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We did but I think in theory you can build a house without full plans under a Building Notice - so I'm not sure if they can insist on them? Your permission letter will almost certainly have a condition requiring you build the house to the approved drawings. In the past you had to submit three copies and they stamped one set and sent them back with the letter. You can probably download a set marked approved from the planning portal if you don't have them.

It's very variable depending on the council and water co. Was there a condition in your planning permission saying you must get your surface water plans approved? We had one. Soakaways don't work on our soil type and during the consultation period the water co had said that they "wouldn't want us to make local flooding worse". We ended up proposing a rainwater storage tank with overflow into a pipe running along the edge of the road (piped ditch). This was approved by the planners even though it doesn't actually provide storm water attenuation. These days they might ask for that. I would propose discharging into the existing combined system and see what they say. If they object propose putting surface water into the roadside drain/pipe. If they object to that propose a storm water attenuation tank with discharge into the roadside drain/pipe. If they still object propose rainwater recycling tank. If space is tight I believe storage tanks can be closer to foundations than soakaways.

The formal grant of planning permission includes a copy of the drawings that they approved. They want a copy of both the letter and the drawings. Doesn't need to be the original. We sent photocopies.

Basically it's a tank of hot water that delivers heat to both the heating and the DHW. The room thermostats control a pump that takes heat from the thermal store and send it to the rads/ufh A thermostat on the store controls the boiler telling it when to put heat into the thermal store. So the store acts like a buffer between the boiler and heating/rads/UFH allowing them to run semi independently. Bit like a gearbox in a car which matches the engine with it's limited range of rpm to the load/wheels. The main advantage occurs when you have an oil boiler as they always run the burner flat out, they don't modulate/throttle down when the heating load is light. Instead they cycle the flame fully on and fully off. You can imagine how driving a car with a two position throttle would be less efficient. The thermal store allows the boiler to run flat out for longer but also with longer gaps when the flame is off. Gas boilers benefit less as they can modulate down the flame. Especially models that are fully modulating. Not all can modulate down as far as others The down side of a thermal store is the pumps and heat exchangers needed leak more heat than a regular DHW tank. As you are looking at a gas boiler I'd probably do without a thermal store but choose a fully modulating boiler.

Our down pipes go straight into 110mm pipe bends with rubber adaptors/seals. We have a lot of leaf fall which fills up gutters but it's never been a problem for the drains themselves. If we wanted to rod we would need to remove a seal and probably a section of down pipe. I use a wet vac and some plastic waste pipe to clean the gutters. The trick is to have a short 40mm section that is cut at an angle which goes in the gutter but as soon as possible that opens up to 50mm pipe for the bends and down to the wet vac. Works on our 1.5 storey house. Not tried a two storey.

We opted for a 300L tank and a powerful 40kW boiler. This was able to keep up with our two high flow rate showers and similar size family to yours. The tank feeds a secondary loop that keeps the pipes hot in distant parts of the house so no waiting for HW. The problem these days is that such a powerful boiler is too big for the heating load. You can have issues getting it to throttle down and stay in condensing mode. To solve that our tank is actually a thermal store. The boiler heats the store and the store provides both heat/UFH and DHW. This also solves the problem that oil boilers don't modulate/throttle down. It can run flat out when heating the store. This has worked well for us but the store and associated pumps, heat exchangers and pipes leak a lot of heat into the room it's in so probably not very efficient. It was also hard to find engineers who understood the issues.

Is the CIL an issue in your area?

Ok I think I've got it. You're essentially just a self builder hiring a builder to do the frame and finishing it off yourself using trades. The building co must zero rate everything to you. Possibly excluding Architects fees if billed separately. Ditto other consultants. Trades you hire later must also zero rate everything to you. If they supply materials these should also be zero rated to you. Not all trades understand this and it's a problem if they aren't VAT registered. If they don't understand then show them VAT 709. It may also help if you give them a certificate (a letter) confirming that the work they are doing is on a new residential building and giving all the detail like site address and planning reference number. They should reclaim/deduct any VAT they pay on materials on their quarter returns. If you buy materials you can reclaim the VAT at the end but only within 3 months after completion (or is it 6 months now?). Think it's VAT417NB. You can use a spreadsheet with same headings. Keep VAT invoices/receipts. You cannot reclaim VAT paid in error (eg on labor or to the builder).

+1 Add more wool type on top of the existing. If he currently has insulation on the floor of the loft then the loft space itself is/should be ventilated at the eaves. Typically air enters at the eaves on one side, goes across the loft above the insulation and out at the other side. The idea is to remove any water vapour that gets through the plasterboard and insulation and prevents it condensing on the rafters. This is sometimes called a cold loft. If he adds more insulation on top he should try and preserve a gap at the eaves. There are eaves tunnels available to maintain this gap allowing you to stuff insulation down in there without blocking the ventilation. If he wants to convert the loft from the above cold loft to a warm/heated loft then its not as simple as adding foil insulation at rafter level. You normally have to redesign the ventilation scheme. How you do that depends on the type of roof membrane. In many cases you must create a 50mm deep ventilated void between the rafters and replace the ridge tiles with a ventilated ridge. eg so air can enter at the eaves, go up this 50mm void and exit at the ridge. The amount of insulation needed between and/or below the rafters is considerable and needs to be calculated. A single layer of a foil type insulation won't meet Building Regulations. You at least need a layer of rigid foam insulation as well. A random combination of insulation some at rafter level and some at floor level would be ineffective, and potentially damaging in the long term. Avoid spray foam in the loft at all costs. Sadly too many cowboys about and many mortgage companies won't lend on houses with it installed. The main issue is it messes with proven ventilation strategies mentioned above. There are ways it could be installed without issue but mortgage companies don't seem to appreciate the subtle differences. Some people have had to get it removed just to sell the house.

The VAT and tax rules are different depending if your company is acting as a developer/builder or if this is a self build. You need to discuss which this is with your accountant. If the company is developing the property I dare say there are tax consequences of the company owning the house and transferring ownership to you later, not to mention issues with insurance and more that I'm not familiar with. However it sounds like you might be acting as developer in a personal capacity eg self building, because your accountant mentioned reclaiming it at the end. Companies normally reclaim VAT every quarter where as self builders reclaim at the end. Note that self builders can only reclaim VAT if they are building a house to live in themselves NOT for sale/rent/lease out. Companies can only reclaim the VAT if the property will be sold, not rented or leased out.

deleted my reply as I see you are a company.

Yes it appears to suggest you just browse to the URL.. <motion_IP>/psovrd (replace <motion_IP> with the IP address of the device) then to <motion_IP>/cancel_psovrd. I don't know if it will actually return a web page each time.

Seems others have had similar issues but I couldn't find a recommended solution. Some say firmware, some say WiFi range etc. https://community.home-assistant.io/t/shelly-motion-sensor-battery-draining-fast/568442 https://www.facebook.com/groups/ShellyIoTCommunitySupport/posts/7363638563735444/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/ShellyIoTCommunitySupport/posts/5593851320714186/ I wondered if something was trying to talk to it too frequently increasing power consumption due to increased WiFi traffic? Found this on that last link above..

Perhaps check that all vents are moving air in the right direction. eh that the bedroom vent is an incoming not an extract by mistake?