My next door neighbour over the back has a small acreage divided into two paddocks fully fenced off, with an existing private road up to their house in the back paddock. They wanted to split the property up to allow their daughter to build in the front paddock. The daughter had to come to me, and the surrounding neighbours first of all to get our approval.
The property has its own water supply, and would be on a septic tank system at no expence to the council. It cost them $56,000 in fees, and other bullsh*t before they were allowed to even start building. They then had the added expence of insulation, and double glazing as if it was being built in the artic circle. Its all this namby pamby crap that will drive the young people off overseas to greener pastures, and cheaper houses.
In the bad old days before leaky homes existed, we used to drill holes in the bottom plate to allow the walls to breathe which equalized the pressure to stop the wall sucking water in and up. Today we fill the wall up with insulation like a thermos flask then try and find the leak. Macdunk