Mr Punter

I have seen quite a lot of through colour render look grubby with unsightly dark grey and algae patches and K-Rend is no exception. I prefer a cement based render finished with masonry paint. I have used Weber OCR on blockwork and Weber LAC on cement boards. Probably others are just as good. I prefer the bagged products for quality and consistent mix although they cost a fair bit more than rendering sand / cement / lime mixed on site so if you have a lot to do this could be the way to go.

Agree with @ProDave wrt the stoves. This also means no flue pipe in the master bed. Perhaps move the door to the lounge in the annex down the corridor a bit. Make all the upstairs bedrooms ensuite. Make the ground floor fully wheelchair accessible including bathrooms. Consider shower rooms where seats and grabs could be added. The main utility is large. Consider a WC in there.

Hard work doing that. Did you knock up the plaster as well?

It is normally acceptable to have bare earth as long as it is weed free.

Yes @MJNewton screws horizontal or even better with cover caps.

The wrench will only work on a hex nut of bolt. The pliers will grip most things. What do you need to grip?

@Amateur bob will not build a 270m2 house for £200k. 150m2 may be doable.

It is quite poor. Nobody has done a decent job and it has not been managed properly. Not sure of the tanking design and junction detailing if this is supposed to be a wetroom. If they can't say I would take the tiling off. When I have tiling done the tiler is responsible to clean grout and polish tiles. I don't know how the floor drain works or if there is something else to go over it? I imagine the stub of waste pipe is behind the sink? I would want flooring replaced but please do it after the ceiling is plastered and painted and the extract hole done. Bodgetastic but it really did not need to be.

If they lend 4 x joint, then you would only need to earn £5k together with your wife's £25k. They may do additional affordability tests. Presumably you have no other mortgage? £200k is very tight for a 4 bed house, so make sure it is very small and simple.

Mortgage lenders will want to make sure you have an income that is enough to comfortably pay the interest, plus the capital amount over the mortgage period. For self build they will want to know you will have sufficient funding to complete the project as they will not want to renegotiate part way through. A multiple of salary is normally a quick and simple way for them to assess how much you can afford. I think you would struggle to borrow more than 4x provable joint income. The days of self cert mortgages are long gone.

Just to clarify, you will not be able to just do a Prior Approval permitted development application because the building was not B1(a) on 30 May 2013, so you need to do a full planning application.

I would go for a 926 door if you have room. I would make the opening 1000. If you have check reveals on 2 skin make the outer leaf 980.

Countries adopting the Euro managed similar price hikes at the time.

Some I have seen where you can spray retarder on the top after pouring then jetwash this off when you are built up ready to do the next pour. Sounds impractical to me.

I would not recommend this. With ICF you cannot see voids. You will not be able to see the water bars. Normal concrete is fairly waterproof in any case. If the external tanking is correctly applied and guaranteed it should work without waterproof concrete.

Serviced plots are def preferable. Nobody will want to dig up the main road for each service. It will cost about £10k per plot but will be well worth it for the buyers. Just having mains drainage connection, water and power makes the site welfare facilities so much better. Get in touch with the utils ASAP to work out how best to arrange them.

That being the case you will probably need a full planning application for the change of use.

A few points: The flat roof above the dining has not been designed with a fall and one is required. This may mean a step up to the balcony area from the hall. Price the terrace separately as it is likely to be very expensive once balustrade and paving is added. There is lots of East facing glazing to bed 1 so the sun will be there first thing (although in Scotland this is not a given). Curtains will be very hard to achieve and you may well get overheated in the morning. Unless you have mountains looking up I would go for normal windows or at least price them in comparison. Windows are much costlier than walls and far worse at insulating. Get the facing materials priced for comparison. I imagine the stone is fairly pricey so you could reduce it where the external fan units are. There seems to be some metal cladding, which can also be expensive. Look at any other local materials and get prices for these too. As per earlier, you could finish the roof in concrete tiles and save a fortune. Make the downstairs shower wheelchair accessible and fit the walls out for future grab rails, seat etc. Consider making it a wet room.

Perhaps be a bit wary if you sell off the plots individually. You may want to bind the buyer to build as per approved plans or complete works by xxx, otherwise they could apply for consent for additional units, flats / HMOs, never finish the works etc which could impact the value of the rest of the scheme. I don't think planning should be too much of an issue as the consent runs with the land. It is not uncommon to have several developers working on a site with a single planning application. It may be that each buyer will need to get some conditions signed or part signed off and you would undertake to get others, such as archaeology, contamination, access etc.

@ProDave what is a CPC and EICR? Could not find it in the glossary but maybe they are more specialist acronyms.

What was it before December 2018?

The dims on the drawings are to the outside of the timber frame but the walls shown include the thickness of the battens and cladding.

You can normally change office to resi under Permitted Development rights if the building is not listed and you do a mini planning application. The windows will not affect this. You will still need building regs before you start and if you are splitting this into flats there may be quite a bit of work required.

Get a person with a Total Station to do this.

I think water will be the biggest challenge. If you have reasonable amounts of rainfall and you mow regularly and remove the cuttings it will look fine.