Building A House In The UK Is A Nightmare!

[00:00:00]Welcome back everybody. Now this week marks exactly one year since we bought this property to build our dream house.

[00:00:08]And we knew that this wasn't going to be an easy or a simple process, but we never dreamed that one year on this is what the progress of our dream house build would look like. Now lots of you watching at home have eagerly been awaiting the start of the house build and understandably many of you have become somewhat frustrated in the amount of time that has elapsed between us buying this property and actually getting cracking with the house. But we're hoping by the end of this video you guys will understand a little bit of everything that's been going on in the background and why it has taken just so long.

[00:00:41]>> So let's go all the way back to the beginning to give you a bit of context.

[00:00:45]Now this used to be part of this farm.

[00:00:49]So it used to be cropping land all the way around the side and in the middle was the farm yard. None of this mess was originally here. That was all us. But right here used to stand a massive asbestos old barn. And this shed was also here when we bought it, but it used to be clad in old asbestos too. When we bought the property it actually had planning permission to build two houses on it. We also had electricity already connected, which was a little bit questionable. We didn't have any water and we also obviously didn't have any fencing. There is a bit of a story behind the planning permission though because originally that barn had planning to convert into three houses under a thing called class Q development, where it's basically you get old unused agricultural buildings and you turn them into houses. So then the person who owned this place tried to get the same thing for the big barn that used to be there, but the council said no. So he then went and said can I build two brand new houses here and just keep the shed as a shed.

[00:01:51]Which then the council said yes. And the reason for that is because they said cuz we're in a flood risk zone then it's a lot safer to build two brand new houses than have three houses."

[00:02:02]I don't even know if that makes sense to me.

[00:02:04]>> This is where we're going to confuse you even more, though, because when we went into the planning process thinking, "Brilliant, we are golden. We only want to build one house, which is reducing the number of houses further." Turns out that's actually something that went against us in our planning application, because it means that the district council wouldn't meet their quota for the amount of houses they need to build.

[00:02:25]Welcome to the joy of planning in the UK, everybody. Believe it or not, though, having planning permission on this property actually gave us a head start, because it had some conditions on the previous application, and we knew we would have to address those things before we could get cracking with building our house.

[00:02:41]>> And one of those conditions is our favorite, the GCP. Although it isn't really a thing, the GCP. I think we just made it up, but >> You made it up.

[00:02:49]>> it should be part of the English dictionary now, because GCP is the ground contamination police. And basically, what they do is they assess your land and work out if it's dangerous or not, whether lead can get into your pipes, whether gas can come out of the ground, and just I'll have to help me out here, cuz I don't know the rest of them.

[00:03:06]>> They also make sure that there's nothing toxic in your soil, so chemicals or heavy metals that if they get into the dust and you breathe them in could make you sick. They also make sure that you're not going to contaminate the surrounding environment, so that we wouldn't have things leaching off into the drains that surround our property and poisoning the waterways and things.

[00:03:23]So, and essentially, every property in the world probably has some kind of contamination on it, but because we're doing a new build, we have to meet the modern codes.

[00:03:33]>> Let me get my GCP in.

[00:03:35]>> It's also our least favorite thing, not our most favorite. What I'm going to add here as well has nothing to do with the actual police force.

[00:03:42]>> Give me a G.

[00:03:44]Give me a C.

[00:03:45]Give me a P. It's GCP.

[00:03:49]>> When you're going into the purchase, the environmental health at the council had identified two potential ground contamination issues here. The first was to do with the asbestos buildings and their worry was that bits of asbestos might have flaked off over the years and got into the soil, which obviously they don't want us breathing in. And the other issue was that around about here at sometime in history cuz this has been a farm yard since the 1800s, there was a pond which has been infilled and they wanted to know what the pond had been infilled with because farmers have a little bit of a reputation of what things they fill it up with.

[00:04:26]>> be judging these farmers now. We've got a lot of farmer friends watching.

[00:04:30]>> farmers very much, but they will tell you that they >> love burying stuff.

[00:04:34]>> bury stuff. [laughter] And so we had to find out what was in it. One to find out if it might let off gases, but two because they've actually had instances where they've dug things up and they've buried for example a horse that had anthrax or something.

[00:04:46]>> Or a cow that could release gases and things. Yeah.

[00:04:50]>> So we had to check that it was okay. We were prepared though. I spent the time while the sale was going through finding a company to manage our ground contamination issues and do all of the testing. And we had the guy out on site one week after the property completed to do the first site walkover and the stage one study. And what his recommendation was in that was that we remove the asbestos from that barn and this barn before we went ahead with doing soil sampling which the council agreed to.

