More drilling for coal mines

When reviewing all the planning and mortgage conditions we realised that the drilling for the mining survey had been done in the courtyard rather than the area where one of the barns had collapsed  therefore in the wrong place.The temptation was to just ignore it as the drilling took place actually only about 5 metres away from the proscribed location. However, as much as you can reason that the building collapsed due to poor construction methods (no foundations, thick concrete first floor) and general lack of maintenance over the years including leaking roof and no guttering, if it had been caused by mining we might find ourselves in a difficult position with the coal board. So, to cut a long story shorter, another 30m hole has been drilled, but this time in the right place. We haven't seen the report yet, but fingers crossed they don't find anything. Incidentally, this is one bill we haven't had to pay  - I wish this was the case for a few more of them.

Drilling rig on site (again). This time drilling in the back garden rather than the courtyard.

Once again I can report absolutely no building progress. Hopefully this is all set to change later this week, although with all the delays that we have had I will believe it when I see it. We have a little bit of brick sorting, stacking and cleaning progress which has been done most definitely not by me but by Mr Barn himself.

A nice and tidy log and brick pile.

A nice and tidy log and brick pile.

Now the fun begins........

......well at least it will when we've passed the planning conditions. Unfortunately, one of the conditions is to have a bat and bird survey......in May. What a pain in the proverbial. We had a bat and bird survey last year but it was on 19th April and is therefore no good according to Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, so another bat emergence survey has been booked. Another planning condition was from the Coal Authority. Apparently, their records indicated a seam of coal 2 metres thick only 5 metres deep and directly beneath the barns. We tried not to panic but the cost of drilling, the potential cost of filling a mining void and the uncertainty of it all caused more than a few anxious moments.

drilling

Drilling was organised pretty quickly and whoop-de-do we have no coal mines and in fact minimal coal layers were found and only one hole at 30m deep was required. Big collective sigh of relief (including from our bank balance too). Having said that it still cost £2k. How much would it have cost if a mine had been found? Doesn't bear thinking about, so we won't. 

The next huge hurdle was to get finance. Only one building society, the Ecology Society, would contemplate giving us a mortgage for our project. All other building societies shied away because we have 3 properties in total and not just a single domestic building, even though we only want to mortgage our own property. Anyway, we thought it was all in place pending the decision on planning until unexpectedly I was made redundant in September last year. Horror of horrors, this meant that we couldn't get a mortgage until I got another job and passed the probationary period, all within the mortgage application window. OMG what a mess. I kept having a Kevin McClould 'Grand Designs' soundtrack running through my head................you know, the bit where they cut to the adverts and he says things like "Will the project fail?...With no finance, no planning, and the possibility of a mine below these barns, is there any hope of these barns ever being completed?".  Fortunately, I got another job pretty quickly (with a 3 month probationary period) and some redundancy pay to add to the building fund, so it was all starting to look up until the Ecology sent an email in Feb to say that we had exceeded our application period and they would give us to the end of the month to finish off our application after which we would have to re-apply. However, after the end of February due to the popularity of  self build mortgages they wouldn't be able to offer a mortgage on a conversion. Basically, if we didn't get our planning and employment sorted out, we were without a mortgage. Stress alert. Stress alert. Well, after some urgent phone calls to Amber Valley planning and a probationary period completed, we managed to get the planning approval and then after a valuation on the property we received a mortgage offer letter. Phee-eeew. We are not out of the woods yet, as we now have a raft of mortgage conditions to meet as well as planning ones, but at least it looks more promising than it did in Feb! 

Some of the planning (and mortgage) conditions:-

  • mining survey
  • bat and bird survey
  • planning consent to building materials (bricks, tiles, windows)
  • planning consent to landscaping
  • bird and bat replacement housing (bird boxes, bat boxes)
  • life insurance
  • site insurance
  • legal searches - rights of way, water, electricity, boundaries
  • redemption of an endowment policy to provide additional funds
  • passing places and road repairs on the access lane

It goes on and on........seemingly endlessly. We are getting samples of bricks and tiles sent for matching to the originals and estimates for windows, wood pellet boilers, mechanical ventilation and heat recovery systems, bathrooms, kitchens.........etc. There is such a lot to think about, so never a dull moment. What will we do with ourselves if we ever get it all finished? 

We had a busy hour one morning hefting a load of brick samples around the buildings and taking photo's to try and match up the bricks. We don't want to use reclaimed bricks for the patching up if we can avoid it as they are relatively expensive and don't have any guarantees regarding frost proofing or salt leaching. Hence the samples from brick manufacturers using traditional methods.  

Brick matching session

 

 

Planning at last....

Whoop Whoop we finally have planning permission (again). It's taken a bit of verbal prodding to encourage the planning department to finish the job, but we actually now have a green for go. We have quite a few conditions to meet before we can actually start work, including a mining survey and yet another bat survey. The mining investigation is required by the coal authority as the area is riddled with mines, including some unrecorded ones at shallow depth. Damn those miners. The batty bat survey has us banging our heads against a wall as we had a survey last year by a bat expert who said that over the course of his three surveys at the barns since 2005, he has not found any evidence of roosting bats and the barns have become so increasingly decrepit that even bats wouldn't want to live in them anyway because they are so draughty. Bah and double Bah. However, despite all the conditions, we have actually been allowed to make all the changes we requested which is a very welcome positive note. 

Ecological, topographical, structural and borehole surveys

There has been a flurry of activity this week with a host of surveys taking place; structural, ecological and topographical. The first two have been updates to previous surveys with this being the third time for both ecological and structural. The good news with the ecological survey is that bats haven't moved in since the last survey. However, swallows have returned to their established nesting site in the barns, in fact on the day of the survey! We were advised that we could board up the doors and windows to prevent them rearing young but since our builders won't start until September, we've decided to leave them as by that time they will have left for sunnier climes. 

Another area we have been investigating and I forgot to mention last week, is that we have had a site survey from a local borehole drilling company for ground source heating. Their initial survey was to see if they could get their gear up the narrow and winding line. Fortunately they are confident that they will be able to manage but with a bit of a struggle. The dratted lane has kyboshed a number of schemes so far including a residential caravan and a big storage container! The next step was to visit the mining records office in Mansfield to find out if there has been any mining activity in the area we have designated for our drill holes. Much as I would have liked to have gone to the records office I was at work and so couldn't go. We are slap bang in the middle of a mining area so the chances of there being no mines under us was going to be slim and despite the map records being numerous, very old and in some cases full of holes, it looks like there are former coal seams running very close to where we would want to drill. Apparently this might not be a problem at all as it depends how deep the seams run underneath, but that would take a surveyor to decipher the records to be absolutely sure, so the information gleaned so far been passed to the drilling company.