Mr Punter

Hi and welcome Are you going to live in the new house or the extended one? Make sure you take professional advice on VAT, CGT and stamp duty.

Seems OK. Looking back we have spent £4,500 for 1 bed flats up to £11,000 for 4 bed houses.

Crushed concrete is cheap and works fine. You may want to top it off with a bit of proper type 1 to get a smoother finish for the final paving or tarmac.

We once had a standing seam aluminium roof that would make load cracking sounds due to thermal expansion / contraction. Sun and cloud was the worst. We had it unzipped and 50mm Rockwool stuffed into the 40mm void and that sorted it.

There are five sets of 3 in my house!

I have got one of these https://www.screwfix.com/p/evolution-r255sms-255mm-single-bevel-sliding-mitre-saw-220-240v/1062x Cheap enough and cuts most things. Use the laser as a rough guide only, especially if you are doing a bevel cut. I use for steel, ali flashings & gutter, joists, plastic, flooring. You won't impress proper trades on site but it gets the job done and nobody will steal it!

Perhaps have a talk to the Conservation Officer. Where we are, they are often keen to see something that blends with the older buildings but is not a pastiche, so aluminium / ali clad in black is often acceptable, as well as being lower maintenance than timber.

I would take the roof off and have a proper one designed. I assume you are single storey so you can include some rooflights and maybe a mezzanine with all roof insulation at rafter level. If the floor is good you could just add 100mm insulation with underfloor heating incorporated, then 22mm chipboard and engineered oak to finish although I don't know if this would work with the existing door and window arrangements.

If the concrete is dust free you don't need a primer.

No, I have not done any householder applications. I think they are probably more for extensions etc but the £200 discount possibility looks tempting!

The householder fee for a non-material amendment is £34.

You could work for a brickwork contractor. They will get the work and tell you what they will pay you. You must hold a CSCS card to do site work. You will be best to do formal training like VQ Diploma.

NMA is fine for windows and doors moving / removing / resizing. Quick to process (28 days) and cheap (£34?). If you want to move external walls or change the ridge height it will need a minor material amendment (normally an application to vary the condition that states "To be built according to xxxx plans", where you will substitute in the new plans. Both these alter the current consent, not give a new one. Anything more major that significantly deviates from the approved scheme will need a fresh planning application (ages to process). Nobody cares about internal walls but you may as well include these if you are doing any of these applications, just to bring the as built in line with the planning drawings.

I have ordered a TD 800/200 8 inch inline fan with reducers to the 6 inch ducting and a variable speed controller. Should be a powerful beast. It is being shipped from Poland so probably get fitted next week. I will test it with stir-fry in a wok.

I think for what you have got that is a very reasonable cost. I have seen lots of features costing far more and being fairly disappointing.

A fantastic finish. Plastering looks nice and flat too. Looking at the walk through I assume they did the survey and install as second fix after decoration? Are we allowed to know the cost?

The lack of newel post gives the stairs a modern look, but most firms base the structure around newel posts. We cut our newels down and fitted stainless handrail and glass balustrade.

Should be fine in medium density blockwork if they are non-loadbearing, otherwise you may need to ask a structural engineer.

Make provision for a water and electric site supply. If you are outside Conservation Area, remove any trees that are in your way. Secure the site against unauthorised entry.

I wouldn't be using a digger to "find" a live water pipe, especially if it may be brittle.

See https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200130/common_projects/45/paving_your_front_garden Should be fine. Mostly drainage, dropped kerb and footway crossover as issues.

Not sure why you think it is 4m away. It should be fairly simple to find the water stopcock just by following the line of the black pipe you have traced. You should not need a digger as the lid should be at ground level.

This is a cut string. It is a more traditional look. I don't think it would work with your glass infill.

We have a Rangemaster extractor above the range cooker. It is ducted up through a services room and out, all via 6" ducting. Not bad, but quite noisy, so I wonder if anyone could suggest an inline fan I could mount on the wall of the services room? I am looking for something powerful, with speed adjustment. I would be OK if we used the Rangemaster for lighting and grease filters only and maybe had a separate control for extract.

A cut string is where the top part of the string between the underside of the tread and the riser is cut out for the tread to sit on, instead of it being routed out. It is an aesthetic thing mostly and it works well where the outside of the string is visible (not for stairs built in between 2 walls).