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Flat roof light, thanks @Nickfromwales yes I don't think the upstand is too tricky to make but it's frustrating the BR figure is crazy strict compared to just buying one

Old thread but aargh building regs for upstands are infuriating - site formed should be 0.35 u-value but bought off the shelf up to 1.6 same as window is allowed!? Vendors wanting about £300 for something that's 0.58 seems pretty average. @JohnMo your Compacfoam solution sounds good to me

Take a look at https://www.pavingexpert.com/featur01 for a good level of detail and best practise. There may not be a lot underneath these and over time there'll be movement.

I think instead you should feel proud of yourself for taking the brave decision to walk away - for realising that now may not the best time in you and your family's lives and that this may not be the best opportunity to build what you want. It's easy to get so caught up in the dream of a self build that eventually you might sleep walk into doing it at the wrong time just to realise that dream. You've plenty of time to build a house in the future, there are always more plots (doesn't always feel that way!) and one day you'll find something that suits you better - better timing, better chance of building exactly what you want. Take your time, enjoy your kids growing up, keep your eyes open and look at each opportunity as it comes along.

I've done this for a small, say 8m2 extension with a friend helping mix and barrow, it's hard to mix well in a standard mixer and you need to keep the stuff coming. Your mix will probably be a bit inconsistent. I'd suggest adding fibres to give the screed extra strength rather than SBR here. I'd probably avoid doing it again and definitely avoid any larger area.

We've used Guttercrest. They're decent value for aluminium and good quality but still 3-4x cost of plastic and easily that many times as much effort to fix. Jointing can be tricky depending on the profile - read their installation notes. Bitumen tape, silicon and rivets. We fixed straight through the back of the gutters so no visible brackets and a very clean line but it's tricky to do this (or modify later) when your roof covering is on. It was worth the cost and effort to us, but I don't known how many other people noticed much - plastic guttering's pretty ubiquitous. The overlapped welded joints mean a few mm of water ends up trapped. Depending what the insects are like where you are, that may not be something you want.

I'd echo @kandgmitchell's point. You either have a tray with significant slope plus weep holes, or separate DPMs on inner and outer leaf. None of this is easy to correct retrospectively. I've seen similar insulation float around quite happily for weeks but it's not designed for total immersion and is bound to hold a lot of moisture afterwards for considerable time and I'd also be concerned it will slump down to the bottom of the cavity after flooding and leave a cold bridge between it and the batts above.

If you're renovating more than 50% of a thermal element (your roof) or 25% of the whole building envelope then yes, you do need building control, but as it's already a room then you won't be subject to other regs. An advantage of getting building control involved is that because there's an official record any improvement should be reflected in an EPC if you sell. If that's not important then a lot of people would just get on and make the improvement for their own benefit.

Bonds like Flemish look beautiful and made a lot of sense when every wall was solid 9 inches a century ago as the visible headers tied through the internal and external brickwork. Today, with cavity walls the headers are purely cosmetic and add expense in two ways - 1/ there's more units for a bricklayer to pick up and lay, then 2/ every two headers are made from cutting or splitting a whole brick. So you'll likely pay around 25-33% more for the bricklaying, plus more for the cutting and splitting. Cutting is expensive, noisy, dirty even wet cutting. Splitting is slow and time consuming. We've done Flemish and while beautiful (but sorry no pics) the number of three quarters and quarters we wet cut plus the number of halves we split added lots of time and cost. It's a nice idea but not the way to go if you want to build fast or cheap. If you want to stand out it's easier to do that by picking a distinctive brick and carefully selecting a mortar that compliments well. Consider an imperial brick size perhaps if you want to stand out? Laying 80-85mm can work out cheaper than metric 75 but you're likely to pay more for the bricks

Looking again at your earlier suggestion @-rick- I think that's the easiest way to create 3 bedrooms at minimal cost and disruption without much impact to saleability or value. It's workable even if you don't move the existing wall between bedrooms and just divide bed 1 pretty evenly in two with a stud wall. Bed 2 becomes the 'main' bedroom but all 3 beds are upstairs with a decent bathroom.

I'm guessing the wall between beds 2&3 is brick and supporting the ceiling joists, maybe the roof, so you probably don't want to move that. It's tricky as a growing family means you have to prioritise what works for you above what might maximise returns of any refurb. Another possible idea.. Divide bed 2 so you have 1500-1700mm as a small but functional bathroom (no window unless you can add one that side) accessed through existing door and a 2000*2500 box room benefiting from the existing window accessed from a new door onto the landing. That's small for a bedroom (bit below minimum space standard) but okay for a child and a decent home office later thinking of resale. Personally I wouldn't give that much downstairs space to a bathroom esp as you already have a downstairs toilet. I'd rather keep a reception room downstairs and have a small upstairs bathroom than a large downstairs bathroom.

In your situation I'd only consider two options: 1/ do nothing and you may get another 10+ years just replacing the odd slate. Solar will be cheaper next year anyway 2/ do the job properly as @Conor described and end up with a new roof and better solar install Installing solar over the existing will inevitably cause a bit of damage and if the roof starts failing due to age anyway, all that solar may have to come off for proper repairs

Does your insurer know of your renovation plans? Are they happy to continue cover and do you know what the premiums will be like? You're substantially enlarging the property (and their risk). How much are you raising floor levels? Every little bit will help. You mention options like tanking - you might want to look closer at these before rushing into further work that may make some measures more difficult to achieve. If I were a future buyer I'd want to know every step had been taken to avoid future flood risk and even then, be mindful that inevitably a lot of buyers may be put off completely by previous flooding - that may limit future value and so (even if you plan to be there forever) perhaps bear that in mind when budgeting. On a cheap, practical level you can get toilet bungs to stop flooded drains overflowing inside.

That's the essence of BuildHub for me - it's because you'll get input from a wide range of professionals and self builders with hands on experience applying similar designs to their own builds who can share that experience to help you avoid pitfalls either around the design, the construction or the likely costs of achieving something similar. Our architect's been great but isn't the single arbiter of design and while the client isn't always right, they will be paying for the end result and living in it. For example, @DownSouth sharing their own real world example of why a thin strip of cladding below the windows may not work well, or your own observation that, of course, EEW are simpler than the protected staircase this architect appeared to be relying on..

It's hard to go much higher than a 20% hydrogen blend as that's what will work with the millions of old gas boilers that will still be around for decades to come. There's only one gas pipe down your street, you can't pipe a richer hydrogen mix down to just the newer boilers because it's not safe to fuel all the older boilers. (Most hydrogen is produced from gas anyway!)