building control | Cuil Things to do

I went upstairs to check how things were in advance of the building control visit. The carpets were 20cm deep in sawdust and wood shavings. The detritus led to the cupboard in the bathroom which houses the stove flue. I opened the door and found that it was no longer a cupboard but had undertaken a Narnia-esque transformation into a long corridor stretching to infinity. On either side of the corridor were fitted thousands of cupboards along the walls at eye height.

“Wasn’t that nice of the joiners to do that?” I thought to myself, “It should help with sleeping space for the March visit of my entire ceilidh band and their families.”

But despite being pleased at the departure from the architects plans, (and departure from the laws of physics) I couldn’t help thinking that it would have been nice if they’d cleared up the mess.

I went back downstairs to find even more mess. The joiners and builders must have been having a massive party. Gigantic bottles of red wine littered the floor, crisps and snacks were everywhere. It wasn’t quite teenager-party-standard trashed, but it looked like some serious partying had happened and… the building control inspection was due any minute.

It took me a while to shake myself awake after the alarm went off and realise that it was just a dream and that I should be getting ready to head northward to the real building control inspection. I shot out of bed and got myself together.

I’d actually been entirely confident that we’d get the building warrant. Or, at least I had been, until 10pm the previous evening when Stephen texted me, obviously anxious to manage expectations.

“Let’s see if this might be the first” I replied*. But all of a sudden I didn’t feel so confident. I kept imagining what could go wrong. Any number of things sprang to mind as possibilities. And then there was the option that Stephen knew things I didn’t.

I couldn’t leave Glagsow until the kids had left for school that day so I wasn’t up at the house to check that the final things had been done until 1115, 15 minutes before The Inspection was due. I arrived to find that the downpipe on the porch still didn’t connect with the drain.

Fortunately Grant the plumber and Grant Jr, the plumber’s apprentice, were on the case. Stuart (builder#1)’s son turned up at 1125 to deliver the drain cover and it was all done by 1130.

I raced around the house to check the few things I knew were outstanding: was it definitely less than 140mm between door and ground level? Yes, but…. I wasn’t at all confident that this interim solution would pass.

Did we have a barrier on the landing window? Yes. Stephen had been up the day before to install something. But it looked pretty temporary, especially as it was nailed on with four solitary nails. We’d have to wait and see about how that went down.

I put up a print out of the sustainability certificate on the wall (weirdly you just print this off the internet by inputting how sustainable your house is – try it yourself – it doesn’t seem to be ground truthed like an EPC is so I’m not really sure what the point of it is, you just choose your level of sustainability from a drop-down menu.) And I stuck up info a statement about the waste water treatment.

I checked the drying room. We’d had to change the light fitting when we installed the hanging drying rack but the inset light still hadn’t been installed. I hoped Tony wouldn’t notice.

Just that minute Robert the electrician showed up – I wasn’t expecting him. He started work on the light and it was done just as Tony arrived at 1140am.

We started with the drains test – grant blocked off a pipe and pumped a plastic bulb – it looked rather like taking someone’s blood pressure.

Mr Building Control seemed satisfied but didn’t like the look of the drain, as the type 1 on the driveway had fallen into it. I’d need to get that cleared before he could issue a certificate.

We headed upstairs and he reminded me that I should have bought an extendible velux window opening device … Arggggh. Annoying. That was sorted within the hour by a visit to Amazon.com.

And lastly. We needed a 100mm high barrier on the ramp to the front door. Ah ha. That’s what the strange bit of wood was that I removed just before Mr Building Control arrived. I retrieved it and put it back where it was. He wanted it screwed on.

Other than that he was happy. So we were left with three minor things: screw on the wood – done in a few seconds, buy an extensible rod – done before the end of the building inspection, and clear the drain (a marginally bigger job)

So does that mean Stephen was unduly cautious? Did I manage to do what Stephen hasn’t in 13 years of building. Well I certainly think so. (Because they were such tiny things, weren’t they? and I couldn’t have possibly known that the type 1 had fallen down the drain while Ronnie was doing the drive that week). Stephen tells me it doesn’t count until I actually have a completion certificate to wave about. But I am claiming a personal victory anyway.

After all the excitement of The Inspection and some planning for my splendid garden shed, I headed to the hills. It was a glorious day, and the Pap of Glencoe was calling. I watched the sun set and then headed down to the Clachaig where, entirely by good fortune, I found Geoff, my photographer/artist/bothy bagger friend (him of the virtual art gallery blog and 100th bothy party) who’d had a day in the hills and was about to head back to Edinburgh. He’d already agreed to take some photos of Cuil Bay that will become the splashback in the main bathroom so this seemed the ideal opportunity to get him to actually take them. The weather was set fair for the following day so we made a plan and headed back to Sula.

* To be completely accurate and knowing Stephen will be checking, my first response was actually the following

Postscript: 25th February. A clean drain and a completion certificate. Pretty good really even though I say so myself. But special thanks to Stephen of SEC Joiners and builders, and Stuart of SECarmichel Builders, and also to Kenneth and Robert of Fergusson Electrical, Ronnie Macoll, Grant Laird the plumber and many others. Especially the patient and long-suffering husband.

A photo at last of Stephen.

You really have to like filling in forms at this stage in the build. It helps if you have kept meticulous records and if your spreadsheet of all money related information hasn’t unaccountably disappeared off your computer.

