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How did the clamps work out?

For general info. Crushed tarmac and road planings used to be a waste product and was very cheap and great value. Then other people discovered this, some nay-saying consultants were converted to allowing it, and the price increased. Then it also became available graded as type 1 etc. Unfortunately crushed aggregate has always been abused by some suppliers I once saw a guy loading 3 parts rubble with 1 part soil from adjacent piles, into a crusher, and it was for sale. Even ethical efforts can contain some junk. All you can do is pay a lot for guaranteed clean and graded or take a chance.... or maybe visit the source. You can do a diy quality check by mixing a sample into a glass jar and swirling it in water. It settles in layers and you can assess how much silt is in it. Paper and wood will float.

You may be under the misapprehension that plumbing and building items are designed for the benefit of the end customer, whereas they are actually designed solely for the benefit of the installer. They only need to last long enough for you to lose the telephone number of the original plumber. You could call another plumber out at emergency rates - err oh gosh. Cui bono.

I am just so hacked off now. Just 4 weeks until the kitchen is supposed to be delivered, and something I thought straight forward is now in danger of messing the whole thing up. The guy told me he is doing a prestigious hotel now on a time penalty contract, so unlikely to reappear to fix anything for 2-3 weeks. Looking like I will have to postpone the kitchen yet again, with the kitchen company telling me they have no fitters in June. Spouse already on anti-depressants, having no kitchen and going to the launderette every weekend for over 3 years. It has just taken me 3 weeks to get another trade to answer his phone, despite telling me he would be back over 2 weeks ago to fix some loose ends. Rant over.

I have just had 3 stand alone air to air (heat and cooling) units fitted for £4500.00 that’s for the 3 fully installed and they did a fantastic job.

Some cars don't let you do that now. They memory needs to be cleared, easy on my car, just press accelerator and brake then turn the key to the first position. My Mother's old car needed a laptop to change a side light. But I take your point, I work with numpties that have fixed views on everything and will never try anything different.

I work with a Gemma https://www.makeuseof.com/googles-new-free-gemma-4-replaced-whole-local-llm-stack/

Yes Gemma is surprisingly good for a small model . But there is a limit to how small a model can go and still be useful / accurate . But even now a good optimised small model can outperform a larger unoptimised one . Biggest isn’t always best - well in llm model world anyway 😉

Read a bit about Gemma the other day, seems it can be run on lightweight machines. https://deepmind.google/models/gemma/ I still find a manual switch more than adequate.

From the pictures it looks more like a black mould, rather than corrosion. Stainless steels tend to fail when they are in an oxygen poor environment i.e. underwater, this is why they are not used structural elements on boats. Chlorine can affect SS, as can some other cleaning chemicals, but @AliG says his pool does not use chlorine. How is the pool treated, bromine or ozone maybe? Both of those can cause problems. Not sure about the galvanic problems, seems it can happen. This is from the British Stainless Steel Association What Forms of Corrosion can Occur in Stainless Steels The most common forms of corrosion in stainless steel are: Pitting corrosion – The passive layer on stainless steel can be attacked by certain chemical species. The chloride ion Cl- is the most common of these and is found in everyday materials such as salt and bleach. Pitting corrosion is avoided by making sure that stainless steel does not come into prolonged contact with harmful chemicals or by choosing a grade of steel which is more resistant to attack. The pitting corrosion resistance can be assessed using the Pitting Resistance Equivalent Number calculated from the alloy content. Crevice corrosion – Stainless steel requires a supply of oxygen to make sure that the passive layer can form on the surface. In very tight crevices, it is not always possible for the oxygen to gain access to the stainless steel surface thereby causing it to be vulnerable to attack. Crevice corrosion is avoided by sealing crevices with a flexible sealant or by using a more corrosion resistant grade. General corrosion – Normally, stainless steel does not corrode uniformly as do ordinary carbon and alloy steels. However, with some chemicals, notably acids, the passive layer may be attacked uniformly depending on concentration and temperature and the metal loss is distributed over the entire surface of the steel. Hydrochloric acid and Sulphuric acid at some concentrations are particular aggressive towards stainless steel. Stress corrosion cracking (SCC) – This is a relatively rare form of corrosion which requires a very specific combination of tensile stress, temperature and corrosive species, often the chloride ion, for it to occur. Typical applications where SCC can occur are hot water tanks and swimming pools. Another form known as sulphide stress corrosion cracking (SSCC) is associated with hydrogen sulphide in oil and gas exploration and production. Intergranular corrosion – This is now quite a rare form of corrosion. If the Carbon level in the steel is too high, Chromium can combine with Carbon to form Chromium Carbide. This occurs at temperatures between about 450-850 deg C. This process is also called sensitisation and typically occurs during welding. The Chromium available to form the passive layer is effectively reduced and corrosion can occur. It is avoided by choosing a low carbon grade the so-called ‘L’ grades or by using a steel with Titanium or Niobium which preferentially combines with Carbon. Galvanic corrosion – If two dissimilar metals are in contact with each other and with an electrolyte e.g. water or other solution, it is possible for a galvanic cell to be set up. This is rather like a battery and can accelerate corrosion of the less ‘noble’ metal. It can avoided by separating the metals with a non-metallic insulator such as rubber.

