Utility connection costs

[Saints1]

Hi all, I wondered if anybody could shed some light on some of the quotes I am getting back from utility companies with regard to new connections. Whether they think they are reasonable or not? 
 

United utilities have quoted £7k for a water connection. Now the mains water is on the other side of the road so this cost includes them digging the road up and bringing it to my boundary (approx 7 meters from mains to my boundary) I will be doing all the trench work on my own property and leaving them enough pipe work for them to connect on to. 
 

Scottish power have quoted £4k to install 3 phase to my self build. Luckily the mains electric is on my side of the road so it’s a 1 meter dig of the public footpath to connect on to. Again I’ll be digging the trench on my land and placing the relevant ducting in. 
 

The gas company have not provided a quote yet as they state that there is no point until there is a gas box built in to the property for them to connect to as it will probably be past April next year when this will be completed and by then there charges will have increased. I do know that the main gas pipe is again on the opposite side of the road with the water main. So this will be again another digging and trenching across the road scenario…. 
 

so….

Water- £7k 

electricity - (3-phase) £4k 

gas - Unkown

 

 

1) Do the above quotations sound reasonable? 

 

2) Does anybody have any previous knowledge or similar situation in regard to gas being located on the opposite side of the road and could provide details of how much they were quoted? 
 

 

[MikeSharp01]

They sound about OK to me.

 

Our costs were (IIRC):

 

Re-route Electricity from old house overhead to utilities block by the pole (pole on our land) down the pole along a 400mm trench, which we dug, and up into the meter box: £1200+VAT (2018)

Move gas from the old house, which we knocked down, to utilities block in trench we dug and then remove it completely when we decided not to have gas £840+VAT (2018 / 2021)

 

Do you really need Gas, might be worth working out if a ASHP might be a better solution if you are building a well insulated / air tight property.

[Bonner]

Mine was a lot less, 2.5k for water and 2k for electric with road crossing. Managed to get them to collaborate and only dig one trench (a lot more difficult than you might think!). Go back and challenge the costs, ask for a breakdown.

[Redbeard]

 

7 hours ago, MikeSharp01 said:

Do you really need Gas, might be worth working out if a ASHP might be a better solution if you are building a well insulated / air tight property.

 

+1 re no gas, although of course you can have no idea of how much you will save till you get a quote. Ditto agree with @Bonner re negotiating.

[G and J]

Uk power networks charged 9.4k to bring supply 10m from pole to our boundary, all trenching done by us on our site. Big chunk if that was the cost of the road closure, even though was on our side of the road and the road was never actually closed.

 

Cadent charged  1.7k to remove the gas supply.

 

Neither cost was welcome

 

We have water, just need to pay to connect back to drains

[Saints1]

4 hours ago, Bonner said:

Mine was a lot less, 2.5k for water and 2k for electric with road crossing. Managed to get them to collaborate and only dig one trench (a lot more difficult than you might think!). Go back and challenge the costs, ask for a breakdown.

Many thanks for your reply…

 

They have provided a breakdown (water) so to speak of contestable work and none contestable but I can’t tell from the breakdown what’s what… I’ll add it to here and see what people think and if you can deceiver it a bit better (or a lot better) than I can.

 

 

 

[Roger440]

I think there are plenty who would be grateful to get away with prices that low....................

[Bonner]

The biggest part is pipe laying which is contestable so you can get alternative quotes from LRQA accredited contractors as noted in the quote.

[SBMS]

7 hours ago, G and J said:

road was never actually closed

Same here. Made a formal complaint (it’s not lawful for them to keep the money if no closure occurred I found out during the process). Received a full refund. 

[Saints1]

3 hours ago, Bonner said:

The biggest part is pipe laying which is contestable so you can get alternative quotes from LRQA accredited contractors as noted in the quote.

So if I find a local approved company and ask them to provide a quote solely on the pipe laying what are the chances of it being substantially lower? I mean if we are talking near £1k saving it’s 100% worth it. 
I will look to shop around but I have a feeling I’ll have to bite the bullet, sometimes I feel the utility companies have you over a barrel. 
 

Thank you again though for taking your time to help me. 

