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Magic Man seems to have been recommended several times https://www.magicman.co.uk/

@DundeeDancer Are you a hoary old landlord-developer with all the scars, or fairly new to this with only a few years and properties? I think my most useful comment would be that while tenants and purchasers will look at bling and finish when they move in, the place not to skimp is the stuff that means your tenants will stay for 6 years not one-and-a-half, and love living in your flat, since those extra 3 tenant changes could cost you the equivalent of six months rent. If you run the numbers a 5% higher rent takes 2 years to recover the loss of one month of rent if you have a one month longer void - without all the tenant swap costs. Even a 10-15% higher rent will take ages to cover all those. I would argue for not skimping on, for example, sound insulation, ventilation, energy efficiency, very bottom of range appliances, letting the first T choose the carpet colour, perhaps allowing pets (dog tenants stay longer) Mira shower, walk in shower not a telephone box type, and so on. It is very easy to get the things right that make a tenant move in, but avoiding the things that make a tenant move out is equally important. As one example, I have just had a T move into one of mine whose previous 3 bed end terrace was running energy bills of £200 per month. In my semi of the same age they will be saving about £120 a month, as they should come in for £750-1000 per year - not itself very good but reasonably OK and very comfortable. All depends on your market, mind, Ferdinand

Just been on my roofing course provided by Catnic using Tata steel standing seam roof. Great one day course provided free of charge incl lunch. Full demo on how to set out and complete your roof and the tools you will need. I know @Barney12 has had an awful experience with Colourcoat Urban which uses the same product but since I found out Catnic are now supplying this product I cannot speak highly enough of the service they have provided so far. Numerous queries over our roof design have all been answered almost immediately and the guy presenting the course said you can contact him with any questions. You get a very helpful installation booklet, T-shirt and a certificate to go on the wall when the house is finished.

Hi all, I am in the process of receiving tender quotes back for my new build residential family home. This is my first project. I am going down the route of a 'main contractor' who will buy the materials as well, apart from Kitchen and bathrooms. The question I have is , are these quotations normally negotiable? and if so by how much on average? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. Vel810

Best people to go to in my view. google magicman

I'd recommend a few more walls and a roof

The first of my Internorm windows have finally arrived and are in. Sliders are another month off I'm told. All good and I am very happy with them - only one issue and that is the glass in the back door is clear and it should be satinato. This was all correctly specified ticked and signed off on order so who is responsible for the error I dont know. They say they will sort.......actually it doesnt look bad so if I can get chunk off the price may leave as it is. At this stage I am very happy I stretched to the Internorm they are lovely windows. Fingers crossed for the remainder of the ordef.

I'm another satisfied ADW Ltd customer.

The solid block walls were quicker to errect and also easier to lay, (I'm not a bricklayer but when I was younger I built my own study/garage extension walls with them!), only seen thin joint used on commercial buildings, domestic builders don't like them I think, as more difficult to compensate for variations in levels and plumb by varying joint thickness, etc. With internal insulation on batterns you get a small cavity (dot & dab is alternative maybe?) and need to allow for where you might fix heavy items later like radiators with extra timber batterns and then record with photos before the batterns are covered over by the themal plasterboard! All external walls and no issues with passage of sound in my case. U-value tables for solid walls (Celcon /Thermalite, etc) and req'd insulation are given by many local councils, see here and scroll down:- http://www.haringey.gov.uk/sites/haringeygovuk/files/u-value_guidance_nov_06a.pdf

I think the general (not universal) level of incompetence is what people are referring to when they complain about window companies. It's a fact that a significant proportion of people on this forum have had poor experiences with window suppliers, and it's rarely due to something that would have been picked up by the sorts of checks you're talking about.

Now that's where I struggle on both counts!

That's very good advice from Ferdinand - especially around prioritising good ventilation and acoustics - get those two right and you knock out 50% of complaints straight away. Allowing pets is more of a gamble, fine with considerate owners but I've seen some horror houses chewed up by dogs as well (plus neighbour considerations etc).

@Archer If you get your insulation from say Seconds and Co (they get the Kingspan not quite perfect stuff), then you could get it well below half price (I recently paid approx £10 a sheet for a pallet of 50mm PIR 8x4s, delivered) - so the extra materials will cost you the same as the half-amount via a normal channel. I bought a shed to store it and the rest in which I will reuse elsewhere later. You just need somewhere to store it, and to watch the site for the correct stuff. Can save thousands if you do it with other materials too. F

For info my recent extension in South London was built with 215mm thick Celcon Solar solid block work walls, external face 20mm smooth render, internal face 25mm treated batterns plus 60mm thk Gyproc Thermaline Plasterboard & skim to meet current Building Regs.

They are not hard but the terminology can be a little daunting to begin with. JCT Homeowner Contract 2016 could be a good starting point for you. For smaller projects there is always going to be a balance between how far you go with due diligence - sounds like you already have a professional architect on board which is a good first step. Having a detailed scope of work, accurate drawings and a simple contract (which includes payment terms) are all useful ways of protecting yourself. Common sense and human decency go a long way as well in my experience. For larger, more complex projects we would look at things like contractor solvency, references, insurance (site, public liability etc), performance bonds and retention. This is likely overkill for your proposals and I am finding the same on my extension - the risk is spending more on professional fees as a percentage of work than you get back in value. If you are interested in further reading then the RICS Construction Project Managers Pocket Book is very comprehensive, alternatively Mark Brinkley's "House builders Bible" is a great accessible read.

Sorry, I obviously wasn't properly engaging on your previous post - so presumably with EPS beads you could adjust the width of the cavity to suit the required U value. It's essentially the method they use on retro-fit cavity wall insulation (Green deal type work). I guess that you would need a sub-contractor to because my understanding is that the beads are mixed with an adhesive as they are blown in. Not sure if that would be cost effective on such a small project but to be honest I've no idea, might be worth investigating. I hadn't thought about quality control - instinctively the single skin with EWI seems like it might be harder to get wrong because the final render coat goes directly on the insulation so any gaps should be pretty apparent. I might be way off on that though. The risk of flooding is negligible in my view but the planners are quite concerned - to the extent that the flood risk assessment is the only planning condition we have. Site is listed in flood zone two with between a 1 in 100 and 1 in 1000 chance of flooding in any given year. I'm trying to establish the datum height for these flood levels as are finished floor level is already about 30cm off the ground.

Thats all very well until you realise that you need to give your gonads a scratch half way up, you're then left with the most impossible conundrum "leave the scratch un-itched or drop your load"

A planning officer unhelpful and non committal, i really find that hard to believe