Appleco Posted November 15, 2016 Share Posted November 15, 2016 I have just had a quote from SSE for a single new house connection of over £12,000. Just wondering if anyone has had any success in reducing these costs significantly by outsourcing the non-contestable works to a ICP or IDNO? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterW Posted November 15, 2016 Share Posted November 15, 2016 Hi and welcome. It depends on complexity of connection - how far, how deep, transformers needed etc ..?? Do you have any info on what was requested ..? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JIH Posted November 15, 2016 Share Posted November 15, 2016 None what so ever! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Appleco Posted November 15, 2016 Author Share Posted November 15, 2016 (edited) 41 minutes ago, PeterW said: Hi and welcome. It depends on complexity of connection - how far, how deep, transformers needed etc ..?? Do you have any info on what was requested ..? This is all they have provided me with at this point - I have asked for more detail. Connections: 1 Domestic Lay approximately 85m of LV cable. The proposal is to lay approx. 70m of new mains cable along 3rd party land, across road and into customers boundary and pot end. From pot end lay approx. 15m of single phase service cable terminating at 100amp cut out at internal meter position. Install 1 substation SSEN will upgrade the existing transformer to accommodate your load request. Edited November 15, 2016 by Appleco Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterW Posted November 15, 2016 Share Posted November 15, 2016 That's not bad value to be honest with a road opening, substation and transformer upgrade. Any other services share the road crossing costs..?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Declan52 Posted November 15, 2016 Share Posted November 15, 2016 (edited) Get in contact with SSE again and ask for a breakdown in the costs and from there you will get a better idea of the savings that could be made. It's the road crossing that you will make any savings on. What type of road is it, as in is it a country lane or a dual carriageway?? Edited November 15, 2016 by Declan52 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frogeye Posted November 15, 2016 Share Posted November 15, 2016 Have you told them you'll be having a heat pump? They seem to want to charge you for a transformer upgrade whenever you mention one! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted November 15, 2016 Share Posted November 15, 2016 Virtually all that trenching and the road crossing should be contestable work. The road crossing has to be dione by an approved contractor or they may even be able to mole under the road. As above, are there any services that need to cross that road? get ducts in at the same time for all of them so you only have to have the road up once. The trench across the 3rd party land can be done by anyone, even you if you had your own digger (a number of us here have or had our own machines) Get independent quotes for that part of the job and the price may come down a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Appleco Posted November 15, 2016 Author Share Posted November 15, 2016 35 minutes ago, PeterW said: That's not bad value to be honest with a road opening, substation and transformer upgrade. Any other services share the road crossing costs..?? Sorry not sure what you mean by other services sharing the road crossing? Do you mean water etc? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Appleco Posted November 15, 2016 Author Share Posted November 15, 2016 36 minutes ago, Declan52 said: Get in contact with SSE again and ask for a breakdown in the costs and from there you will get a better idea of the savings that could be made. It's the road crossing that you will make any savings on. What type of road is it, as in is it a country lane or a dual carriageway?? It's a tiny country road. I was wondering about the possibility of using a mole to dig under the road to avoid the cost of opening it and the cost of traffic management? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Appleco Posted November 15, 2016 Author Share Posted November 15, 2016 23 minutes ago, Frogeye said: Have you told them you'll be having a heat pump? They seem to want to charge you for a transformer upgrade whenever you mention one! No and we have decided against the heat pump - going for biomass. It's a very modern building so maybe they are assuming we will be installing the heat pump. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Appleco Posted November 15, 2016 Author Share Posted November 15, 2016 5 minutes ago, ProDave said: Virtually all that trenching and the road crossing should be contestable work. The road crossing has to be dione by an approved contractor or they may even be able to mole under the road. As above, are there any services that need to cross that road? get ducts in at the same time for all of them so you only have to have the road up once. The trench across the 3rd party land can be done by anyone, even you if you had your own digger (a number of us here have or had our own machines) Get independent quotes for that part of the job and the price may come down a lot. Thanks ProDave. I had been considering using a mole as my next door neighbour did this for his water connection. The mains water actually runs through the front of my plot so no road opening required for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterW Posted November 16, 2016 Share Posted November 16, 2016 I do wonder if they have quotes for a new 3 phase supply up to your boundary and then a single phase supply to you reading that. As stated by others, the contestable works are the trenching and road crossing, cable connections at both ends have to be done by the DNO. Are you going into mains drains ..? That's the other large cost for road openings a mole can't usually be used for that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
