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I still maintain that if you have a house with a low heat loss rate, even under worst case conditions, then a dead simple, but low hysteresis, thermostat should do the job. Say the house takes 10 hours to lose 0.5 deg C in winter (ours is a bit longer than that, more like 24 hours or so). As soon as the temperature in the room drops by 0.1 deg C below the set point, the heating comes on. The heating system then has several hours to pump heat gently in to the house before the temperature drops much below the set point. Likewise, as soon as it has gone 0.1 deg C above the set point the heating will turn off, but the house tends to carry on warming up a bit over the next couple of hours, from the residual heat in the UFH pipes and the time taken for heat to travel from the warmer core of the slab to the surface. It's this latter issue that makes the house comfort level so dependent on keeping the UFH flow temperature as low as possible - the more heat there is sitting in the core of the slab the greater the temperature overshoot when the heating turns off. Overall this system seems to be able to control the house to around -0.2 deg C, +0.7 deg C normally, a fair bit better than the hysteresis on some of the pretty crappy thermostats that have been around for decades. We do occasionally see an overshoot to around 1 deg C over the set point, but that's usually because of a bit of solar gain. We never experience temperatures dropping more than about 0.2 deg C below the set point, no matter what. Personally, I can live with that. That range of temperature variation around the set point seems perfectly acceptable to me, so I really don't see why there needs to be any more complication. Best of all, it uses off the shelf stuff, so can be fixed quickly if anything fails.

I suspect it was 50mm drain pipe, something like this: https://www.drainagecentral.co.uk/50mm-Push-Fit-Waste-Pipe-x-3m-W9800 Just to be clear, I'd still use this if I were doing it again. I just wouldn't bother with the strips of insulation and plastic tubing.

Please just get a schedule of works in duplicate and each of you sign them with the agreed amount. It protects both you and the builder and is so simple to refer back to if confusion or disagreement should ever occur. The document simply states for £X your getting XYZ, no more no less. Trust is a beautiful thing, but confusion at the details stage can add a big chunk of time ( £ labour ) so be very aware. As a contractor this method has saved me countless times where Mr Blogs thought he was getting 20 spotlights in the kitchen diner but had only paid for 8 etc. I'd never do it differently. Edit to add : Oh, and of course the very best luck moving forward

That is strange re Scottish Water and Road crossings. All our services had to cross a single track road. I got a price for a road crossing from an independant contractor, most expensive. Then I got a price from SSE for the road crossing, a little cheaper. Then I got Scottish Water to quote and they were by far the cheapest for the road crossing. So we got the water connected first with SW (or rather their appointed sub contractor) making the road crossing. Before, or rather as it was being filled we laid in ducts for electricity and telecoms then they closed up the road and resurfaced the road. So definitely go back to SW and ask for an "all works" quote. The road crossing added £1000 to the water connection bill (which was similar to yours) but everyone else wanted nearly twice that for the road crossing. It took 2 guys with a mini digger and a concrete breaker half a day for the road crossing so £1000 is still plenty for that. No road closure order or traffic lights needed, just a steel plate they could slide over the trench when someone wanted to pass.

To @HerbJ 's point above, make sure steels have penetrations spec'd at design stage. Soil pipes and MVHR are the largest services that need accommodating but even a cluster of insulated 22mm pipes or a run of cables to a distribution board can take up significant space. Our downstairs loo ended up sitting above a perfectly boxed in square of steels over the basement which meant that the soil pipe had to go underneath them and get boxed in. Luckily not that noticeable. You can make a feature of an awkward vertical pipe run - we have a faux 'fireplace' box that hides a dog leg pipe run on one side of the living room and a nice feature alcove that hides another.

As per @JSHarris you need to understand the basis of the quotation. One thing to look for is the contingency that the contractor has built in - ask the direct question - and then how much contingency you need to add over and above. Check how much is in the costs as "price sum" and also how much they have allowed for general items such as internal doors and ironmongery. For example, I can get a standard white 6 panel door with 2 brass hinges and a barrel lock with brass plate handles for around £30 all in, fitting would be 1 hr of joiner time. So in this instance I would price in around £55 per door. If you chose an oak veneer door at £70 with a decent brass handle it would need 3 hinges and therefore your costs could rise to around £130 per door. Doesn't sound a big rise until you work out there are around 12 doors in a standard 3 bed house ..! Your "quote" has just gone up by £900..! Ask the contractor what he will charge as a handling fee for you buying items too - some add a 10% charge to cover the issue of fitting non standard items. Last thing is to keep a log of all discussions on site - triplicate book is ideal - and you can agree the changes requested and they can be priced and agreed as you go so there are no surprises.

At the risk of this being read by said customer.......let me just say that I'd have part tiled that wall.......but that's with 2 boys who pee like one of those Crazy Daisy's you get for the garden . The wallpaper had 3 coats of water based matt 'varnish' so is, erm, "splashback" so to speak. .