[00:05:20]And the reason that they said we should do that was obviously we were disturbing the sheets taking them off of the shed.

[00:05:26]So it didn't make any sense to do the soil samples, then disturb asbestos sheets and then have to do the sampling again.

[00:05:32]>> This is where though we cost ourselves a little bit of time to save a lot of money because we bought this old telehandler and renovated it from the ground up because we knew we'd need a machine like this to remove over 17 tons worth of asbestos and then when it comes to the house build, this would be a godsend. We then bought a cheap static caravan and refurbished that. Not only for us to live on site and be comfortable, but also when it comes to removing the asbestos, we needed to have water and have showers. The fence install was next because that was a clause when we bought the place that this had to go in straight away. But with all that done, we could get on with stripping the asbestos from the small shed. Now, we did lose a bit of time again by recladding this one, but that was because then we could get the machines inside out the way and then also have a place to work. Then we tackled the big barn, which was a mammoth task. But as soon as that was done, we had the phase two of the soil sample booked in for the week after.

[00:06:30]This is where I thought we were getting somewhere though because the old GCP rocked up and we started digging trial pits in the paddock and at the front.

[00:06:38]But we had good news and bad news.

[00:06:40]>> The good news was that there was no asbestos fibers found anywhere. And the pond appears to have just silted up over the years and nothing bad was buried in there. Hooray, we're clear. No, apparently not. Because we also found some peat under the ground and there was quite a lot of like old pondweed and organic material in the pond, which meant that it could be an increased risk of us getting gases up into the house.

[00:07:07]The other thing they found was something called polyaromatic hydrocarbons, PAHs I'm going to call them from here on out, and they are a little chemical molecule that is found in lots of different things but can be a hazard to human health. The first company we were working with recommended that we just put a gas membrane in the bottom of the house and put that into planning. But fortunately, we actually had some guys out to do geotechnical testing, which helps to design your foundations. And while they were here, they offered for us to put in these gas monitoring stations that you see just here. And we're so glad that we did for two reasons. First of all, the council said, "Nah, it's not good enough to just say you're going to put a membrane in. We want the data from gas monitoring." And second, because the results have come back and we don't have any ground gas risk. So, we would have wasted our money putting a membrane in anyway. So, up to this point, we have spent £5,500 on our ground contamination testing and report writing. And the only issue we still have remaining is our PAHs. But they are where it gets really expensive.

[00:08:15]But before I can break that down for you, I need to take a minute to thank the sponsor of this week's video, Surfshark, who are not only our longest-standing sponsor and helped to make this all possible, but also save us a load of money, too. Over the years, we have shown you that we've used Surfshark for loads of different things. It's saved us hundreds of pounds on flights by helping us avoid the location-based price discrimination that they do. It's helped us stay connected to home when we're traveling by letting us do things like watch the Gavin & Stacey Christmas special when we were in Canada. It's saved us a load of money on our TV subscriptions by unlocking geo-restrictions. And it's helped us find location-based information before we get somewhere, like when we went to Canada and helped us find propane providers before we got there. But the thing that it does most for us is give us peace of mind because we know that all of our personal information is safe and protected. It can do all of this because it's a virtual private network, a VPN. And that does two major things for you. The first is that it encrypts all of your information, which basically means it makes it invisible. So, no one can see anything that you're doing or get hold of any of your details. And the second thing that it does is to change your virtual location. So, nothing you're doing online can be tracked. It also has a load of other features, too, you ad blocking. And it even has a scam email checker, where with just the click of a button, it will tell you if an email is genuine or dodgy. You can try it risk-free with their 30-day money-back guarantee, and one account works on unlimited devices. You'll also get an extra 4 months of Surfshark for free if you use our code true blue at the checkout. So, just go to surfshark.com/trueblue, and I'll put that link in the description for you.

[00:10:01]>> But, back to the GCP and spending money instead of saving it. Cuz we found a contamination over here, we had to do more test, which meant more money, and we had to find out how big a spread the contamination went. And thankfully, it didn't go too far.

[00:10:17]>> But, the thing that's particularly annoying about this is PAHs are in loads of different things, but we are 99.9% sure on our site that it's actually come from the road planings that have been used to create the hardstanding around the place, which is a perfectly normal thing to do, and would be completely acceptable if this was still an agricultural yard or commercial, but because we're building a house, they say this is unsafe.

