Sparrowhawk

This. When making your own cables you can do it with cheap tools, but it's way easier (and IMO reliable) with the expensive (better made) ones. By which time you could've bought 50m of ready made ones and saved yourself the hassle If you're doing a big project, can recommend https://www.cablemonkey.co.uk/. I've listed one of my leftovers in the marketplace but also have more.

We're on holiday in Scotland and restaurants with mains in the £16-25 band are busy. It's crazy. Us? We go to the Co-op and get their very good pizza for £6.45. Or if in a city and feeling flush, M&S Food hall. For £25 you can get a better meal for 2 than most reasonably-priced restaurants will serve.

If it's underneath the soffit in shade I'd chance an indoor cable, otherwise I'd get an external one. The difference is in the cable sheathing and its UV resistance. For a temporay tack-up your indoor one would be fine. [Edit: or permanent, so long as if it stops working in 10-15 years you want to get back up there and replace it] Best of luck tonight.

Got space for a compost bin? I've wrapped mine in glassfibre insulation (inside PVC sheet) and a bin full of lawn cuttings halves in volume in a week.

That would work. Did you consider partitioning the space top to bottom on the plan rather than left to right? In our house it's done that way and so you can get into either straight from the bedroom.

@Conor Is it comfy to sit on? London friends have the £2.5k stuff and it is comfy; I don't want to spend that but do want something I'd choose to sit on. I like our current flexible woven seats on a metal frame, but apparently they look "awful"

You've got the installation certificate(s) x3 so who's going to check when you sell. Those certificates are all solicitors ask for. There is no loophole BTW - they could've done one submission without installing the trickle vents and it would break the rules just the same.

On the coast near Bournemouth

Thanks for remembering @Blooda! I am still looking, though getting into London is its own kind of nightmare 😀

What blades do professionals use with multitools? The ones that came with my DeWalt went blunt the minute they tried denser timber than cheap pine.

It would if the rooms above didn't already have them. Taking cupboard and floor space from the rooms above we could use up to 1.5m from the edge of the roof to place them - with a vertical wall to allow the bedroom to restart at the upper edge of the Velux I'm not clear if this will get light much further in

The internal leaf's wallplate is 50mm so assume the external one matches?

We're exploring ways to get more light into the north-facing ground floor rooms at the back of our house. The doors need replacing and we had the idea of having glass above the doors to make the sky visible and let light deeper into the rooms. A builder came round yesterday and reckoned the max this can be raised is 2 inches because the steel will take the rest of the space. Does that seem right? Any other options to consider? Internally there's 50cm above the doors plus 20cm of blockwork in the floor void; externally there's 40cm before the soffit starts.

Snap. As another UK based software engineer I end up so jealous of the US west coast engineers, for whom money flows in. Mind you living in the USA helps too. I've also chosen not to do the London grind any longer and settled for a mid-5 figures salary. If I wanted to go back to commuting and working for a $Bank then I'd expect low 6 figures but prefer the life of a consultant with smaller clients.

Yup. That's why my house is full of half-finished projects.

Then, and I know it won't be what you want to hear, the responsibility for the lack of headroom lies with you. It would have been nice for all if the structural engineer had sense-checked this, or the builders before they put it up; but they didn't and in the end whoever is project managing is responsible. (There's some depressing threads on this forum where people signed off on their window orders trusting the measurements in the order were correct - and even though the window company made the mistake, the responsibility lies with the one who signed). None of that helps now, save to say that apportioning blame to anyone including yourself isn't going to be helpful. People on this forum will be able to help you come up with a solution. We're rooting for you. And as someone with neurodiverse siblings and a bit that way myself: most forum members can't/won't synthesise a 3 page thread in the way you (or I) do. They're dipping in amongst their busy lives. So to get the best help, start a new thread with floorplans, photos and a clear statement of one or two problems/outcomes you need help with. Post a link to it in this thread so ppl can jump across. Something that I haven't seen mentioned yet: the joist is going to need fireproofing, which IIRC is a minimum of 25mm plasterboard around it (someone here please correct me). So that needs taking into account re headroom too.

It is. I'm more jaded than usual at the moment trying to organise work, and experiencing everything you have said and more. I get that people are running businesses but the base work is shoddy before even getting to the lack of attention to detail or insulation. My FIL is dealing with a commercial project atm where the construction company cut lintels short and packed with mortar, didn't pack under the pads (more large mortar chunks), mounted steels onto the current unreinforced concrete floor without a foundation, and a new wall was built bowing from the start. They overcharged by 50% which doesn't bother me (it's business) but doing a crap job... that's wrong. You hope. There's a fair few horror stories on this forum of what the contractors for specialists get up to...

OT but what level of changes are you doing that got BCO involved? More than just sticking IWI internally while renovating I guess? I'm considering a remodel and so curious at what point BCO can start looking beyond the structural "internal load bearing walls removed" and start prescribing what's done with floor/wall U values?

Cripes, does he not know that Fensa and the rest are not legal requirements when having a window installed? But then if he likes to boast of his trade body memberships...

The top of the range 3G noise reduction ones ('0062' type) are much better. I can now sleep through many rainstorms (2 large Velux windows in the bedroom) which was impossible before with the 2G ones.

How should that have been done? It's exactly how ours here is (built 20 yrs ago)

Thanks for the reminder @DevonKim I didn't find the original one I was thinking of but as I've cycled round I've photographed green windows.

Surely not... /s

Hi @Sophiae and welcome to the forum. Funnily enough I was reading old threads yesterday on this and no-screed. Here's a selection from 4-5 years ago. They do focus on the problems that can happen with no screed and I'd like to hear from forum members if the workmanship of the slab has improved in their experience since then?