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Plagiarise all you need/want but make it a better document and share it on BuildHub in the future for others to continue improving ( and sharing)....As @Ferdinand has prompted make a donation, if you feel it adds value to your project, You don't have to pay the Council (LABC) and an independent BCO. It's your decision to choose one or the other to suit your specific needs. There are pros and cons for each of them, including differing costs, responsiveness and expertise in differeent areas of the coountry. It may also be a decison taken in conjunction with your requirement/need and subsequent choice of Building Warranty provider, who may have specific requirements for BCO and their involvement with approval of specific stages during the build process. There is lots of good info, including tales of good and bad experiences in the Building Regulation Blog. I will review the Attachments and see what I can post on here, without too much effort.

Most brownfield land has small quantities of contaminants. You may need to commission further WAC testing to see how the material should be classified for waste disposal (inert, hazardous etc.) as this will influence the muckaway cost. You may need to replace the soil in any soft landscaped areas with new and have it re-tested and a verification / remediation report.

WHat are his recommendations? Imo you need him to say clearly that remedial ground works are unnecessary, or similar words, or how they can be made unnecessary which proposals you then incorporate in your plans, otherwise you could land a very expensive Plannign Condition from an overcautious LPA, added for mainly better-do-it-anyway reasons.

+1 to all the contributions so far. I have built a MBC timberframe house and used an independent BCO. I started off by sending a full MBC design package, including SE Caculations and foundation design, asking to be advised of anything else that was required for BC approval. I received the following " Do you have a building regs specification as I need to do a plan check and comment on compliance with the building regs ..." I then responded "Not sure what you require for the "building regs specification" - can you please clarify for me? I have sent you a calculation and drawings package for the timberframe and the foundation. What else do you require and I will arrange to provide it? " He responded " with all jobs we normally see a detailedspecification to cover aspects such as fire/ means of escape. ventilation,staircase design etc the plans provided so far cover the structural aspectsand thermal requirements " I asked "Do you an good example that I could use to ensure that I cover everything and i will then quickly develop a detailed specification specific to Eastcroft?" I never received a response. So I did some research online, including Websites such as http://www.buildingregs4plans.co.uk and looked at what @JSHarris had done and what @Bitpipe was experiencing with questions from his BCO at the same time . I then proceeded to develop my Building Regulation Specification and sent it to the BCO with the following note " I have done some research, looking at similar documents, and produced the attached Building Regulation Specification for your review and comment. I have endeavoured to detail all the relevant information but if you require more detail the please advise and I will revise to meet your requirements It refers to various drawings, calculations and related documents (which I attach for your reference and convenience, as I have already submitted most of these documents to you before) and have included them all in one zipped folder for your convenience " I never received any nore questions or comments, though he did visit site on a few occaasions and I kept him updated with regular emails and photos. I requested approval of a couple of areas - proposals for fire/smoke detectors installtion and forjuliet balcony fixings - to which he responded and gave approval. I attach my Building Regulation Specification without the attachments. On reflection, it is not particulalrly good document and I could have included a lot more detail/definition of various systems. I thought that it would require updating with specific information, as the BCO asked questions but the questions never came and I never updated it... On the positive side, it did force me to read and understand all the Buiding Regulations as they applied to my build. Building Regulation Specification for new build house.pdf

My house will be an all RCBO (stand fast fire alarms and fridge/freezer circuit), but it is over the top specified 16 way 3-phase board (which gave me spare capacity) and i think the electrician said he was going to install a 24 way board anyway, so I will have the space/capacity to do whatever we require.

We have been very happy with the windows and doors to date. We had a couple of issues on supply which were resolved and the installation was completed efficiently. They are very high quality windows and were relatively expensive. That said, they were priced competitively against all the main competitors and we completed a full commercial and technical evaluation, including flying to Scotland to look at an installation of similar specification by Gaulhofer, before we finalised the contract. We had real problems geting interest from some company's to quote We finalised the contract in May 2015 at 1.4 euros to £ . @bitpipe also installed Gaulhofer windows in his new build house. The UK Agents are ECOWIN

I prefer this type of finish, as previously mentioned I would hate to run plasterboard to the floor and get it damaged by kids toys, hoover. What about it getting damaged by say water from a steam mop or something similar.

We've just finished our Howdens kitchen and the OH, who fitted, it was impressed by the quaility and ease of installation. much better since the last one we did a few years ago. I thiink you can acheive a lovely kitchen by using fairly standard carcasses then use better quality worktops and appliances. Its was only a small kitchen for our renovation house but came in at around £4k. That was units, appliances, handles and oak worktops, a; from Howdens, in their Oct sale.

My missus hates me having tools in the kitchen but I may suggest some dedicated shelves like you've done to keep the boxes of screws, glue etc handy!