When you buy a piece of land how do you go about getting it connected to things like the energy grid

SneakySpectator

This might seem like an obvious question but believe me I've been searching google for a while now and just can't find a straight forward answer.

Check out this piece of land that's for sale 

It's an amazing plot, perfect for a nice semi secluded home in a country that feels like you're living in a can of sardines most of the time. 

But how do I know if it's even possible to connect a home the the essentials like the energy grid, water, sewage, gas, internet fibre cables etc? You can see in the image there's houses either side so it's obvious to me that this essential infrastructure does exist beneath the ground, but what's the procedure to actually get the pipes and facilities extended so they connect to your new home as well? 

Is it as simple and calling up the local council and saying you're going to build a new home and need the pipes etc laid, then pay the costs and they'll come out and do it or what? 

GDB2222

You'll talk to the council about planning permission, which may be a problem. You'll talk to the local utility companies about connecting you up.

You can't assume that all the usual utilities are available. In the country, some folks use wells for water, septic tanks for sewage, oil/wood/coal for heating, mobile/satellite internet ... 

GDB2222

That's an amazing piece of land, by the way.  If there's any reasonable chance of you getting planning permission, it's got to be worth perhaps a million pounds an acre.  

QrizB

SneakySpectator said:

You can see in the image there's houses either side so it's obvious to me that this essential infrastructure does exist beneath the ground

Obvious to you, perhaps, but it might not be there.

I knew a family that lived in a lovely spot in the woods. They had no mains water, no mains sewerage, no gas, no electricity no phone service. Water was collected from their roof, sewage was a septic tank, electricity was a diesel generator they ran a couple of times a day.

Looking closely at the photo I think I can see a utility pole near the property on the right, but can't tell whether that's phone or power.

tacpot12

Talking to the neighbours is the easiest way of finding out what utilities are available in the area. If the neighbours on either side have gas, you can be pretty confident that you can get gas without it costing an exorbitant amount. 

Make a list of all of the services you want for the plot, and try to talk to the neighbours about all of them in one go.

You will need to be on very good terms with the neighbours if you are going to be building next to their properties, so make sure you emphasise that you are going to be a great neighbour and a considerate developer! 

Once you have verified which services are available to the neighbouring properties and which are not, you can have a think whether any of the services that are not available are show stoppers for you. (Fast Broadband might be if you have to be able to work from home, mains gas might be if you don't like heat pumps). 

Generally the suppliers will only give you a quote if you own the land, so you need to do a lot of research and try to get as much information as you can via any means to get you to the point where you are happy to purchase the land wihtout having these quotes. You need to knowing that the services you want can be connected easily. If it is easy, it will be relatively cheap. Unless there is a connection point within 5m of the boundary to the property you can expect that it will not be easy and therefore the cost could be unexpectedly high. Capacity is rarely an issue, but could create an unexpectedly high cost. If you do buy the land, you will need a contigency fund for utility connection costs! 

user1977

You can easily get utilities searches (e.g. like this) which will tell you what utilities are in the area, whether that's to connect up to them or to avoid digging through them.

Costs can be vast if there is any significant distance for the installation though, and the companies work to their own timescales.

Cairnpapple

You might find it interesting to watch the Grand Designs episode Malvern:Hill House (season 18 episode 1). As I recall, they'd assumed that because their plot was on a road in a town, utilities would be straightforward. I briefly lived further round the same road and would have made the same assumption! However for some reason at least one of the utilities had to have a really long run to connect and it ended up adding a lot of cost and time.

Edited to add: there's a brief description in this article  https://www.severntrentsearches.com/a-grand-flaw-in-house-designing/

I had forgotten that they ended up having to pay for a 3 week road closure, ouch!

user1977

Also the other Grand Designs one where they (IIRC) bought an urban plot at auction and only later discovered they had an even smaller plot to develop because of mains sewers which they couldn't build over.

GDB2222

Cairnpapple said:

You might find it interesting to watch the Grand Designs episode Malvern:Hill House (season 18 episode 1). As I recall, they'd assumed that because their plot was on a road in a town, utilities would be straightforward. I briefly lived further round the same road and would have made the same assumption! However for some reason at least one of the utilities had to have a really long run to connect and it ended up adding a lot of cost and time.

Edited to add: there's a brief description in this article  https://www.severntrentsearches.com/a-grand-flaw-in-house-designing/

I had forgotten that they ended up having to pay for a 3 week road closure, ouch!

In the photo, you can see that they had to leave off a corner of the house, because they'd spent the money on the utility connections. 

Bookworm105

so why do you think planning permission will be "easy"?
ask the houses on either side what mains connections they have.
 If they do, expect connection costs to run into multi tens of thousands of £ by the time trenches are dug and junctions are installed 

doodling

Hi,

What's that "groove" running across the land?  If it is a public footpath (or some other right of way) than there is a risk that it would be difficult / impossible to extinguish or divert.