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Welcome. I think you need to ask your estate agent Principal. If you are selling soon they will give you an opinion for both options - but you need the staff member with the long trousers. Ask several EAs, then you will need to use your skill and judgement. Ferdinand

For the bath room I'd recommend some wall lights, that's what I have. I found a nice subtle candle type fitting from B&Q which I then changed to led lamps so they ran cooler ( the halogens supplied made the glass very hot and they were low enough to lean against innadvertantly ). They're on their own switch so the wife can lay in the bath with no glare from the spotlights. Led plinth lights at low level can do the same thing, and look super cool. I also put led strip lights under the mirrored cabinets to give extra 'mood' lighting and make such features of the room stand out. Looks the daschunds dangleies.

Sounds about right - you obviously have met my husband!

Replaced an UVC in a £1M house, and the guy said the pressure was high. I out my gauge on the outside tap and it went to 10bar and the needle bent so badly I had to bin it. Surveying the static cold mains pressure is absolutely critical and should never be overlooked.

Thanks Jack, the support & advice is appreciated.

We signed a JCT with our groundwork for the £120k basement stage of our build - I agree that it was a bit wooly in places. Thankfully we never needed to look at it - I did write an appendix with specific items called out that were not clear on the engineering drawings and some agreed site logistics and behaviour. For MBC and the windows, I used their contracts but made a few edits in my favour. A few contractors required a return of a signed quote with some basic Ts & Cs and the rest are more or less here on a handshake. The golden rule is to always agree ahead to keep a reasonable amount of money in reserve until you're satisfied with the work /goods, the best incentive to get them to complete the work to the agreed standard. I've also tried to be as aware as possible as to what's happening and what's planned to happen and to ensure that the spec is being followed and being quick to politely but firmly call out when there is a deviation. We have had a few issues but I've found all contractors willing to sort out issues if discussed rationally.

This might be to do with what I think is called brick "factoring" in Mark Brinkley's The Housebuilder's Bible. Apparently once you've contacted one source for a quote, no-one else is allowed to supply you the same bricks. Apparently the trick is not to give anyone your address until you're sure you can get what you need. Have you tried ordering from the other branch directly? Maybe get your wife (or a mate - let's face it, the building trade is a bit sexist!) to order?

It is absolutely all about playing the system. We have been having issues with our electrics, in the fact that 7 houses electrics are all tripping at the same time around 5-7 times a day, SSE still can't work out where the issue is but while they have been it trying to fix the issue for 2+ weeks I have had a phase removed, the temporary meter switched over and the cables moved higher up the pole for free, something that originally they wanted over £1.5k for, just for making sure they had tea/coffee and bacon roles. I have also had all my wiring and appliances tested to check it wasn't us cashing the problem, which it wasn't but the feedback they have was that it was one of the neatest well laid our electrical installs they have seen.

Sounds good. N-E is a good angle for a conservatory. Other points: 1 - Put a couple of underfloor ducts in to likely points in case you want wiring in future - eg if you are going to want a run for an outside wall socket at the far side in the future. I used this: http://www.screwfix.com/p/tower-corrugated-conduit-white-20mm-x-10m/38177 2 - I put a 300x300 underfloor space into a corner of mine, which I used to hide the gubbins to drive the electric ufh, with a loose tile on top. 3 - Electric sockets at head height are surprisingly useful for eg televisions for extra wall lights etc. One of my recent 2 conservatories had these especially for the tenant to warm her puppies from ir lights. 4 - I think I might suggest, though it easy to add later, putting in a Switched Connection Box spur now, in case there is anything in future you may need to hard wire in. 5 - My top tip for inexpensive conservatories if you are so inclined is to take advantage of the silly people who put them on the wrong side and are replacing them with real rooms 5-10 years later. Ebay has a lot of decent secondhand conservatories for a few hundred or a couple of thousand, and there are companies that will collect it and install it for you for perhaps £3000-4000. That is cheap enough to throw away after 7-8 years use if you get a posh one new. See: http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&LH_Auction=1&_nkw=conservatory&_pgn=2&_skc=50&rt=nc eg 20 x 10 ft but this one is dismantled so caution is warranted. You need to decide whether you trust the seller. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Conservatory-UPVC-/222225971804?hash=item33bdb33a5c:g:ImcAAOSwbsBXlm0j The keys are to take your time and wait for the right one, then go and look at it first and make sure it is a good one. I bought a 4mx6m conservatory - full height upvc type not dwarf wall - for £600, and installed it on a proper slab with a solid roof replacing the polycarb roof, insulated below, above and to windowsill height with 70mm celotex, and full electrics, and a radiator, to give a 4 season sunroom at about £270-280 per sqm all in except for my time. Ferdinand

That is fixable, for example by paying a credit balance onto the card account.

