Our latest little hiccup was all about the requirement for a fire engine to reach Wee House. Building regulations stated that the driveway had to be able to support a 12.5 ton fire engine, and be 3.7 metres wide. It had been suggested by the nasty Mr Rataj that he would ensure we would never be allowed to strengthen the drive to take the load. I must admit, we had thought this could become a major problem as at best we could probably resurface the drive but not change it materially. However, the more we thought about it the more we began to think (hope) that perhaps sanity would prevail. After all, dustcarts had been using the driveway for years (before they decided they couldn't be bothered and the bins had to be wheeled to the road!). And our groundworkers had used large lorries to remove spoil from the site. On top of that, 20 ton ready mix concrete lorries had delivered a number of loads for our foundations, so the drive appeared up for it.
Our excellent building surveyors Templars decided to have a word with the building inspector to see how he would determine the drive was suitable. We thought this would be very scientific - core samples, or some form of sophisticated testing machine, but no, he said "Send me a photo showing a lorry has used it, and I'll accept that."
Excellent news but not quite the end of the tale. It appears that with backland developments such as ours, other solutions have been used to overcome the situation where its impossible to get fire engines to the new house. Either a fire hydrant has been installed near the house (requires a larger than usual mains water supply though), or better still, the new house has had a sprinkler system fitted. Not only does this remove the need to strengthen the drive, but it also removes the need to widen to 3.7 metres which was necessary for a fire engine. We wait to hear from our local building inspector that the sprinkler system will solve the problem, but research on the internet has shown that this approach has been used throughout the country and accepted by various councils. It might also lower our house insurance too!
Up yours Mr Rataj!
A couple of other developments last week and this which shows just how monopolistic some of the utility companies have become. EDF our local electricity infrastructure provider gave me a very casual quote of £10,000 to provide mains electricity. Despite me saying we would dig the trench from the road to the site, the person I spoke to wittered on about easements and wayleaves and the problems, blah, blah, blah, but refused to budge from this very round number of £10,000. Still, that was nothing compared to Fulcrum who carry out gas connections for National Grid that are more than 25 metres from the road. They said £22,000 to connect gas!!! Both of these suppliers would be laying a relatively low cost pipe into a trench we dig and fill and want £32,000 between them. Crazy. Templars have said they will take up the cause and have a couple of ideas as they believe that neither should be more than £2500. On the other hand a very jolly guy from Anglian Water turned up at site today and told me how easy and cheap it would be to connect the water. We like him.
Tomorrow is sewerage day, again its Anglian Water, but a different department, and not quite so accommodating as they insisted on knowing exactly where the foul sewer ran from the houses to the main. We had to get our friends at Brookvale to lift the manholes to trace the route. Not sure why Anglian Water need to know this because we are going to tack on the end of the sewer that serves the 5 cottages and won't require Anglian Water to do anything, apart that is, from charging us for using their sewer!
We still await the final details to be approved by the building regulations people so hope to be getting materials ordered soon and then get building.
Happier chaps from Clifton
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