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Why not fit 25mm insulation between the cross battens? Avoids any deformation and improves the insulation level.

Another alternative might be to fix the diaphragm to the underside of the joists, but you'd have to check with your SE.

When you say a "mains tank" are you saying this tank is owned and maintained directly by the water supplier for your region? I didn't know this was a thing. If not then I'd have thought your claim would be against the seller. Is a sensibly sized cold tank of your own an option to even out demand if supply restores overnight for example? Not ideal I know but not unheard of

If it's foil to foil that's stuck, rather than paper, and you can get a corner up you could try pulling a length of string held at both ends between the boards to break what may just be surface tension between them. Like using a wire to cut a clay pot off a wheel. If the foil gets slightly damaged you could aluminium tape to repair or use a separate VCL if you're relying on the foil for that purpose. Some lower in your pile may not be as tightly stacked anyway.

We've used Keim paints for breathability - excellent but expensive - with lime plaster. As it sounds like breathability will be limited here by gypsum boards then as @Redbeard suggests, trade matt is probably a decent choice

The 'Future Homes' site has a spreadsheet for calculating overheating by simplified method along with other useful guidance here Building control should accept that if you completed it correctly and get a pass.

It seems to depend very much on who you speak to. We also had to re-register. The quotes seem a bit arbitrary too - first quote we had for an urban infill plot was over £4500. This was between two properties that each already had fibre to the home from a pole just across the road! (If your quotes are above £2k building control can't require you to install)

I agree with @SBMS that this is a disqualifying event, whether you want to take the risk for a 30 day holiday let versus a probably 5 figure CIL charge plus 20% penalty for failing to notify a disqualifying event depends on your own appetite for such risks - if you're advertising on a site like Airbnb there's a clear evidence trail for someone to find. If you've any awkward neighbours that adds to the chances of someone making trouble. I think you can rent out a room, take in a lodger, but not let out the whole place, regardless of time period

Sorry but this looks very poor. You'll have been supplied with plans identifying each joist and which of the hangers you've paid for should be used at each connection. The design will rely on those hangers being used correctly. I guess the last pics may be just to place in rough positions prior to hanging as they're hopeless, but even with that benefit of the doubt some of the others where they've cut the ends and have minimal bearing are surely wrong. If your joist supplier is local maybe they'll visit the site to take a look, I think it's very likely some of this will need to be re-done and some joists may need replacing. Your building inspector will want to see these have been installed according to the design, it's hard to see this would pass. Are you staging payments? I'd want to keep something back if this is typical - I just looked at your profile, this is the same builder that installed the wrong insulation below damp?

I'd say there's generally more value in keeping the annexe, I certainly wouldn't spend to convert back to a garage, but then I'd probably leave it to buyers to decide unless you want to fit out the kitchen with something very low cost - guessing you took that out so it's not habitable to save council tax or something?

@Ben Brewin I think you'll need more than the 900mm starting height at the bed head - that would feel quite oppressive and the limited headroom would extend fast enough to make getting in and out tricky. Min 1200 I'd say. Looks like you have a lot of tree cover between neighbours so perhaps half a meter at the ridge wouldn't cause too many issues but yeah I think taking to planners is a good idea.

Have they bolted timbers to the existing rafters? Is that to a SE's design? From an insulation perspective, it looks like those new timbers may be wider than the original joists in which case the gaps between insulation and the original joists behind will be much bigger

Agree the layout works well in the footprint of the build. Do you have any section drawings or do you know what headroom the dotted lines denote? 5.9m isn't that much total, I wouldn't be surprised if those lines indicate 1.5m headroom. Is there any scope to raise the ridge height? Is it planning or the vendor constraining you?

So are you trying for a frameless effect like this? That site mentions Tectus hinges

Do you really need the door forward of the lining when closed or only when opened, to avoid skirting or something? Have you looked at parliament or projection hinges? The leaves are equal but maybe you can offset your drilling positions if you really need to have the door forward of the frame when closed

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.