If you look really closely you can see the king in the corner cutting the grass one blade at a time with his new multi tool

Aside from this offer, October is apparently the best time to buy at Howden's. They have a big sale, and they're very responsive to offers (especially towards the end of the month) so they can turn over as much stock as they can. We were told this by one of the contractors we had onsite and he was dead right.

We were thinking of having PIR in one of our en suites but decided against it because it you get up in the middle of the night you would be blinded by the light going on. So it will be a switch outside the door for us, no pull switches.

We have real switches too Went one step further and put PIRs in the hall with low level LEDs so if someone nips out at night they don't need to find the lights.

There are a few = Buildzone, Protek, Buildstore amongst others. You will find the underlying insurer is normally Zurich though so don't expect huge variation in price !

I took the view that the public liability risk was near-zero before we started work, so didn't insure the plot as it stood empty (and found out that the previous owner, who'd owned it for several years, hadn't insured it either. The contract with our ground works company gave them complete responsibility for the plot, including site security and everything on it. This meant that there was no point in me having separate insurance in place whilst the ground works were going on, as it would have been subsidiary to the ground works company own insurance, and so not really worth paying the premium for. I took out insurance similar to the above, with the exception that I don't think I had personal injury or possessions cover like that; I think possessions cover was £500 only, as an incentive to not leave any tools on site! I took out insurance the day I took over responsibility for the site, which was the day the ground works company finished. This was because that was the point where I assumed responsibility for site security, safety etc, and so insurance was needed. One tip is to shop around and make sure you get a good deal, one where you can extend the policy if there is an over-run without incurring a punitive additional premium. I found that all the on-line insurers were inter-connected, so once you've had a quote from one you will either get a similar quote from the others or they may refuse to quote. On renewal I found that they lock you in. If you've had a policy from one insurer and you need to extend cover for, say, another year, none of the insurers on line will quote, they will just tell you to renew with your original insurer. In my experience that meant paying around 50% more for the extended cover. I ended up going to a broker and getting a significantly better deal than from the likes of Buildstore, and it may well be worth doing this from the outset, particularly if you tyhink you may need cover beyond the initial period.

So the reason the UC is so big is because he has put two uprights providing the support to the roof part way into the span. It may be worth checking if you can move those outward and angled to end on top of the supporting walls as then the lower UC is only taking the load from the centre (which will be less as you are putting the "arch" into compression) Flange detail will be critical as the bolts will be in shear if it's done correctly but the number and type will need to be part of the spec !

All rather relevant! Having done and faced exactly the same problems, i pretty much came up with similar solutions. I see no possible way not to have a thermal bridge of sorts. In the end i accepted this, but not happy about it. I cut the EPS away to a depth of 50mm, and then laid the block paving over it (50mm thick blocks). As PeteW suggested, stick the dpm to the slab just below the surface. Sure, i guess over time some water will get in, but surely not enough to worry about. Now the bit where i really got it wrong. Like you, my slab came forward of where the door ended up. Ie the door is recessed into the building approx 6 inches. Leaving 6 inches of slab outside. What i should have done is stepped the slab in here, but due to a chronic lack of planning by me i failed to take this into account. So now i have 6 inches of the slab outside If its not too late, have you considered cutting it back? Id there steel reinforcement i it? Last, but not least, because of my 6 inch sticky out bit, and to prevent water ingress, i took one of those hilti hand diamond floor grinders to the 6 inch bit and ground it such that it slopes away from the door. Also gave it a rather nice finish, which i then sealed with some sort of whizzo sealer. The reason for the last bit was so i could bond down the the door threshold strip, which in my case is the lowr door runner (see pic). So far not a single drop So yes, water right, but thermally a bit of a pigs ear. That said, i cant see you can retain a thermal envelope on a garage. PS, not sure where you are, ut if you wanted a borrow of sad floor grinder, you are welcome.