ProDave

That's looking good, you have reason to be pleased.

Yes Jewsons do cash sales. I only opened a trade account with them when they started charging for delivery for orders under £100 to non account holders. They do self builder accounts, you don't have to be a tradesman.

Jewsons, but other merchants stock them. Actually they don't stock them, they get them to order. Don't go to the "bathroom showrooms" they will charge you about twice as much.

Multipanel is one make you will find recommended here, it is the one I am using. I have applied them over old but sound tiles before, but it is probably better to strip the tiles off. you want to be really really sure they are sound if you do over sheet.

Yes mine is only 1 metre deep. Just right to sit in on a duck board to do an oil change, about the only thing it gets used for. Anything deeper and you are into serious retaining wall stuff.

Just some time spent with a bull float will do that as well.

Inspection pit.

I chose a contractor to build the shell only, based on personal experience (I had worked with them on another build before) Since bare shell I have done everything myself bar the plastering and a small amount of joinery. Just into year 5 and another to go probably. But it's been slow due to drip drip finances.

I think @nod build is exceptional. I am expecting to complete for £1000 per square metre. Many end up with higher figures than that. It all depends how much you are prepared to do yourself.

That's a bit like saying "in 1890 my site was a saw mill, Can I re open the saw mill?" The answer would be no, it has since had a change of use to dwelling. And I think the "replacement dwelling" rule requires there still to be a dwelling to replace, not some lines on an old map. But it is of interesting to look at all the old maps and see what was there before. There cannot be much land that has never had something on it.

How well do you know the area? What are you going to do for work? when we first made the decision to move here, we came up for a 2 week holiday to research. And we already knew the Highlands well from 20 years worth of holidays. On that trip we bought a flat in Inverness which was our foothold when plot searching and became a but to let. Once you have found an area we can give you more local knowledge, though I don't know much east of Inverness. That side was too built up and not enough mountains for me personally.

That flat bit of steel has been holding the bricks up for the last 90 years, so leave it there to continue doing so.

Assuming you are on an assured short tenancy, at the end of the tenancy period it should roll over to a rolling tenancy month by month. You should not have to renew it for another fixed period. You really want your static caravan to be serviced if you are going to do a Highland winter in it. A more realistic timeframe would be to stick it out where you are with a view to moving onto site next spring, say March 2021, 10 months away.

The important thing seems to be all the invoices must be in the name of the person making the VAT claim. They ask to see the planning permission to determine the build is lawful but I don't think it matters who's name is on the planning permission.

4 months is still probably tight, depending if you have a plot in mind. Take a look here for Highlands https://www.hspc.co.uk/search.asp?searchtype=form And here for Aberdeenshire https://www.aspc.co.uk/search/?PrimaryPropertyType=Buy&SortBy=PublishedDesc&LastUpdated=AddedAnytime&SearchTerm=&PropertyType=Plot&PriceMin=&PriceMax=&Keywords=&ByFixedPriceOnly=false&ExcludeUnderOffer=false&IncludeClosedProperties=true&ClosedDatesSearch=14&MapSearchType=EDITED&ResultView=LIST&ResultMode=NONE&AreaZoom=13&AreaCenter[lat]=57.14955426557916&AreaCenter[lng]=-2.0927401123046785&EditedZoom=10&EditedCenter[lat]=57.14778499299764&EditedCenter[lng]=-2.1418352661132722

My Pi spends 99% of it's time streaming Radio Caroline so it is there whenever I turn on the amp. Left to it's own devices it seems incapable of just carrying on for much more than 24 hours. That might be our lousy boradband? Most times when it stops you can go into the user interface and re start the stream, but sometimes it won't re start. Then you have to re boot it. So it seems simpler just to re boot it every morning. It's running Pi Music Box which is based on Mopidy.

I have a router and a single NAS drive on all the time. My Pi runs headless. It wasn't just the power, I would be concerned a traditional desktop OS was up to running 24/7 without crashing? Even my headless Pi is prone to crashing from time to time so it is now on a timer to turn it off for 15 minutes each morning and give it a clean boot each day. I do find my Zorin pc crashes less often (but not never) than a windows pc, so as the mac is based on linux it will hopefully be more reliable.

So you will have a mac running full time as a server? Isn't that a bit OTT?

I doubt you will start building in 4 months. Buying the plot can take a while, then there is planning and building warrant. About the most I would expect in that time is setting up a static caravan, and then probably not with drainage as that needs the building warrant. And getting services on site is not that quick either.

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.