[00:10:42]>> Jess has been working on this for a long time now, and anything that you can think of that would be a rational, easy way of getting rid of this, just put that to the back of your head.

[00:10:52]>> Put it in the bin.

[00:10:53]>> Yeah, ignore all that, because sense says to me, well, if it's just road planings, and it was okay here before when the farm was growing crops to eat and things like that, then if we put it in the driveway, it'll be perfectly fine. No, because it's contaminated, and that bit over there might not be, you'll then be taking contaminated land and putting it into uncontaminated. I think we'll have to have a tally at how many times we >> We can say the word contaminated.

[00:11:18]Or, you can't just dig a big hole in your paddock and bury it, cuz then you're contaminating uncontaminated land. Um, again, obviously, this ground here is perfectly fine for commercial use. Brilliant. Farmer needs a farm track, we just dig it all up, put it in his trailer. He goes and drops it on his farm track. Job done. No, no, no, because then you have to comply with a whole bunch of waste regulations. And if at any point in history that farm gets contaminated, we become liable. So, that all goes in the bin.

[00:11:46]>> Yeah, so the one thing that we could do is get rid of it all. Get somebody to come in with a big grab lorry and take it away. We priced out that was going to be about 50 grand. So, obviously we had to can that idea.

[00:11:57]>> the pan.

[00:11:58]>> So, the idea now is that you can put soil over the top of it, but it has to be of a depth of 600 mil. So, >> So, that would mean bringing all the land up around the house 600 mil. Which one, a hell of a lot of money. Two, a hell of a lot of work. And three, we just didn't want to do that. So, your other option for capping is that you cover it in with what they call something that's a no dig layer, basically. So, that could be a concrete slab. It could be paving that's in like a mortar bed. And that's the combination we're going to go for. Yeah, you can't use gravel or you can't use anything that could sort of be taken away >> easily. So, >> And what the guy at the council said to me is you want something that you'll hit with a spade and you can't go past it.

[00:12:41]So, what we're going to have to do here is put it down to a combination of a slab for like a greenhouse maybe later on, some hard paving, and some raised beds that will all have to be more than 600 mil tall. So, our ground contamination specialist on with writing that remediation plan. We just have to submit it the council.

[00:13:00]>> Yeah, but given that this area is about 15 by 15 or something, I think.

[00:13:05]>> but yeah.

[00:13:06]>> It's still going to be expensive. So, as soon as we get the letter from our specialist, we send it into the council, but they've got eight weeks to approve it. And there's still no guarantee that they'll approve it. They might come back and say, "Nah, do it again." So, we're just going to have to wait and see that one. But with all this GCP stuff, I've never heard of it before we did this to be honest, but apparently it's not an uncommon thing with big developments of houses, but we've heard through the grapevine they've got a special way of getting round it.

[00:13:38]>> WOAH, WOAH, WOAH, WOAH, WOAH. It says right here that that ground is contaminated.

[00:13:46]>> You all right, Bill? What's happening?

[00:13:48]>> Oh, George, WE'RE ALL MUCKED UP.

[00:13:52]>> [laughter] >> COME ON.

[00:13:55]>> THIS HERE GROUND, GEORGE, LOOK. Am I George or are you George?

[00:13:58]>> I don't know. You're Jim.

[00:13:59]>> I'm Jim. Look at this here ground, George Jim.

[00:14:02]>> Right.

[00:14:02]>> It is very badly contaminated. It is a hazard to human health, and I have to undertake my duty to the world and save the people from it.

[00:14:12]>> So, we can't build any of the houses?

[00:14:14]>> build any houses anywhere.

[00:14:16]>> What, you mean that land there?

[00:14:18]>> Yeah.

[00:14:18]>> Oh.

[00:14:19]That land is that you're on about?

[00:14:21]>> You know, I think I might be um I might be mistaken, and I think that's just some road planning >> so.

[00:14:28]>> No problem.

[00:14:29]>> Bottom.

[00:14:29]>> Yeah. See you all got off on Sunday.

[00:14:31]>> See you later, Jim.

[00:14:32]Obviously, that's just hearsay.

