Moving a large metal pylon? Or move the house?

[notanotherunicorn]

Has anyone ever successfully had a metal pylon removed?

We are thinking of taking over a farm that has one of these a mere 50ft from the farmhouse. We have small children and will probably not want to live there unless there is some hope of having it removed. It is actually the family farm so we'd rather not see it go to a stranger. We wouldn't be able to afford to pay more than £50000 to have it removed/buried however. It would be wonderful if there was some obligation on electricity companies to bury or move pylons next to homes for health and safety reasons but it appears that is still not the case.

Alternatively has anybody ever heard of moving a farm house to a different location on the property to get away from the pylon? And what that might cost? (it is also on a site of scientific interest). We would not want to knock the house down as it is about 400 years old and I doubt we would get permission to do so!

Is this highly unlikely?

Moving the building would, I'd expect, cost a lot more than the cost of removing the pylon.

It's a very old house so there'd need to be work to check it was sound enough to move, so specialist structural engineer fees.

Probably some kind of permit to move the building (or just plain old planning permission) and any associated legal fees with that (even if it's on your land, it would change the deeds etc).

New foundations dug.

New utility lines put in and re-routed (so plumbers, electricians, gas engineers).

Groundworks to prepare the ground you're planning to move the house too - check it can take foundations, has no surprises underneath, etc.

As it's an SSSI I'd imagine there'd be some requirement to have an impact study or surveyor from that angle, and I believe you'd need consent for any works of this scale.

A path cleared for the hydraulics platforms to be able to move the house - is the site clear and able to take the weight of the house along the entire route? Again, I assume this would require a land surveyor or structural engineer of some kind.

Then excavation work is done on the existing property site to cut around the foundations, if there's a cellar that complicates things, and it's put on the hydraulics and moved to the new foundations, everything is reconnected, etc. This part alone will be expensive, and it's not commonly done in the UK, so I imagine the price will be more as it's a specialist service.

Then there's the potential for damage, the house settling weirdly on the new foundations, etc... you'd have extensive insurance for it I assume (again, probably have to be specialist insurance!) but still, it'd be a hassle.

Having said all that, it's a very cool idea and I love seeing how buildings get moved (it's a bit of a weird special interest of mine as I work in property)! But it's an enormous amount of work and cost for an individual, rather than a business, to bear.

You might have better luck paying a very good lawyer to try and find a reason for the energy company to have to move the pylon!

Would probably be cheaper to build a new property on the land than all that wouldn’t it housemaus?! Sounds like a huge undertaking but yes, very cool to watch I imagine!

Moving or burying the cables sounds like a cheaper and more long term solution as it means that the house would be more desirable to future buyers as well as for you. We declined to buy a great house many years ago due it being built near a pylon. As we walked underneath it and got the buzzing static feel and hair stood on end we both said we didn’t want to raise our DCs somewhere that did that, not knowing what the impact of it would be long term. I think at the time (20 years ago) there was no evidence that it would cause health issues etc but it just felt wrong.

Isn't there a national scheme to bury electric cables? I thought some near dorchester had recently been done.

Are you in the England OP? I'd be very surprised if you'd get permission to relocate a 400 year old house (or be able to afford to do it). Better to explore your options for getting the pylon moved - but to be honest, I don't suppose that's likely either.

I doubt moving the house is even possible and if it is, it will cost a fortune.

Unfortunately I suspect moving the pylon will also be very expensive - would guess
six figures at least. You’d need to talk to the energy company to get a better idea of cost. As far as I can tell it tends only to be done if the pylon/cable is in the way of a major building scheme or transport project, which suggests it’s very expensive.

I have no idea about the pylon, but if all the land is a SSI I would imagine that getting permission to move the house would be really difficult as it’s effectively getting planning permission to build elsewhere. Unless there is an existing barn or something on the other side of the land. What about selling the house off, farming the land and living elsewhere. Or you could investigate getting permission for a non-permanent structure elsewhere on the land which might be easier. I’d speak to a planning consultant in the local area I think.

Some details on the Dorset initiative. It is to enhance an AONB.
dorset.nationalgrid.co.uk/project-updates/route-options-aug-2017/
I wonder if the National Grid would be interesting in undergrounding the cables over your land. I think underground cables cost less to maintain, but do cost a lot of upfront capital to bury.

My nan got a pylon moved in the mid 80’s. I supsect she harrassed them until it was easier to move the pylon than deal with her calls .

It was a fairly straightforward move I think. It was on their property, it got moved across the boundary line into a field next door.

Moving the house? Is that a thing? My house is right by a pylon. I'm not sure what you're afraid of but it hasn't caused us any problems in 15 years.

I’ve recently moved into a house that’s 50 meters from a local distribution pylon, 4 cables on a metal structure. It’s very visible from the back of the house but after living here for nearly 5 months I don’t even notice it. It’s silent and was a compromise I had to make to live in a semi-rural location where electricity cables are more likely to be visible.
Compared to our previous house where we could see and hear the M6, it’s bliss!