AartWessels Posted June 8, 2023 Share Posted June 8, 2023 Having recently relocated to the beautiful Spey-side town of Aberlour from Belgium, we are now looking at building our forever home here in the area. It wouldn't be our first adventure of this kind, we have previously built our own Scotframe house in Belgium. There are as many similarities as there are differences as it seems. In Belgium for example you'd be able to get your own electrics done by yourself, as long as you had a certified engineer sign off your setup when done. So quite common practice to buy a "DIY package" for your building, where a specialised company will prepare all the plans for you, will supply you with the materials and provides lots of guidance as to how you need to do the work. The engineer testing and validating setup doesn't come from them of course, this is something you need to arrange yourself. Companies providing these packages usually can do the same for plumbing, ventilation, and heating. Anyway, long story short, I'm here to learn, and to find out how things are done on this side of the sea 🙂 This is the house we've built in Belgium. Just been sold. What we plan to build here, will be completely different 🙂 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saveasteading Posted June 8, 2023 Share Posted June 8, 2023 Welcome. Aberlour is indeed lovely. The very wide high street and the old fashioned shops plus the tourist ones. Well placed for whisky and shortbread. I know this because we looked at 2 plots nearby but walked away due to location and water. I'm happy to say more if that sounds like yours, but privately. Our 3t digger was hired from Aberlour. If that is your real name, then fine but most of use an alias just in case it helps us be open in discussion.. You will get lots of advice but reading ilder discussion can be a good start, especially for foreseeing issues. Do you have a plot? With planning permission? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted June 8, 2023 Share Posted June 8, 2023 Contrary to popular belief, you can do the same in the UK. The wring regs and the competenet persons schemes make provision for someone to do the work and then a competent person to test and certify it. All that building control want is an EIC from someone they trust. The issue is no tmany electricians want to do that, because they won't have seen the cable routing so they would be asked to approve something they had no way of verifying. The best you are likely to get is an electrician happy for you to do some of the grunt of pulling cables through as long as he can inspect that before it is covered over. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saveasteading Posted June 8, 2023 Share Posted June 8, 2023 We also used a screed company from Aberlour. (An hour's drive). I was impressed with his work and in chat it turns out he is a general builder most of the time. He can turn his accents from Doric (look it up) to gentle Received Highland English as necessary. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AartWessels Posted June 8, 2023 Author Share Posted June 8, 2023 9 hours ago, saveasteading said: Welcome. Aberlour is indeed lovely. The very wide high street and the old fashioned shops plus the tourist ones. Well placed fir whisky and shortbread. I know this because we looked at 2 plots nearby but walked away due to location and water. I'm happy to say more if that sounds like yours, but privately. Our 3t digger was hired from Aberlour. If that is your real name, then fine but most of use an alias just in case it helps us be open in tiscussion.. You will get lots of advice but reading ilder discussion can be a good start, especially for foreseeing issues. Do you have a plot? With planning permission? thanks, that’s very useful input. And would love to have local recommendations for groundworks and screed, that can always come in handy. We haven’t bought a plot as yet, waiting first for the transaction of our house to go through all Belgian bureaucracy. one of the plots we’re looking in to is has indeed been known for some water issues, although seem to have been resolved. Still always open for different perspectives. there’s lots of information on this forum ready to consume, it’s an awesome source for learning. Thanks for your kind words 😊 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AartWessels Posted June 8, 2023 Author Share Posted June 8, 2023 9 hours ago, ProDave said: Contrary to popular belief, you can do the same in the UK. The wring regs and the competenet persons schemes make provision for someone to do the work and then a competent person to test and certify it. All that building control want is an EIC from someone they trust. The issue is no tmany electricians want to do that, because they won't have seen the cable routing so they would be asked to approve something they had no way of verifying. The best you are likely to get is an electrician happy for you to do some of the grunt of pulling cables through as long as he can inspect that before it is covered over. Yeah, I know, and exactly not finding a sparky willing to sign off is what will most likely make it an impossible option. Although I’m still hopeful to be able to find one to collaborate with, with will agree on doing the smart stuff himself, and leave the simpler things to me. I don’t mind not putting up the plasterboard until my work is checked. Anyway, we’ll see. Lots of other steps to take first 😊 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted June 9, 2023 Share Posted June 9, 2023 Welcome Regarding the electrical side, Scotland has different rules to England, @ProDave, and Englishman Abroad, knows more. Our old mate Jeremy found a young, newly qualified electrician who worked at a reasonable rate because he (the sparks) needed to get wiring inspected and sign off for his CPD. Always worth asking at a local technical college who they have. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saveasteading Posted June 9, 2023 Share Posted June 9, 2023 In my experience electricians don't like 'builders work',or setting out the cables. So you could probably do that and all be happy. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AartWessels Posted June 9, 2023 Author Share Posted June 9, 2023 47 minutes ago, saveasteading said: In my experience electricians don't like 'builders work',or setting out the cables. So you could probably do that and all be happy. My hope exactly! I can totally imagine electricians preferring to work on the more interesting stuff like cabling the CU, working out the plans, things like that, over doing the rough work. As far as I can find, ventilation, plumbing, heating minus the electrical connection, can all be done by ourselves, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saveasteading Posted June 9, 2023 Share Posted June 9, 2023 You can do almost everything. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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