Unfortunately I have been slightly remiss in backing up my computer and now I have had to go back to a version I last updated in May. Which, in the lifetime of building this house, is an awfully long time ago.

It isn’t just about the pain of paying bills and yet more of bills, it’s about keeping track of all the various paperwork, permissions, schedule of building control visits and other official things. It’s been a trying time for someone as uninclined towards forms and form-filling and crossings of ‘T’s and dotting of ‘I’s.

And it isn’t really helped that, last month, George Osbourne announced the decision of a huge cut to the feed in tarrif for solar electricity. After January payments will decrease by 87%. This has come really suddenly with the initial consultation published at the end of August, after we had installed our panels. Kenneth the electrician first alerted me to how soon this is and how we really need to get a move on with everything.

To claim the feed in tarrif I need to fill in a form and attach screeds of documents. One of which is an Energy Performance Certificate.

Fortunately I already have an Energy Performance Certificate in one of my numerous files on my computer. I seek it out and breathe a sigh of relief. It looks OK to me. I show it to Stephen the builder who points out that the certificate number is 12345678. ‘It’s useless for claiming FITs’ he says.

As you can imagine I am rather puzzled. I have an EPC but it’s no use for claiming my Feed in Tariff. I call the architects. Matt explains that the EPC he produced was for building control purposes. It looks the same (apart from the registration number) but in order to produce an official EPC he would need to be properly certified to do them. He, and a few people in the office, have done the training but they are all waiting for their official certification to come through and that could take weeks, or months.

And even if they were certifyed it wouldn’t be a simple process to convert my EPC into a proper EPC. All the information would need to go into the official computer package and be done again.

I also need an EPC for my completion certificate and I asked whether the EPC I had was sufficient for that. I think the answer to that was no but, to be honest, I couldn’t get my head around the process Matt was explaining to me about how his EPC becomes official for building control purposes via the whole building tender process and contract.

As readers of this blog will know, I’m not making anything simple for myself in building this house. And so I don’t have one contract with one builder to build it (get up to date here. And here. And here)

So I need an EPC for my feed in tarrif claims and for a completion certificate. I ask Stephen and there’s one company in Oban that does EPCs, I call them up and talk to a chap called donald. He explains they do EPCs for existing houses. It’s a simple process of visiting the house and making assumptions about type of construction and putting it into the computer package. It’s called a reduced SAP EPC. He’s not sure whether it’s valid for a new house but he can come and do one at my house as soon as it’s complete. He recommends I check that it would be valid for a new house.

I call the Energy Saving Trust. It’s apparently my energy company who deal with FIT applications. I call Scottish Hydro. Surprisingly I get put through to a human being straight away and without negotiating a ‘press one for accounts, press two for ….’ decision tree of epic complexity. I suppose one must be grateful for small mercies.

The man I speak to isn’t at all sure what I need and there isn’t anyone who can answer my questions. ‘We just type in the certificate number and press a button’ he says. ‘I didn’t know that they were any different for existing houses and new houses’

At some point in all this process, I also call Al, an architect who I only know from Twitter but who happens to be a neighbour in Appin. I’m on my way to the house at the time I call him and stopped for a coffee on the drive up. He helps me get my head around things. I definitely need a proper certified certificate.

And will this certificate do for building control? I call my friendly building control officer. It’s straight to answer phone as usual. But one thing that is especially fantastic about my building control officer is that when you email him, he emails straight back. Usually within 15 seconds. The email may just say ‘Noted’ and nothing else, but it’s a comfort to know that your building control officer cares enough to email back.

I emailed him to ask and it seems building control needs a full post completion EPC.

This sounds more complicated than the certificate Donald had described. It needs to incorporate all the changes made during the build from the original building warrant and the air tightness test results. I think. (Please, dear reader, don’t take what I’m writing here as fact as I have spoken to so many different people who have said so many different things my head is swimming with alternative universes of EPC form filling)

So I call Matt the architect back. He has a colleague working in another practice who is registered and can do my EPC. And it will be valid for both building control and my Feed in Tariff. And apparently she can do it without visiting the house. I need to provide all the updates to building control and the airtightness test. And, hugely importantly, she can do it in a week and cost-wise it was very reasonable. I am a happy woman.

So it seemed a good day in the main. Like watching a TV thriller and feeling the satisfaction of almost understanding how the plot fits together at the end. But not quite, and going to bed with a few puzzling questions that fit together in your head by morning. (That’s a very generous way of looking at the process of getting an EPC anyway…)

So after a long day at the build and a long drive back in the dark and a day on the phone working out my EPCs and all the other paperwork (amendment to building warrant, Renewable Heat Incentive etc) I was chatting with Husband over dinner and a few medicinal glasses of wine.

He asked how things were going at the house.

‘Well. Ok I suppose. But I’m having some EPC difficulties.

Husband looked mildly puzzled.

‘So….. What exactly do you mean when you say EPC?’ he asked

I began to explain the blaringly obvious in painful detail when it dawned on me that EPC is common parlance to behavioral ecologists, but one that I’d totally forgotten in the years since my PhD. It stands for Extra Pair Copulation

I have to admit that I don’t think I stopped laughing until well into the next day, such is my juvenile sense of humour. I suppose it’s only fortunate I wasn’t thinking of my biologist past during my day of sorting my EPC difficulties or I may well have not been able to hold it together on all those serious and important phone calls.