[00:14:34]>> If we take all of our GCP issues out of the equation, though, we are still not actually ready to build yet, and that's not unusual. The typical self-build in the UK takes between 12 and 18 months from buying the property to putting the first spade in the ground. And that's before you start looking at some of the complex issues we've got. And one of the things that we've done to make it even harder for ourselves is that we plan to fully DIY self-build this house, and so all of that has to be taken into the consideration of the planning and design. Because even though we have our planning permission, we still have to get our building regulations drawings done and signed off before we can actually crack on with building. And your building regulations drawings are essentially the nuts and bolts or like a manual for how you're going to build your house. And in a normal situation, your architect and your structural engineer would just work together, make those drawings, give them to the builder, and they crack on. But because we're going to build it, we have to go through every single tiny little detail, make sure that we can actually do it, and that it's going to be the cheapest and most effective way for us to do it.

[00:15:43]Because what would typically be the best way to do it isn't necessarily best for us because we're not using contractors.

[00:15:50]An example I can give you of this is our floor makeup, and it's something that we've been on with this week. So, our architect had specked the most common way of doing it, and usually the cheapest, which is to do a hardcore base, a sand layer, ground-bearing slab, your insulation, and then a concrete screed over the top of that. But for us, that would mean that sensibly we would need to get a contractor in to do it because if we were to mess up the pour of all of that concrete, one, it would be an absolute nightmare to get rid of, and two, it would be a massive waste of money. So, what we think is probably going to work better for us is to do a block and beam floor makeup, where you essentially put in some beams and then blocks of concrete in, a bit like building up LEGO. And because we've got the telehandler to do it, so we don't have to pay higher fees, even though the materials to do that are a lot more expensive than the materials to do a ground-bearing slab, it will work out a lot cheaper for us in the long run. We also have asked if we could do a chipboard floor, a floating floor, rather than a concrete screed, because again, that's a lot more DIY friendly for us. And this level of detailing and cost-benefit analysis applies to every single part of the house. So, you can imagine it is taking us a little bit longer. But we see it as being the same kind of scenario as removing the asbestos. A little bit of time now will save us a hell of a lot of money in the long run.

[00:17:07]>> So, that's basically where we're at at the minute, and as soon as we get the building regs all done, we're about halfway through at the minute, we can get them sent off to the council to get them approved, and then we can start looking at getting material costs and certain contractors because things like piling and that we're not going to do.

[00:17:24]So, we can get prices for that. And even with the lean-to, we got the drawings through for that the other day, and we can send them off to try and get some prices or price up whether we're going to do it ourselves with actually welding all the steel up and everything like that. So, if we do get GCP sorted in a lot quicker time and get all the red tape and that, there's plenty we can be getting on with cuz obviously we can start scraping back the driveway, and we can also install the pipes that go over the crossover as well. And like we said last week, the shed is officially finished for now anyway. I've got a list as long as my arm of little jobs to do like I've started making up a frame for this metal folder because it's so heavy, I want to be easy to get the forklift on there and move it about. But, we have got a lot of stick about the shed as well. People saying that we've just been filling time by doing little projects.

[00:18:13]So, for example, the spray booth and the saw bench and things like that. Well, if you go back to the first video that we did, all of that was in the plan for doing the shed. So, >> And I think the other thing that I would say about that is that we've done all of this because otherwise, we would have built the house and then tried to manage without having all of the things we wanted to set up and then set them up after when we didn't need to use them. I mean, we could use them for vans. But, to us, it's again, we've invested some time so that when we come to actually build the house, it'll be quicker and easier and most importantly, much more enjoyable.

[00:18:49]>> Yeah, so for example, the saw bench, it is going to make life so much simpler when we come to build all the walls in the house. The welding bench, we're going to be making all the gates for the lean-to and the front and things like that. So, yeah, everything has been bought and done for a purpose anyway. I do have a bit of a confession here though because remember when I said that the workshop is finished, it's never going to be finished, is it?

[00:19:14]Because we got some new brilliant bits of kit for the workshop, and this is a dream come true, actually, because I'm now officially a tool tester.

[00:19:24]>> Dream job unlocked, D Boy.

[00:19:26]>> #tooltester because Evolution have sent me these to test them out for them because this is their new cordless metal range.

[00:19:34]Tool tester. Now, because I'm a tool tester, officially, >> How many times have you said that now?

[00:19:40]>> Did you know I'm a tool tester?

[00:19:42]>> [laughter] >> I THOUGHT I'D DO you a little side by side to sort of like get my resume in real quick, can I? So, firstly, I got a Bosch grinder and the new Evolution grinder. And, as I say, what I love about having different brands is you can get all the benefits and the negatives and the pros and cons from different ones and hopefully like make a real good enough of everything.

[00:20:02]So, and I think that's what they've done here. So, with the Bosch one, to move this guard round to when you're grinding in different spots, you've got an Allen key bolt in there, so you have to undo the bolt and then spin it round. Well, on this Evolution one, >> Ooh.

