Self-build in Perth & Kinross - hello

[Kelvin]

The field and road runoff is designed to run into the ditch on the opposite side of the road. There’s a trail path opposite the neighbour’s house just up from us. The water cascades down this in heavy persistent rain. 90% of the time it runs into the ditch the trail crosses. Under heavy downpours it overflows runs towards his house. Historically I assume he’s just cut into our plot when it was a field and decided to do it again despite it no longer being a field. All he really had to do was put a few sand bags across a small part of the trail where it joins the road and it would have pushed it back into the ditch. I’ll talk to him about it the next time he visits (it’s a holiday home) and come up with a permanent solution. 

[saveasteading]

Good plan.

How much rain did you have? It was obv utterly exceptional ( let's all hope) in the west but you are east.

Our steading had drizzle for 3 days and just mm/day but it still found a leak in a flat roof rooflight,  which can be fixed before finishes.  

In business I always liked a good rain test before handing over to the client.

[Kelvin]

About 100mm over two days. 

[ProDave]

Very wet here, but no measure of how much.  Our burn was well up to spate level and kept an eye on it in case it went higher but it did not.  Our biggest risk here that happened once if something washes into the burn upstream and blocks the culvert under the road, then the burn empties onto the road where there is nothing to stop it then running down our driveway and washing out part of the garden.

[saveasteading]

1 hour ago, Kelvin said:

About 100mm over two days

That's a lot.  Perhaps we have to assume it isn't so exceptional now. 

The rules for gutter and for rainwater storage were changed quite a few years ago in anticipation, but maybe not enough. The flooding mostly seems to have been due to large (some are huge eg the Spey and the Tay) catchment areas reaching pinch points. 

 

Moral. Never underdesign drainage. Keep buildings well above ground level.

Don't build housing in flood plains....obvious except to government.

[Kelvin]

There’s a lot of poor maintenance of culverts and pipes. The water is still running like a river on a road near us because the culvert is blocked. It’s been blocked for months. I’ve seen many such examples. I dug one out by hand yesterday. There’s also a lot of lost crops according to my farmer mate as the fields are under water and it’s not draining away quickly enough as the ground is very wet from all the earlier rain over the last few months. 
 

The good news for me is my plot performed well despite my drainage not being fully finished. Ironically the groundswork guys were due back this week to finish it all off.  Unfortunately the site they were just finishing in Methven is completely flooded. 
 

I did find a bit if a disaster this morning as the newly installed borehole plant has sprung a leak and flooded the garage. I’ve isolated it as it looks like the leak is from the water softener. 

[ProDave]

If only you could get the council of highways to actually fix a problem.  There is a blocked culvert further down our road, the water floods over the road and then between two gardens where there is a bit of a dip.  So it does not do any "harm" other than for half the year there is an unofficial ford to cross.  It has been like this for at least 20 years and nobody will do anything.

[Kelvin]

I’m not sure it’s the council’s responsibility in every case though. My understanding is that some of the culverts are the responsibility of the land owner. 
 

Either way, running water is disastrous for the roads so must cost more in the long run

[saveasteading]

2 hours ago, Kelvin said:

some of the culverts are the responsibility of the land owner. 

That's my understanding too. Is it as simple as what side of the fence it's on?

 

Near me, 2 years ago, I saw water fountaining 5ft up out of a road gully, forced there from another gully higher up the hill.

[Kelvin]

I assume which side of the road the culvert is on. 

[saveasteading]

29 minutes ago, Kelvin said:

which side of the road the culvert is on

I meant that Highways might have responsibility at roadside, but landowner if across a fence. Probably varies by region.

[Kelvin]

12 hours ago, saveasteading said:

I meant that Highways might have responsibility at roadside, but landowner if across a fence. Probably varies by region.

I know the culverts around me are all the responsibility of the landowners. 

[Kelvin]

There have been a few threads on sealing up ducts. I had to seal my main power cable duct so thought I’d share. 
 

We originally had ducting running continuously from the house to the kiosk for the main power cable to the house. As I explained previously on this thread we ran into a problem pulling the SWA cable through that I eventually tracked down to ducting coming apart at the join. It was proving too difficult to put this back together again to rerun the cable so we pulled the cable through from the house up to where the ducting had come apart. This is immediately behind the retaining wall so no real need for the ducting at all. Consequently I was finally able to get the cable the last 4m up to and into the kiosk. Unfortunately this did mean I had an open duct that would be underground up hill from house so was concerned about water ingress. 
 

I researched the different systems on the market and finally settled on this: 

 

https://www.filoform.co.uk/filoseal-re-enterable-duct-sealing-system

 

from here: 

 

https://www.millsltd.com/default/filoseal-duct-sealing-kit-75-125mm.html

 

It’s easy enough to use and good system. This one kit is enough to do three electrical ducts. You clean the duct and cable, sandpaper the inside of the duct and cable. Cut the foam to size. It wraps around the cable and pushes inside the duct about 20mm. This foam gives you something to squeeze the mastic against. You apply the mastic to cover the foam and seal the cable and the duct. You then use the supplied sponge you moisten to smooth the sealant out to fill any gaps and seal properly around the cable. It’s worth noting it takes 10 days to fully cure so you can’t backfill any holes etc until it’s cured. 
 

