Mr Punter

It took me 4 months to resolve a small discrepancy involving a couple of strips of land that needed to be transferred between me and a limited company owned by me.

You will not damage a wall by excavating a driveway. Use a tracked excavator 6 tonne minimum with a pecker and a decent operator. You won't need to pecker near to the wall, just use the machine to lift those bits up. Let them know what you are doing and get it done in a day and mucked away.

Tiles with pedestals in each corner leaving space under for water to flow.

OK @Barney12 wins the Top Trump Sunamp tidiest install (I assume pipe insulation omitted for clarity) (sorry @JSHarris, runner up) and not a bulge in sight. Best slam dunk since the cat flap.

Is the 2753 kWh/annum the amount of energy it "loses"?

I have got a bog standard unvented cylinder and it is rated C. It does not give the annual figure, just says 85W. Does this mean 745kWh/annum?

I last used a firm call Ahmarra who manufacture doors and doorsets in Portsmouth They can do any size you like.

We have done similar where we had some steel framework from the ground up to the first floor floor zone. We packed the webs with timber - shot fired - and face fixed the joist hangers so they could be levelled with the other ends of the joists which were sitting on a soleplate on masonry.

I have done a town centre project where there was a risk of fire during construction (before plasterboarding) and this could have spread to neighbouring buildings. We had a risk assessment carried out and a solution engineered for compartmentalisation, which included Fermacell (the timber frame firms choice of board) to the flanks, part of the front and rear and some of the party walls, fire resistant flooring in the end units, 2 means of escape from the site. At one stage we were also going to have fire treated joists but this was proved not required. The Structural Timber Association have some guidelines to follow.

You can get oak stair nosing with a groove at the back but I don't know if it would fit with your floor.

Windows are a frequent issue and annoying as they are on the critical path for construction. Specification and window schedules, delivery, unloading and distribution around site, installation, weathertightness and correct operation can all go horribly wrong, especially where the windows are large and made overseas.

I imagine the fitters are not used to installing glazing units - probably almost always install factory glazed windows and doors.

Makes me itch just thinking about it!

It may be. Do the owners of the other land have the benefit of the covenant? If the house has been granted consent without any objections from the other landowner, it may be difficult to enforce.

Hello Robert and welcome. What a pain with the other plot! Are you planning on doing any of the work yourself or do you want to hand the whole job over? Do you have a build type in mind (timber frame, brick and block, ICF)? Often the architect will have worked with a couple of contractors so this may be a good place to start. Passivhaus involves more than just gaining planning consent and a standard building regs application, so your architect will play a vital role. Make sure you have a good relationship and understanding of what both parties expect of each other. Have you seen examples of their work and talked to other clients? Also, do they tend to get repeat business? Demolish and replace is very expensive, so be very clear on exactly what you want and make sure that is what is delivered. I am a small scale developer in Sussex and will be happy to give you any pointers where appropriate.

38 x 50 is one of the normal sizes for treated external batten. You can probably get a planed untreated version about 4mm smaller.

I think that the Euro is not likely to rally if we leave with no deal, so there may be little change in GBP v EUR. I understand that the WTO tariff is 3.8% so if you import 65% of your materials it would add 2.5% to your materials cost. Assuming that materials are half the total, it would add 1.25% to your build cost.

I heard of someone who had a large number of oil heated greenhouses. Thieves came in and just cut away any copper pipe in all the buildings, leaving the oil to spill through the open ends. The cleanup costs were greater than the value of the farm and thousands of times greater than the value of the copper. Can you not use the oil for a diesel car or site plant? You may need to mix it 50:50 with proper diesel as it is often kerosene which is less lubricating. Also I note you are using a crane. Would a telehandler be more flexible and less expensive?

What are the resale values for the flats?

We have had PIR factory fitted but that was walls only - we still had to do rafters. You maybe could get the roof done if it was made cassette style.

With a zinc roof we had they used a membrane that had a layer of plastic sort of like thick pubic hair bonded to it to the zinc was not in full contact with the membrane.

On the basis that the tree weighs hundreds of tonnes, are they seriously suggesting they will be able to replace like-for-like?

I first heard of the weak mortar issue years ago. Sometimes it was 1:15. The solution proposed was to rake out and repoint. My concern would be the remaining 80mm of the brick and all the block also laid in defective mortar.

Rather than a tee, do a y and a 45 from the drain, so to temp connection is in the right direction.

The 10mm gap is really good on soil stacks as the expansion / contraction of the pipe can cause noises. Probably not an issue with below ground stuff though.