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Hi, we are trying to decide whether to use Local Authority for building regulations or a private company. We are in South Cambridgeshire and would like to know if someone has had experience interacting with them (https://www.3csharedservices.org/) and they found them responsive or have some feedback. Alternatively, if we were to use a private company for this, any recommendations for this side of the country? We have Act Surveyors, Delta, and Gateway building control on our short list. Our reason to go with Local Authority would be that we've read that private BCAs are a bit hit and miss, so it seemed better to go with local authority. Until you read some of the posts here that have so many issues with constraint resources in some areas... At the end of the day, we'd like a BCA that's responsive, relatively fast to respond/iterate, and as clear as possible in their feedback.

Hi, last September we found a plot we liked in South Cambridgeshire and started to look into doing our own self build. This is something we had considered doing when we retire, but plots that align with our requirements are not super abundant, so we decided to do it now instead. We are looking to build a Passivhaus two storey dwelling and have it certified. Energy efficiency is important to us and so is having a home at the end that is really comfortable to live in. A few months later and we have exchanged contracts and are a couple of months into a planning application, awaiting the final outcome any week now. We started the journey with an architect, but two months into the relationship we realized our timeline would be heavily affected by the fact that we were not totally aligned and not fully listened to (despite very lengthy email threads back and forth) and decided to learn how to do the architecting ourselves, and hire any experts we needed to help with things along the way. But having a third party handling it all for us was... too low touch for our liking. We'll be managing the build ourselves, as we've decided against having a main contractor. Maybe we'll need a project manager at some point. We've been reading the forum and learning from you all, hopefully we contribute something back soon!

Thanks for the tip. This may be the way I need to go. How could I finish the raw hardibacker edge? The tile + adhesive could be covered by edging trim, but what could I do about the hardibacker edge between the tile edging trim and the plastered wall? Thanks

Not ever, just on this property. Quite please with our Stairway to .....

I don't disagree with you in principle, but I have just been thwacking hell out of the peripheries of a tiled insulated-plasterboard-and-skim wall in a shower cubicle done about 25-30 years ago - surely provoking potential falling-off if it was going to happen - and all is completely well (I wouldn't do it like that now, but it has obviously survived extremely well).

For people interested in the serviceability of these hidden cisterns. This one has also had a dodgy flush valve that sometimes kept running if you didn't push the flush plate long enough. I had put off fixing it assuming it would be a pain to do. I bought a new flush valve as I had disconnected it anyway to fix the pipework. It took roughly five minutes to replace the flush valve. You literally just pull it out and push the new one in. It bends to fit through the flush plate hole. Taking off the front plate and putting it back n tight actually took longer than replacing the flush valve. It was an unusual instance of a job actually being as easy as it was supposed to be.

Thank you for the clarification. this may seem a daft question but is it possible to lay UFH pipes in a given area without them connecting to manifold as there is no manifold present at the moment , have them pressure tested and the area screeded and a later date have a manifold and boiler installed?? OR is this no go? Thanks

Personally I would not tile onto a skimmed plasterboard wall, they will become loose. I would fit 6mm Hardie backer board on all 3 sides and space accordingly with packers for even dimensions.

I searched: "'flashing' for joint between shower tiles and shower tray" and there seem to be the 'shower versions' of a roofing 'undercloak' which, it seems to me, might 'safely' and reliably bridge that gap. I have never used one, but they seem to be what I would be looking for if I had this issue. If the 'lip' of the flashing is a bit wimpy you might have to gun-in some gunge to provide a 'back-stop'. I hope that may help. Edit: Of course many would simply get a (say) 6mm cement-based tile-backer board and screw or stick it on before tiling.

Thanks guys I will put in an extra circuit for oven. Any thoughts about external electrics? In my original plan, I was thinking of appending an external socket onto kitchen ring and an external socket on to ground floor ring. Also a dedicated circuit for external lighting that combines both front and back. Does this sound sensible? I don't want the external sockets to trip my kitchen circuit or my ground floor circuit. Same question regarding lighting... Should front external lights be on the same circuit as rear external lights? Or stick them with the ground floor lighting circuit? I could easily create more circuits... 20a Front external socket radial 20a Rear external socket radial 6a front external lights 6a rear external lights. However is this overkill? Thanks again.