[Saints1]

8 hours ago, Bonner said:

Mine was a lot less, 2.5k for water and 2k for electric with road crossing. Managed to get them to collaborate and only dig one trench (a lot more difficult than you might think!). Go back and challenge the costs, ask for a breakdown.

I did query this with United utilities in regard to linking in with the gas supplier and utilising just one dig. The case manager practically laughed at me and just said “no we don’t do that” 

Im just amazed that local authorities don’t insist on this happening when confronted with similar scenarios. Surely they don’t want the road lifting twice……. Having said that, it’s probably more money for the council having to get two permits for road closure management. 

[Bonner]

I have idea if you will find someone to do it cheaper but worth a few phone calls. The cost are exorbitant really there must be huge overheads involved. The utility companies usually sub contract the work anyway.

[mjc55]

9 hours ago, Saints1 said:

I did query this with United utilities in regard to linking in with the gas supplier and utilising just one dig. The case manager practically laughed at me and just said “no we don’t do that” 

Im just amazed that local authorities don’t insist on this happening when confronted with similar scenarios. Surely they don’t want the road lifting twice……. Having said that, it’s probably more money for the council having to get two permits for road closure management. 

 

This was said to us when we were looking at getting both water and electricity across the lane to our plot.

 

We paid £8370 for Electricity and £6840 for water last January (SSE and Wessex Water).

 

After much toing and froing and discussion and a very helpful SSE guy we eventually got them to utilise the same trench across the road (dug by WW).  This didn't happen until July!

 

At the same time SSE changed their charging scheme and so the £8370 reduced significantly to about £2.5k, and we are still chasing them for more money back as the many iterations of the plan to get to our temporary box were incorrect and they did not use the same length of cable as designed.

[Post and beam]

This summer we paid....

 

£11250 for electricity from UK power networks. maximum of 8 metres from other side of the lane to our green temporary cabinet.

 

£6500 for water for a dig from the near side of the lane. probably 2-3 metres.

 

No gas

[mjc55]

14 minutes ago, Post and beam said:

This summer we paid....

 

£11250 for electricity from UK power networks. maximum of 8 metres from other side of the lane to our green temporary cabinet.

 

£6500 for water for a dig from the near side of the lane. probably 2-3 metres.

 

No gas

Where is that 🤯

[torre]

12 hours ago, Saints1 said:

case manager practically laughed at me and just said “no we don’t do that” 

 

The overrun charges for streetworks charges can be £1000s per day for a busy road and £100s otherwise, if it's your licence then you don't want to be delayed by another company's unfinished work.

 

Sewer connection was our most expensive - deepest run, more risk of striking other utilities, fewer companies that will take on the work. With a great deal of perseverance on our side and really helpful utilities workers on the ground we also managed to get water and electric connected under the same licence but if either had missed their install date that trench was getting filled in regardless! Over 10k total but probably saved 2K+ versus separate digs. It was touch and go whether we'd get the electrics done though - their guidelines wanted a wider trench but the people on the ground made it work.

[Daniel H]

We paid:

Water: £5,200 - inc road closure £1,300 (Severn Trent)

Electricity: £2,000 (Northern Powergrid)

 

Even though it was the same hole in the ground, they didn't manage to organise bc the electricity folks didn't feel the need to close the road so it was all done in a few weeks, but the water company erred on the side of caution, closed the road and it took 13 weeks and an extra £1,300. So if you think they can get away with not closing the road, ask them to put in to the council a tape off permit and see what happens. Our hole was very very close to our property (1m). Tbf to the water people, they very carefully removed the cobbles, put them in their van overnight and then re-laid them to stop them being stolen. Nice but I'd have preferred £1,300 in my pocket still.

[Post and beam]

2 hours ago, mjc55 said:

Where is that 🤯

North Hertfordshire

East Herts for planning

[Bonner]

When I said they agreed to collaborate, they did but Northern Powergrid cried off on the day due to an emergency. They had already dropped off their duct so I asked Anglian Water’s contractor if they could install it. Initially they said no, so I asked if I could do it, but no, I was not authorised to work in their excavation. Anyway I went back a couple of hours later and they had done it! It was all done in a morning but the road was closed for another 4 days until the surfacing team came to reinstate the road.