ProDave

You will need a supply vent to feed fresh air in to the bedroom, and an exhaust vent to remove stale air from the en-suite. What don't you understand?

If your budget is small. why are you looking in the two most expensive parts of the north? Do you really want to be IN a city? We moved here 17 years ago and our requirement was "within half an hour of Inverness" and we ended up 23 miles north, where building plots are about 1/3 the cost of plots close to the city. And 5 years ago we bought our second plot that we are now on, 1/3 of an acre for £50K

Adding bedrooms increases the value as does a posh kitchen or bathroom. A porch and taking away parking space will not add value. Opening up inside might if it makes the property perceived as more modern

Food colouring?

In spite of what your expert says, I would do those percolation tests. Until you do, anything you do is guessing. If the land does not drain at all, then when it rains it will become a paddy field. So it must drain to some extent, just probably rather slowly. And why consider the soakaway under the front? You have more area under the back garden so to me that is the obvious place to put it. Or perhaps both if you need a really large area.

I would not build a "fireplace" I much prefer the look of a free standing stove, just on a hearth, and a twin wall flue pipe. Choose the right stove and it does not even need to be a constructional hearth.

Mine has a "don't you even think of doing that" look.

And which one was it where they finished off a couple of internal wall by fixing random non matching bits of old wood? I said to SWMBO "That's what I could have done with all those pallets" The abbreviated version of her reply was "no"

I am also watching Grand Designs Australia. The last one, the building inspector picked up the formwork for the pool was 50mm outside the building envelope. I would be mighty pissed off if my BI was that much of a jobsworth. The pool being 50mm out of place would have made no difference at all.

But with the new regime of no FIT payments, battery storage, when it get a bit cheaper will be a way to use 100% of your PV generation. It is more about what's good for an individual, than what's good for the grid as a whole. Grid scale storage, or any form, is someone elses problem.

By the style of house. These old croft houses were very often originally built with only one door at the front.

There is the innocent "oh is that new? well it was there when I bought the house." Honest. One house I have been doing a lot of wiring alterations had had a whole raft of alterations without building control. I did tell the guy I think he is nuts and will likely have some big issues if he ever sells it but he doesn't care.

I did the @AnonymousBosch "just do it" method. I carried them up the ladder a few at a time. I think I calculated I climbed 3 Munro's up that ladder in the process. I didn't do them all in one go, that would have been too monotonous. I would carry a batch up onto the scaffold, then lay them on the roof. Then repeat a LOT of times.

But how did you get 200mm out if both you and the builder measured the ground marks? As well as marking the centres of each trench, did you not also set up profiles that mark the inner and outer edge of each wall? These are used as a sanity check for digging the trenches and for setting out when you start building the walls.

Mine are supported at 600mm centres and have not sagged. Perhaps go 400mm centres if in doubt?

Another thing if you are in Scotland, you need PP for an ASHP unless you have a very large plot. Thankfully I realised while my planning was in and amended it to include the ASHP.

I used the bitumen stuff on my and it lasting well.

Come on, be honest now, and I the only one that had to google that?

6 degrees and wintery showers forecast tomorrow. And the cold weather is heading south.

I looked into it for my build, and the cost of the slinky pipe and all the fittings, and the brine to fill it, way exceeded the cost of the actual heat pump. And that was not including the cost to install it. Then add periodic replacement of the brine and disposal of the old. An ASHP was a no brainer by comparison. The GSHP also puts the noisy bit with the compressor inside your house.

I think the crucial thing here is you did not alter the opening or change the lintels. you only knocked out below the window down to the floor. That being the case they might not want to see much of what you actually did. Did you take any photographs?

I have seen that before. Garage built on strip foundations and wall built straight up. Slab poured afterwards (usually when bricks only a few courses high so you can work around it from the outside) Often a strip of wood fibre board is inserted as both a level marker and a bit of an expansion gap. That has probably rotted away.

I will be interested to hear (no pun intended) how that works. e.g if you choose to listen to the same thing in 2 rooms (e.g an on line radio station) I will be mighty impressed if both remain in sync. If they don't it could sound horrible. My solitary Pi plays through the downstairs hifi with sound available in 3 rooms, and also via cabling and a different amp, in our bedroom. All play perfectly in sync.

What are you running on those? I have just one Pi running Pi Music box

Probably not normal, but it was an unusual situation that I did the digging and the builder did the pour, foundation build up and timber frame. They wanted to be sure the trenches were in the right place, othwerise they would not be able to build it correctly.