 

 

 

 

[Kelvin]

The other thing we did today was finally finish the flat roof by fitting the finishing flashing that drips into the gutter and the rainwater upstand at the edges. It’s taken months to get this fitted for a variety of reasons but glad it is as the rain has been pouring down the cladding etc. I can now fit the downpipes. The drainage is being finished next week. 
 

Of all the aspects of our house the flat roof is the thing I’m probably least happy with both aesthetically and as a finished roof. I don’t know what these rubber type membranes look like generally but this Alwitra system looks a bit rough close up, particularly the welded joints, and shows up every bit of unevenness in the underbuild . From a distance it’s fine and ultimately as long as it works. In hindsight I should have gone with the Sarnafil system largely because it’s more commonly used in this area so more availability of folk to fit it. Time will tell in how it performs and lasts. 
 

[Amateur bob]

Good afternoon, wonder if someone can help me im currently looking into water connection scottish water have given me a pricey quote which involves crossing a road and fields(we own the fields) 600m away, however the plot is at farm steading we own which has water for the steading i could simply tap into?

 

there is also a seperate pipe running across another field 100m away which goes from our steading to a neighbours cottage which i could tap into, would either of these 2 alternate options be legal? as they would save a lot of time, work and money!

 

the steading and this cottage are on a metre but the neighbour subtracts his metre from the total with residential being free

 

thanks!

[saveasteading]

1 hour ago, Amateur bob said:

would either of these 2 alternate options be legal?

Pipes connect to other pipes all the way from the source to you, so in principle it would be just another branch.

I practice the issue would be the pressure and volume of water. Is it enough for you without reducing it to your neighbour.

 

For that reason you should ask for permission from the water company.  OR have it checked out then have a legally written agreement with your neighbour. 

 

Taking a connection from your own supply sounds simple, but you should get the quality checked.

 

For the new connection, the road crossing is expensive. If it can be moled, it avoids road closures and repairs.

[Kelvin]

You might get a wider response to this if posted as a question in its own thread rather than here. Although @saveasteading comment probably covers it. 

[saveasteading]

57 minutes ago, Kelvin said:

saveasteading comment probably covers it

You're right though. It will be seen by more of the relevant members under a new heading. Many will have been through this themselves. 

There may be a clever way of cutting and pasting your question and my preliminary answer.

[Amateur bob]

16 hours ago, Kelvin said:

You might get a wider response to this if posted as a question in its own thread rather than here. Although @saveasteading comment probably covers it. 

ok thanks i might start a thread and get more ideas, good replies so far

[Amateur bob]

18 hours ago, saveasteading said:

Pipes connect to other pipes all the way from the source to you, so in principle it would be just another branch.

I practice the issue would be the pressure and volume of water. Is it enough for you without reducing it to your neighbour.

 

For that reason you should ask for permission from the water company.  OR have it checked out then have a legally written agreement with your neighbour. 

 

Taking a connection from your own supply sounds simple, but you should get the quality checked.

 

For the new connection, the road crossing is expensive. If it can be moled, it avoids road closures and repairs.

yes thats true, the pipe runs through our field it was actually caught with aplough once we had to rejoin it would we even need to tell the neighbor we were connecting  to it? a house wont need much pressure in theory taps and showers etc dont run for long, when were filling the sprayer at the farm water runs for an hour to fill tank, domestic is nothing compared to this?

[saveasteading]

12 minutes ago, Amateur bob said:

would we even need to tell the neighbor we were connecting  to it?

How would you feel if someone took a branch off your pipe without telling?

Apart from quantity, there are potential health issues with pipe material, the risk of contamination, eg a plough breaking it, and probably more that i don't know about.

[Kelvin]

Quite. We took great care over citing our borehole to minimise the impact on our neighbour’s borehole. Showed her all the results, checked her supply before and after, got a water analysis of her water after we started running ours etc. The only reason she needed her own borehole is because she was at the end of the mains supply. Someone tapped into this down the pipe and she ended up with no water. Much wrangling and back and forth with Scottish Water before she gave up and went with her own supply at huge cost. 

[Amateur bob]

2 hours ago, Kelvin said:

Quite. We took great care over citing our borehole to minimise the impact on our neighbour’s borehole. Showed her all the results, checked her supply before and after, got a water analysis of her water after we started running ours etc. The only reason she needed her own borehole is because she was at the end of the mains supply. Someone tapped into this down the pipe and she ended up with no water. Much wrangling and back and forth with Scottish Water before she gave up and went with her own supply at huge cost. 

how did you go about getting an analysis of the water? in the past weve had 140 head of cattle drinking out the water troughs on the farm now only half that, surely a domestic property would have next to no effect on water pressure if its decent?

[Amateur bob]

2 hours ago, saveasteading said:

How would you feel if someone took a branch off your pipe without telling?

Apart from quantity, there are potential health issues with pipe material, the risk of contamination, eg a plough breaking it, and probably more that i don't know about.

i wouldnt be able to stop someone if they were building a house and my pipe that comes up off the mains was the only one to tap into?its a plastic pipe running through the field with its own metre, which tees off our steading supply which comes up from the main so whether i connect to the steading or the pipe that tees off it surely it will have the same effect on pressure?

[saveasteading]

9 minutes ago, Amateur bob said:

surely it will have the same effect on pressure

Probably much the same, but we are cluttering Kelvins already very long thread here. New thread please?