readiescards Posted November 16, 2016 Share Posted November 16, 2016 14 hours ago, Appleco said: I have just had a quote from SSE for a single new house connection of over £12,000. Just wondering if anyone has had any success in reducing these costs significantly by outsourcing the non-contestable works to a ICP or IDNO? I also could not achieve a meaningful saving by employing others to do it. Hence I'm putting the pot the cash I would have spent getting a mains connection towards going off-grid 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted November 16, 2016 Share Posted November 16, 2016 49 minutes ago, PeterW said: I do wonder if they have quotes for a new 3 phase supply up to your boundary and then a single phase supply to you reading that. As stated by others, the contestable works are the trenching and road crossing, cable connections at both ends have to be done by the DNO. Are you going into mains drains ..? That's the other large cost for road openings a mole can't usually be used for that. My guess is it's a single phase supply. Most of the run done in large cable because of the length (they used wavecon 95 for the run down the road from our transformer) And then a junction to convert down probably to 35mm concentric for the run under the road and into the house. I saved about £1000 on my connection by digging a trench and digging the connection pit (so they didn't need to bring their own digger) which in my case halved the connection fee. I still think paying £1000 for them to pull a cable through a duct in a trench already prepared and just connect both ends was a lot of money. I then filled it all in after they were done. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Appleco Posted November 16, 2016 Author Share Posted November 16, 2016 3 hours ago, PeterW said: I do wonder if they have quotes for a new 3 phase supply up to your boundary and then a single phase supply to you reading that. As stated by others, the contestable works are the trenching and road crossing, cable connections at both ends have to be done by the DNO. Are you going into mains drains ..? That's the other large cost for road openings a mole can't usually be used for that. No mains drains - I have to fit a powered septic system as we are discharging into a watercourse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Appleco Posted November 24, 2016 Author Share Posted November 24, 2016 UPDATE - no luck getting SSE to budge at all on the price so looking into outsourcing as much as possible to an ICP or IDNO. Looking down the enormous list of possible companies is rather daunting - who to approach for quotes??? Can anyone recommend any particular companies. I have Clancy Dowcra doing the trenches for water connection - has anyone used them for their electricity? Thanks in advance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrP Posted November 24, 2016 Share Posted November 24, 2016 Forgive if this a stupid question, others may have more experience but if you are going to be forced to spend 12k on a connection, have you considered what type of solar PV/battery store setup you could get for the same money and go off grid? free leccy for life! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Appleco Posted November 24, 2016 Author Share Posted November 24, 2016 28 minutes ago, MrP said: Forgive if this a stupid question, others may have more experience but if you are going to be forced to spend 12k on a connection, have you considered what type of solar PV/battery store setup you could get for the same money and go off grid? free leccy for life! Hadn't thought of that at all MrP. I am a newbie at this building malarkey. Will look into it though - thanks. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swisscheese Posted January 9, 2017 Share Posted January 9, 2017 Just got my quote back, and for what you seem to be getting done it sounds like good value compared to mine. The real kicker is the £1500 charge for closing the road and putting out signage. Something about the road being under 7.0 meters they have to have a full road closure and stick up diversion singns etc etc... £463 for putting up signs - jeezzzz #overabarrel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Appleco Posted January 9, 2017 Author Share Posted January 9, 2017 Just now, swisscheese said: Just got my quote back, and for what you seem to be getting done it sounds like good value compared to mine. The real kicker is the £1500 charge for closing the road and putting out signage. Something about the road being under 7.0 meters they have to have a full road closure and stick up diversion singns etc etc... £463 for putting up signs - jeezzzz #overabarrel I've managed to reduce mine by outsourcing the digging and getting a company to mole under the road which is only about £700-£800 as apposed to thousands for closing the road, then digging and replacing it. Also I have successfully managed to get a reduction from SSE by arguing about the need to replace the pole for the new transformer. I went and had a look at it and it was a stout (the biggest one they do) and in perfect condition. I made a pest of myself until the agreed to send an engineer to look at the pole and they eventually backed down. It's worth looking at everything and questioning it all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swisscheese Posted January 9, 2017 Share Posted January 9, 2017 1 hour ago, Appleco said: I've managed to reduce mine by outsourcing the digging and getting a company to mole under the road which is only about £700-£800 as apposed to thousands for closing the road, then digging and replacing it. Also I have successfully managed to get a reduction from SSE by arguing about the need to replace the pole for the new transformer. I went and had a look at it and it was a stout (the biggest one they do) and in perfect condition. I made a pest of myself until the agreed to send an engineer to look at the pole and they eventually backed down. It's worth looking at everything and questioning it all. I've just got back to UKPower Networks and asked about Moling, after initially saying it's something they couldn't do, I then mentioned contestable works and the customer service staff spoke to a manager...they then said it's "something they would look into but it does mean that I cannot book into the 14 week lead time on the road closure so it will put it back...." - I said I have a bit of time, please let me know ASAP before check elsewhere for solutions. Out of interest who are your Moling contractors? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Appleco Posted January 9, 2017 Author Share Posted January 9, 2017 1 hour ago, swisscheese said: I've just got back to UKPower Networks and asked about Moling, after initially saying it's something they couldn't do, I then mentioned contestable works and the customer service staff spoke to a manager...they then said it's "something they would look into but it does mean that I cannot book into the 14 week lead time on the road closure so it will put it back...." - I said I have a bit of time, please let me know ASAP before check elsewhere for solutions. Out of interest who are your Moling contractors? I have outsourced all the contestable works including all the trench digging and the moling to a local groundworks contractor who I am also using to lay my foundations (I am in Scotland). I was lucky that he has his own mole but I did get quotes from other small scale local groundworks guys who all seemed to have someone they used for moling. Are you doing the trenching yourself? It is very costly to have your power company do it. Might be worth asking around locally for someone with a mole but also I believe they can be hired by the day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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