Mr Punter

You will need your mortgage provider to agree your scheme. You can then go on to build the new house, sell your existing house as a new title, retaining the land on which the new house is built.

I know you have already started work, but did you explore demolish and rebuild? You save 20% VAT and do not need to compromise. You could even reuse the stone.

The cost of keeping the borehole / pumps / sterilizing will outweigh any water bill.

I have seen a few situations where UFH pipes float in concrete and can be damaged by power floating / polishing, so be a bit wary. The slab will take a long time to heat and cool as I am sure you are aware.

You will need something to prevent a fall from the doors. Often BC are not keen on alterations that are less fire safe.

I think you need to heel and toe. Take out the glazing beads and redo. Lots of links on youtube.

You could guess £3,000 per metre for a rough budget, so £345,000. You will need GA drawings and spec to get proper costings.

If you want to change the flats significantly it will mean fresh planning and building regs. I seem to recall 20m2 being the cut-off for mortgages. You may find that you will do better to leave it as is.

With just 50mm end bearing I think the stone lintel will look wrong. Go with 150mm minimum.

Can you do the slab removal as part of the rest of your groundworks? Get the foundations done at the same time? If so, get a BFO digger with driver. Once the slab is ripped out it will be fairly muddy. Nice to get to oversite ASAP. +1 to getting an expert to do the RAMS.

That being the case you did well to withhold payment. Can you get BCO to meet the groundworker on site to agree a workable solution? Maybe the groundworker will need to expose part of the pad to prove the depth / thickness or whatever?

I think it is down to who was responsible for getting signoff from BCO? If nothing was agreed they should know better than just pour the concrete. Was BCO ever discussed?

Sometimes they have the opposite effect as miscreants on electric motorbikes can evade police cars by zigzagging through the barriers.

I think the Optim-R is ferociously expensive. What is limiting the available height?

I use one for "adjusting" scaffold.

Without consent from the Council you risk prosecution for criminal damage. The top photo looks like a wheelchair could get through. With the bottom one it may be better to just remove the timber rail from the left side.

I assume you meant 50mm batts + 20mm woodfibre board. Do you know the old and proposed u values? Are the walls nice and dry? Have you done any external work on them?

Give it a good jetwash to remove the dusty crap.

You get those louvred vents at the top of lift shafts. I am not sure why you would have one on a garage.

Hello and welcome Philly. It sounds like you are making decent progress. Hopefully you will not have to live in a building site for too long.

A cold water accumulator with a pump may work for you.

My brother has 20m piles for his house. He should have used them for his orangery too. Instead the orangery was on a raft and had to be demolished after a few years. He is high up on clay soil 50m from a river with mature willows around. We have 18m piles but we are very near a river. With piling if the soil is weak you need to go down until you hit something to give a decent bearing.

Use a roddable bottle gulley at the bottom.

Freehold management companies need to recover all costs and this will normally be from freehold shareholders or leaseholders. The surveyor is not working for free and will bill their time which in turn will need to be recovered.

Speak to the builder and if you get no joy, contact Environmental Health and the Party Wall surveyor. Quite how they have ended up with 20m piles when (I assume) the ground investigation suggested 5m is a concern. 30 piles for a small property sounds a lot.