It doesn't need skimming, I am trying to find an alternative way to build the wall out and still have a good seal between the tiles and shower tray.

More adhesive? or a 9mm board stuck on. Why does it need to be skimmed if you are tiling?

As a follow-up to this, I replaced the PRV (cost about £20 locally). Really was a pretty easy job, certainly isolating and draining the boiler was the tricky bit but only because I didn't have a suitable piece of hose at first to allow me to drain the boiler into a bowl/sink. I repressurised the EV. This was about 2 weeks ago, the system is still holding 1.5bar. I'm sure I'm not in the clear, but it seems OK. So we'll see how it goes. Thanks @Nickfromwales

Hi folks The shower tray has been fitted and I have a 12mm gap between the edge of the shower tray and the plastered wall. My wall tiles are 8mm thick and I'm guessing the adhesive will be around 2mm. I obviously would like the tiles to overhang the shower tray to give a good waterproof seal. How could I bridge the 2/3mm gap needed without reskimming the wall. Many thanks

Good ! This thread is about llm’s - they require Ram thanks though @JohnMo fo

That's a bit more specific. You simply said Mac mini. But like asking for a BMW when you are only looking for an M5 BMW. But hay ho. Was only trying to be helpful, but get a world of scorn for my efforts... Won't bother in future. Don't bother replying because I won't see it

Have you rainwater filling it? What happens if it overfills in winter?

For a programmer / SE certainly junior roles have been reduced significantly. Why employ someone when a llm can do it ? . There’s virtually no need to write code anymore 🤯. No need to learn all the libraries . Now it is orchestration for the human . I discussed this with ChatGPT . It worded it as coding is now cheap and virtually no labour required ! I’m in a fortunate position as I can experiment, spend money , no boss , endless end goal , no risk . Chat agrees that my full project would require pre llm a small team of programmers and would take years to develop . Now there’s one , me , zero code to do . 🤯🤯🤯. For reference as I have only 96gb I have the smallest possible context windows. This apart from reducing ram requirements also avoid hallucinations. Deepseek and qwen are fed fresh prompt each time not historical reference required . ChatGPT of course needs the history / context - but produces no code . I’ll say it again , it’s insane !

Thanks. Patio going in to the right at the moment, then it’s on to the extension. Going to be a busy year!

Well done, very neat. I like the cantilevered deck over the water.

Finished

Not long since finished mine. More formal than wildlife pond.

Right , now, let’s do this slowly I didn’t check every website on Earth . You need enough ram to be useful . 24gb once booted won’t leave a lot for a useful llm . local llm can even be installed on a pi for example . The keyword is useful - in essence you’d want 64gb min on a Mac as it uses unified ram . People run these things on much less . These units and above have all but disappeared. Ultra m3 ( go check ) on eBay ( assuming they have real stock ) are on for 5k base model prices . So that’s 1k more than Apple retail them for . Openclaw etc has made a lot of people punt on a relatively cheap Mac mini to experiment with .

Just to put this to bed, job done. Just need to foam it in and tape it up, which I can't do until we have chosen our light position. Cutting a board down it's depth is horrible, but it meant I got rid of the remaining 50mm stuff I've had hanging around for years. Cheers Nick, onto the next thing.

Like we already said the answer is moving all the time so 42 won't cut it in today's race. FWIW I think this thread is interesting because this technology has so many implications for us all and although we are just experimenting the opportunity to do amazing things is tantalising and, frankly, we / they have not found the killer application yet and that may come almost as probably from amateurs playing as professionals trying to crack it. The local platform arms race to top or bottom is really an aside. As you say you can already spend 10K on a card always assuming your rings (mains) can supply the power. Pretty soon fan coils and UFH won't be the only things your average ASHP will be cooling!