[00:20:17]>> How cool is that? I think there's some like ball bearing indents in there, but that spins round. And then also, to change the wheel on this, obviously, you've got to lock the button in, get the tool, and then crack it off. Well, as standard, this one comes this little thing here, look. That pops out, you press the button, and then you can just spin it off by hand. I know you can buy these to put on your other grinders, but to come as standard with this is brilliant. Next up is their cordless metal circular saw that they've just brought out as well. And you know I've already got their big nasty, but that is 110 V, and it's really more for a lot more heavy-duty stuff, whereas, well, you can tell by the size difference, look. So, this will come in for your more everyday job. So, when you're comparing them to this one, this is a wood saw, but the first thing I notice is look at the shroud on it. So when I cut even wood with this it just goes everywhere whereas this obviously it'll keep all the metal filings in and I like the way they put the clear bits on. So this is a little bit at the back where all the filings will go into so you can plug a hose into that obviously if it's hot metal filings it'll have to go into a cyclone or something but if not you just put that on and then if you want to empty it you just pull that off empty away but there's a little clear glass on there as well so you can see when that's full so another cool little idea and the piece de resistance a cordless yes cordless metal drop saw.

[00:21:45]Look at the two batteries on the top look.

[00:21:49]Unbelievable. Now if you know anything about the old Evolution drop saws you know they are definitely the best in the business they're leading the way compared to old school things like this with abrasive discs. These have got the metal discs on so they give a lot better cut but >> And a lot less dust I would say as well.

[00:22:07]>> Yeah at first glance couple of things that I like about it is this one got this slide out tray here look to keep all the metal filings in there so that's cool and also oh how good is this? So on this one here when you do angle cuts you've got this little lever that you undo adjust it and then lock up again but what I found is when you're doing like miter cuts sometimes because you have to put quite a lot of pressure on to cut the metal it starts to move over time and it's a bit crude how you get the actual angle whereas on this one you've got an actual locking pin that you lift up slide round and the pin locks in and then on the side here you've got all the degree angles so you can get it to exactly where you want and then this handle here just locks up so it's not going anywhere. Give me your review on my review then. First on the job how do you think I went?

[00:23:00]I I a little less clothing next time maybe.

[00:23:02]>> Um >> Spicing up the deal.

[00:23:04]>> That's a no from me.

[00:23:05]>> All you ladies out there, all gentlemen, whatever takes your fancy, but I do think these will be ideal for when we're finally allowed to get on with doing the house. So, even though it is a bit of a nightmare with all the hoops you have to jump through and the building regs and all that sort of stuff, I would say it's a good thing as well because all it means is that people can't just go build whatever they want that's not safe, that isn't energy efficient, and all that sort of stuff. So, >> I think every time I get frustrated with it, which is often, I just think, "But it means we're going to have a good house. It's going to be energy efficient. It's going to be warm. It's going to not fall down." So, that's what I just have to keep telling myself anyway.

[00:23:43]>> What I would say is it's been a bit of a strain on our relationship cuz last night Jess told me she didn't love me anymore.

[00:23:49]>> I didn't [laughter] know.

[00:23:50]>> You said I couldn't get that plasma table.

[00:23:52]>> I did tell him he couldn't get a plasma table.

[00:23:54]>> And Jess has become feral. She might look nice now, but she was shaving her armpits the other day with my beard trimmers. And she said she might have blunted them.

[00:24:03]>> [laughter] >> It was a panic, okay? We were filming. I didn't want to put my arm in the air and blind you all.

[00:24:09]>> Even then, today she was like, "Don't get my legs in. They're hairy." So, we're becoming French.

[00:24:14]>> Oh, dear. Anyway, as per usual, John has overshared.

[00:24:19]>> [laughter] >> I'll share one thing with you, though.

[00:24:21]We're starting the new project next week and it's in the shed, right in this space here. So, can't wait to show you that one.

[00:24:29]>> Yeah, I'm very excited.

[00:24:30]>> But what I would say is we're going to get on with this project and then if the plans for the house come through and the GCP gets sorted and everything like that, we're going to put it on pause and then crack on just so we can get started while the weather's still good anyway.

[00:24:41]So, >> So, we will look forward to seeing you all next Saturday where we're using the shed for the first time properly. And don't forget about that Surfshark link in the description.

[00:24:50]>> Show me your arms.

[00:24:51]>> It's all right. Look, they're okay.

[00:24:53]>> [laughter]