I'm not sure where your relative is living, but it is always worth contacting the local Council as many have schemes to assist the elderly and infirm to continue to live in their homes. These schemes often include things like fitting new taps, handles, rails and non slip floors either free or discounted.

I agree with both. Plans can be very important and can save on massive things like time, costly mistakes and mis-communications. However.. this doesn't seem like very complex project (as Jonathon says) so I wouldn't think they would be required / be essential. I would look at what is involved in the job with the builder first, how well you work together and judge if they are needed to ensure it run smoothly - i.e have you worked with the builder before? does he usually work from plans? Lastly, even if you do need plans the normal fee's of an architect are not always the cheapest. If you know what you require and what is involved and purely need them for measurements for contractors to work to (to ensure door positions are as you would like and so on) and to ensure you ideas are put across correctly.... then an architect technician or concept planner (like me) would be cheaper. It then comes down to how good the 'mates rates' are that they have offered you. Best of luck with your project, Gina

Is does seem that the lesser known brands of LVT are the same thickness and same warranty as the major brands- the difference seems to be the colour choice and size of marketing budget. So as long as you like the colour choice with another brand then I think the cost saving is worth having. Separately the issue with herringbone over an expansive area is making the pattern meet up- generally a competent fitter will have no problems- I wonder if the issue is that you aren’t actually looking at LVT but instead floating floors (click together floors as opposed to stick down to the screed). Floating floors need to expand and over a large sized area can need an expansion strip adding which looks fine if you can add it to a doorway but looks odd in the middle of a large room.

We're currently having an extension built, builders on site preparing the footing and brickwork starting in a week or so, but I've hit a problem with our cavity walls specs. On the architect drawings (top down plans and structure cross-section) it shows 100mm facing brick, 100mm cavity, 100m blockwork (then normal plasterboard). All of the floorplan measurements are based on this size of cavity wall for the whole build. Our builder (who I have complete faith in) however says that the plans are wrong, it shuold have an additional 90mm of insulation board on all internal facing walls.... this has come as a shock as of course we agreed to the plans and had planning permission approved for what's on the plans. The new kitchen we've had planned and ordered will need to be redone, and the rooms are now 180mm (90mm each side) smaller floorspace than we were expecting. All this has only come to light right when the work is fully underway. With the plans, our architect included a "General Notes" page which includes this regarding the cavity walls: "6.0 EXTERNAL WALLS: (max 0.18W/m2k U-value) 315mm nominal cavity work, finished in facing brickwork. 100mm facing brickwork, 100mm full fill cavity insulation cavity with 90mm 'Kingspan Kooltherm K106' (0.021 W/mk) foil-backed extruded insulation to internal face (continued min 150mm below ground floor insulation level) and maintain 50mm clear cavity, 100mm Celcon Standard (0.15 Wmk) blockwork 3.5N/mm2 finished internally with 2 coat 13mm plaster." Before I contact our architect and try and find out what went wrong here, can anyone confirm whether the above tallies with what our builder is saying? I also feel as though surely the local Planning department should have picked up on this conflict. Can anyone offer advice on what options there might be to try and reduce the size of these walls? Are there thinner options available for example with the same thermal properties? This is a very standard south-facing kitchen / diner extension, really nothing fancy at all.