A reliable source - indicating the ram issues ARE a major factor . Gurman is seen as the number 1 journalist for Apple reporting . So this is a definite indicator of the issues affecting Apple . Man ! October !!!!

It's not the M1, and will be strong enough. Block paving is flexible so you won't get cracking even if it moves a bit over decades. A whacker is plenty. Do drive over it many times. If it's going to compact , then do it now and the sand will level it off. And now stop worrying.

Yes. The levelling is shit, and their management of your expectations equally shit. If I am going to fail to get a floor perfect, for whatever reason(s), I tell the client before hand so they know what to expect; that allows opportunity to explore options, and for a compromise to be agreed. You can't just have depressions that bad on a new floor, and rectifying it is relatively easy; just add spot-filling with compound over primer and then block the floor to remove the steps where the 'waves' of leveller are apparent. Using a dimpled roller is great for general levelling, but if you're rectifying areas then you don't roller it as you don't want the leveller to migrate from the area you want to improve. Talk to them in the morning and completely lay your cards on the table, and ask these questions and get the answers directly, as all you're doing here is venting and not resolving, as we're not laying your floor.

Annoyingly no idea, it just came from the grab guys taking out the earth.

Does anyone also know if you're better to roll a driveway so that it's the heaviest object that's ever going to go on there as opposed to a tiny whacker plate? Or does this not matter, Someone also recommended using a geotex membrane?

Thanks everyone for their advice on this I'm scratching my head and pulling my hair out, to say Ive had enough would be an understatement so appreciate all the help!

Yeah sorry the drive way on the side is relatively flat so they've put in an acco you can maybe see in the photo, on the front it all slopes into the road away from the house so no acco has been put in does this change anything?

Thanks I'll try this!

They've never worked with them and were saying when they drove off it after it has been whacked it showed movement I believe.

I'll need to think on this as the logical extension would be to add this function to all internal elements and party walls. It could be done by changing the workflow so that all rooms are added, like U-values, into a library and then the following the tab is elements - that way each element can be tagged for adjacent room and dT between those spaces calculated and auto applied. It would require quite a bit of change, but definitely worth mulling over.

bleach corrodes stainless. Any chance someone was a bit over-liberal with the airborne chlorine?

Just a quick thought, even if to rule out. I wonder if there is a metal in the taps / cistern that is causing the corrosion. The end connection in the flexible tube becomes a sacraficial annode if the wrong way round in the galvanic series. @SteamyTea?

Road planings can be a great material. But before you import this stuff onto your site you need to know where it came from. Beware of cheep offerings as they can be full of contamination. Just say the planings come from the old bus station.. you'll have brake fluid, gear box oil etc. Or from a busy road junction. Worse still from the road into an old scrap yard.. then you'll get heavy metals and all sorts. Contaminated road planings can be expensive to dispose of unless you have a gullable self builder looking for a cash deal! At the end of the day you are responsible for the site and what comes onto it. Main roads are made up of several layers. The wearing top coat, higher bitimen content (the binder) . The wearing coat is often 40mm thick. Then the base course, larger aggregate (often 20mm - dust) with a lower binder content often 100mm thick and then the sub base which can vary (from memory between 150 and 300 mm thick) and contains 40mm aggregate down with a lower binder still. The base course is probably the best to get your hands on. Have a read at @saveasteading post above.

I’ve a bunch of these, most of which have been there for 30 years. No problems except for one within one of those shower-hose-like kitchen taps. I wonder whether some are much better quality than others? Real stainless shouldn’t rust much with standard water. Agree that relying on the rubber hose isn’t the smartest.

A very good comment.. and often justified. From time to time I get involved in helping home owners put their case to the warranty providers. Usually by the time I get involved folk are at their wits end, often very distressed, have exhausted the normal channels, all in good faith and have got nowhere. I've done this stuff on and off for about 30 years. In the old days, from memory, there was the NHBC and Zurich, the market leaders. Now we have other companies in the market and some of the earlier ones have withdrawn. The way these providers are set up and lay off their risk is a complete mine field. It's a very competetive market. I often wonder when I look at the warranty premium.. I think it's far too low given my knowledge on what goes on on building sites. If it's too low then it's likely not going to deliver and in that case why pay at all? I could write a long essay on this but I'm coming round to the view that the one effective way to improving standards could come from the lenders; the banks and the building societies. At the end of the day a warranty should deliver two things. 1/ It protects the lender. 2/ It provides a bit of comfort and security to the purchaser of the home.