Mr Punter

Are you near neighbouring structures?

It really looks like the BT was livened up. Is the BT near the pole outside where the buzzard bought it, or must it have happened in the router?

Given the square areas there will be almost no difference on performance.

Ivy has a waxy finish on the leaves that stops the glyphosate sticking. You can add other chemical to the glyphosate - I have read washing up liquid can work. Also better (but a bit late now) if you cut back old stuff and wait for new leaves, which have less wax.

This really should be his problem, not yours.

I am not sure where you are in the country but that is a very large house and the fees look very very low.

You can shutter the verandah bit off completely with 6 x 2. Concrete either side, with one side 40mm lower then remove the 6x2 before the concrete completely goes off and infill the gap. Threshold would be easier to just scape off when it has set a bit. This is not that hard to do.

Just phone or email a couple of structural engineers for a quote to size the steel and spec the bearings. You will need drawings, including the roof makeup. The cost is v. low. They will spec something that will work without being heavier than needed, which will be far better when it comes to installing it.

I understand that in the current version of SAP the score improves if you use mains gas. It is also cheap to buy, install and maintain a gas combi and you get unlimited hot water.

It would be normal to use shuttering to stop the concrete flowing into the area where you don't want it. 40mm is not very much. If you post the drawing and a picture of the excavation someone may suggest the simplest way.

I thought the @pocster just blackmailed them with the CCTV footage he saves for such occasions?

I have often topped up the sale prices for new build warranties to the actual sold value. Have done this with NHBC and Premier Guarantee. I imagine they all do similar. I will be pessimistic about the resales when I get the cover so it saves up front costs, then pay the extra as sales are agreed. You are better off getting the developer to up the value with Buildzone than getting a 3rd party top up.

I like to spray unwanted vegetation with Glyphosate a couple of weeks before cutting it back. Buy Gallup 360 or similar if you have a large area and follow the dosage and instructions. That picture looks like it was taken in February.

End bearings for steels are also important. Normally concrete padstones but sometimes steel posts are required.

If it is exposed it would be best galvanised. A Universal Beam (UB) would be most common. You will need advice from someone on the section size.

Sometime the rubber seals can get dislodged during fitting. If you have a multi tool you can neatly and easily cut into the pipe and use a band seal coupler to repair.

I had some full fill Celotex (now withdrawn) boards fitted. Some were upside down / cut badly round openings / back to front. Bricklayers can be decent at brick / blockwork but mostly the insulation just gets in their way.

I am considering blown EPS beads for a new build with brick outer, 140mm cavity and plastered blockwork inner. Rigid board insulation is often prone to lashups, with gaps between boards, at corners and around openings, as well as damage on site.

Looks a bit cleaner than earlier. The pocket door looks promising (and expensive).

It would be a big job to replace the suspended timber floor with a suspended concrete floor. Probably easiest with concrete beam and block but will need insulation, then your concrete topping. Allow 150 depth for the beams, 100 for insulation and 75 --100 for the concrete topping. The new bit of floor could be ground bearing if you are not on clay.

140mm wide blocks are widely available.

Also, make the supporting block and Marmox 140mm so it supports the whole of the soleplate as it is currently straddling 3 materials which are unlikely to be completely level with each other.

Cavity tray and weep holes. Holding down details for sole plate. What size is the block under the Marmox? I would want something factory sized here, not cut with a bolster.

I am also bored of grey. I have gone for black on the current property and will do white on the next development. Colours can look really crappy unless very carefully selected and muted.

S3 is the slump. The higher the number the runnier the mix. This sounds a good system. Do you mesh the concrete? Is it 75mm?