Mr Punter

You can get an architectural technologist to do your planning and building regs fairly cheaply. With your budget and time constraints you would do well to go for a simple rectangle 2 storey house. 10m x 8m footprint would give you an internal area of about 135m2. You could design it so that it can be easily extended later. Timber frame with brick or rendered block with pitched tiled roof is fairly low risk construction and cost wise.

Maybe you could use one of the band seal connectors but I am not sure if they can be used on an external stack. I have used them below ground.

Put the tape measure away. You will see how it fits together when the frame is erected, which will only take a day or two.

I know it is a trade off with aesthetics and decent daylighting but designing out the problem glass would be my first priority where site conditions permit. Wall is far cheaper and more energy efficient than glazing. I often see self build and high end new build detached houses with loads of glazing, suffering from glare and overheating. With some of the brise soleil you can't even see out of the windows and it just seems like a load of expense for an affectation.

Hi and welcome Retiring at 60 is rare nowadays. Will you do any sort of work? Now you have project management and organisational skills in addition to your construction industry experience I would have thought you would be pretty useful.

The team doing the erection will have the drawings. The panel heights will be about the same as the room heights. The widths can vary.

Get a pry bar / claw bar thing like this https://www.screwfix.com/p/dewalt-claw-bar-10/4777c Really useful bit of kit and you can even get at nails driven below the surface. It does not mind if it is used aggressively either.

There is a fair bulk of screed there too. If you can chuck it down for the base of a road and track it in it may be better than muckaway. Is the blue stuff another layer of insulation?

I have used some of the industrial aluminium stuff where they use a machine to zip the panels together onto halters fixed to the roof deck. This was supply and fix.

Hello @Thorfun. An acre is a good size plot. There a quite a few members in Sussex. I am a developer rather than self builder. @sussexlogs has a blog of his build here. He is more hands on than most.

I have used the Airflow Icon fans in this situation as they can be switched individually and have different controllers (delay start, humidity, pull cord etc) depending on requirements. They have an iris that closes when the fan stops so you don't get air from the other fan on the same duct run.

We have triple glazing and either toughened or laminated inner and outer panes. We are in town and mid terrace. You could break in with a decent size excavator though!

I hate alarms. Maybe a good idea on a not-so-secure building site but there should be no straightforward way of breaking in to a new house. Almost always false alarms, caused by user error or alarm fault. Car alarms are even worse and it is often low value cars that seem the worst culprits.

I can see no reason why the left side would be the principal elevation unless the building is effectively 'side on' to the red dotted line you have drawn and the wall abutting the dotted line is a secondary or flank wall.

You can't move the service head = where the mains cable comes in - yourself. You need to locate it somewhere it will not get damaged or failing that, have it disconnected, then a new service routed later.

I am pleased to note you blamed the kids first. Well done, that is what they are there for. Blocked drain below ground can cause issues. Lift a cover and have a look.

Well @jntabbycat I would be really interested to see the plans and sections for this when they have been worked up. It looks like a fair bit of this will not be timber frame as per your detail but the door and window. The corner post will need to be structural. Be good to show the external paving level, as on the SketchUp it looks level with where you have the sole plate.

One of the firms @Temp linked to above does reclaims http://www.matclad.co.uk/sussex-press-reclaim-230-x-71-x-20mm

Mostly I see the blue pipe just coming into the building, then a stop cock, then copper.

Well that is going to be a heated site meeting with the boss of the firm. Can you get someone experienced who does not take any s**t to accompany you? It looks rough to me but I don't know what an acceptable standard is for this stuff.

Because the land is (I think) the garden of his main sole residence.

Good grief!!!

You can sell the plot(s) with no liability for CGT and pocket the cash.

2 nozzles if you don't use it all at once. Because it is not pre-mixed it keeps OK. They sometimes have a screw cap as well. Yes, grind away!

The 2 part resins set pretty fast. Don't spend more than 5 mins on each fixing hole. Some of the resins use a standard mastic gun, so these may be better for you. Make sure you clean your holes!! Squeeze the resin onto some scrap card until you can see that it is mixing properly in the nozzle. Insert the nozzle deep into the hole and squeeze the trigger as you withdraw, so the hole is about 2/3 full. Turn the studs anticlockwise as you insert them. It is quite satisfying to do if you are fixing something simple.