Water & electricity
July 23, 2006 | Leave a Comment |
On the 22nd of July the approved contractor was doing the necessary road works to make the water and electricity connection possible. We thought this was done by using some kind of “mole” device, however these pictures show that the road has been opened up to make the connection.
Let there be water!
March 6, 2006 | Leave a Comment |
Jon sent an email with some great news! Scottish Water have planned work to finalize the water connection from the 7th to the 9th of July. A water connection will become essential during the upcoming stages of the build.
Status week 7
February 15, 2006 | Leave a Comment |
We received some new information regarding the connection of water and electricity.
Electricity: There’s now a red peg visible on our plot. The red peg is marking where the electricity pole goes. The electricity company will drop off the cable for Hughie to install between the pole and our house at the end of this month.”
Water: The water connection will be the actual pipe running to our plot and a standpipe needed for building water. This pipe will be removed again once the building has been completed. Jon will discuss with James about the precise position of the standpipe.
Furthermore we decided to fence off the plot where it runs along the B884. The fence will run from the plot at Skinidin 17 to the plot at 15 Skinidin and will fall back a bit where the access road is. The access road will be fitted with a fence. We’re still thinking about installing a cattle grid, although this has no priority yet. The cattle grid should keep unwanted wandering sheep out of the cultivated part of the garden.
Big surprise…
January 2, 2006 | Leave a Comment |
Today we received a late Christmas present from Scottish Water. The work to be carried out to connect our plot to the mains water was not including the roadworks necessary to bring the pipe across the B884 to our plot. This work can only be performed by a certified contractor and, of course, you guessed it, those contractors don’t come cheap. In our case we have to pay £867.79 to get this done.
Surely this can be done cheaper! That was my reaction at first as well. How much work could there be in crossing that road? Well, you CAN do it yourself, however if you do that you have to pay a yearly insurance premium of about £90.00 for the rest of your life.
After some thought and tooth crunching I decided we’d better use the certified contractor. When buying a plot make sure you have access to water without a need for crossing roads. If you do, add sufficient funds to your budget to allow Scottish Water to do the works through a certified contractor. By the way: from other people we know who are building on Skye the same applies to the foul water drainage. If you have both across the road, check out the consequences!!
Electricity: progress?
November 12, 2005 | Leave a Comment |
I had a short phonecall with Mr. Fankster, who’s apparently the local supervisor for connecting our plot to the electrical grid. The problem is that for our connection, the electricity company needs to put a pole into the land that belongs to our neighbours of Skinidin 17.
Mr. Fankster has tried to contact them by means of email as - we have no phone number - to get their consent.
As of now they have not yet responded to emails from the electricity company whether they approve of the placement of a pole. I asked Martin what would be the alternative when we never ever hear something from them and he replied “that we have to look for an alternate connection”.
I will cal him again within a couple of weeks…
Get connected
October 12, 2005 | Leave a Comment |
Our plot was not yet connected to the power grid, so we had to arrange for a new connection. In an earlier phase - during the process of acquiring the plot - we thought that this connection would be as easy as connecting a powercable to the powerline located at our neighbours land. Probably only a matter of digging a trench and some yards of cable…
This is actually not how it works…
No electricity, no life… So one of the first steps for plot development is to get connected to the power grid. In our situation, this appeared to be quite a significant operation. Connecting our plot would require two additional high voltage poles, a new transformer and cable.
Furthermore, if new poles have to be put into the ground, there might arise a situation where someone else has to give his/hers consent about the placement of the poles on their ground. From what we understand, this is a formality, but still could be considered a hurdle… In our specific situation, the owners of Skinidin 17 have to agree about the placement of the new poles.
So what should you do when you buy a plot of land on Skye for building your house and there’s no electrical connection?
Check out whether electricity is available at reasonable cost. “Reasonable” is ofcourse not a fixed number, it depends on many things not all of them quantifyable in my opinion. One easy way to do this, is to get in contact with the local guy of SSE Power Distribution and check with him how to proceed for a quote on the connection or go online with the website of Scottish and Southern Energy plc
Check whether you need consent of surrounding landowners for your connection. Also, the Electricity Company should be able to tell you this.
Reply from SSE
October 11, 2005 | Leave a Comment |
Today we got a forwarded email Jon received from SSE, the Scottish electricity company. The reply is actually good news; check it out…
For privacy reasons we’ve edited out the names of the contacts and their phone numbers.
Dear Mr Howarth
I refer to your letter dated 28th November sent to our Oban office. It is always difficult trying to obtain the consent of landowners residing abroad and in this case we were hampered by the original documents going missing in transit. However the wayleave document has now been returned and everything is now in place to carry out proposed work in providing the new supply.
I will forward all the consent details to [...] in our Portree office and would advise that you contact him to make sure that the plant can be installed to meet your timescales.
If you require to discuss anything further regarding the consent process please do not hesitate to contact me or require to discuss any aspect of the installation work please contact [...].
Yours sincerely
[...]
Scottish Hydro-Electric Power Distribution
Chasing SSE
January 11, 2005 | Leave a Comment |
Today I received a copy of the letter Jon has written to SSE to summon them to move on with their works to bring electricity to our plot.
The bill for the connection has been paid to SSE months ago but they’re waiting for our neighbours, who don’t live on Skye, to agree with the placement of a pole on their land to support our connection. In the letter, Jon basically tells them that they the connection must be delivered by January 2006.
Let’s see what happens…
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