the same quandary. The kit company had on costs for the roofing material and fitting so it didn’t make sense to me.

Have you actually spoken to building control though and asked them?

See here. The bit of relevance to you is near the bottom where it talks about how legislation has not caught up with modern package treatment plant performance but that building control etc will often take a pragmatic approach. If a drainage field must always be installed with a treatment plant then the vast majority of plots wouldn’t have the space for one. Obviously your requirement is larger than average at 12PE. If this is because of the holiday let side of things then the composting toilet suggestion seems like a reasonable approach. https://www.homeseptic.co.uk/drainage-field-size-calculation-and-design/

Sure but why can’t you install a sewerage treatment plant? Our soakaway is 18m2

The ASHP installer said to make it up myself but I wasn’t organised enough and groundswork guys wanted it on-site this week. They’ve caught me out a bit on how fast their going!

Just to close this off. The ASHP installer recommended this company to source the insulated dual pipe. Much cheaper than the alternatives at £500 ex VAT for 12m with dust caps and fittings. They deliver UK wide but sort of on my door step so went and collected it. https://www.flexenergy.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Heat-Pump-Pipe-Kit-10_1_22-_WEB.pdf

🧖‍♂️ ☕️ is no doubt right but for the sake of a few weeks and a bit of hassle just follow their guidelines.

Ask the supplier. I’d be taking home to your tiny flat to be on the safe side. https://www.bambooflooringcompany.com/bamboo-flooring-blog/how-to-store-bamboo-flooring-before-installation/

The deeper wall reveal looks nicer to me which hides the projector. Any concerns about the projector getting too warm though? Like the detailed drawings certainly compared to ours

It’s been all over various news channels for several days.

My SE drawings have several errors like this where the text doesn’t match the drawing.

Oh and congrats on getting planning. Second big step after securing the land. Warrant next.

JML SIPs is another option based up North. I disregarded a SIP build for many of the reasons quoted above. Instead we are building a deep twin stud as described above. It’s not cheap though! However, if I was doing it again I’d have gone MBC passiv install.

I’ve budgeted £18k! Should get quotes back this week. Plumbing was £12k.

Re-read! Soz. So they can roost within the current building which you’re removing so you need to provide a method of roosting?

Yes well get more quotes. 😂 Quotes for stuff are all over the place. 64m2 of Alwitra roofing membrane fitted. First quote £14,000! The second quote is £5000 which I still thought was a bit dear but that’s what I’m going with.

How expensive was it?