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I've also got a spirit level that is incorrect on the vertical at one end. The house is called "Crooked Lodge". For clarity, I am mainly right handed but with a reasonable degree of (made up work incoming!) ambidextriosity.

I can see this kind of thing which is about 1/2 the price and 1mm thick: https://direct.marley.co.uk/products/marley-weatherboard-epdm-tape

Why not! Its hot! I'm in the garden fighting chat. I actually got it to say "I cant do it we need a coder with repo access". I beat the bitch into submission. We'd been trying and failing for 15 minutes. I asked it what it needed. Gave me a 'sed','tail','cat' answer. I did it manually in terminal uploaded it. 60 seconds later fixed. But yes "no coding skills" with an LLM is only going to get you toy stuff. Remember OpenAi said 70% of chat is written by chat and they expect that to be 100% soon. So the SE/coder role now changes to LLM manager/architect/controller. But yes ; I assume even Claude can get it's knickers in a twist! But from how I was using chat just 12 months ago (and its capability then ) to today is phenomenal ! We go do rabbit holes and poor design decisions. Sometimes it does things I didn't ask and when I find out later I tell it where to go! But! - what I am achieving in terms of work flow with zero human coding is pretty magical even if not completely local yet. Imagine where it will all be just 12 months from now! Oh! , I can hear the clink of ice in a G n T .......

Yes (mentioned in first post) - there's a drain, but it will be plugged to retain the airtightness. Valid point about any connection could spring a leak, but only one room has a tank ready-filled with 300L. Good to hear I'm over-thinking it, but a sodden ground floor with timber walls was my worry.

n = 1.3 v n = 1.0 - 1.1 - you can't balance the system across the output range, only at a single temp. And the lower your Mean Water to Air Temp difference is the more difficult it is to do. Most who do this will find their customers compromise on indoor air temps at some ranges. You really do need to run 2 different curves and therefore have one mixed circuit.

Tiles will be best overall in cost/performance terms.

So I have upped the breaker a bit and it isn't tripping currently but that is obviously only a short term solution. Given the nature of compressors, fans etc what sort of level of leakage current is acceptable? AI suggested I try and watch to see if the break happens for example as the fan tries to start or as the compressor starts.

Does it match the left handed Stanley knife?

I’m surprised that I can’t find anything on BuildHub regarding Axle Energy. They’ll pay £1/kWh for battery export and you don’t need to change your current supplier or hand over complete control of your battery. It looks a bit far fetched on first glance but digging into it, maybe not. They operate a virtual power plant (VPP) using thousands of domestic batteries and use that to fill generation gaps when the grid is under stress, that’s when energy prices are their highest hence they can pay the £1/kWh. Gary’s in to it. Anyone signed up yet? I think I may just dive in.

Have I got a left handed tape measure, or am I supposed to mark with my left hand?

Nice trip hazard! If you need to it in the plant room, do you need to do it to every wet room, a fitting may leak while you out for the day? Do you have a floor drain? That maybe all you need. If not your hot swimming area will be difficult to empty anyway. Maybe over thinking it, our cylinder is above the kitchen, is it bunded area no, have I had leaks yes, were they an issue, no.

22*75/100mm strips of timber perpendicular to the joists @ 400mm centres with packers to make a flat level surface, 75mm/100mm so there’s plenty of scope for not being just so with measurements for board endings. Or you could use res bar and pack out, or mf5 top hat and pack out.

Yes this seems weak and prone to failure but it is an extremely common technique used by lots of providers. I think the calculation is that it's so vastly cheaper and quicker to install vs major street works that even with the inevitable repair costs they'll still come out ahead. Street works cut through normal fibre connections pretty frequently so even if you do it properly it doesn't mean there are no problems. This form of trenching is only used for the last short length of cable feeding a handful of properties. From there it will connect into a properly buried duct somewhere (usually rented from BT) to go back to the central station. This means any damage only affects a very small number of customers. All domestic Fibre to the Premises in the UK is using whats called GPON (or XGPON). GPON has I think 2.5Gbits down, 1.25 Gbits up shared between up to 64 customers, though I think the usual install is limited to 16 or 32 premises using passive splitters. The Telco will be able to add splitters as needed if they aren't preinstalled (though doing so likely interrupts service for the 16/32 premises on the connection so they will probably do the work overnight). XGPON is 10gbits down and 2.5gbits up IIRC. Newly laid networks may well be using XGPON and older ones GPON.

I'm a little bit confused. Have had a new extension built with pitched roof and 7 by 2 joists were use. When I measured the joist the other day to work out what insulation will fully fit the joits depth they weren't fully measuring 175mm but about 165mm. So technically theyre not truely 7 inches. Is this normal? Looks like real value is different from the nominal stated value. Does the same sort of things go for other timber e.g. studs. Bit confused

You might see it that way BUT there is very little research I have seen that shows that people without any coding skills can drive LLM code developers successfully - ie taking the basic output of requirements engineering, in English if you like, and just expecting a fully worked solution. So I speculate that what we have is apparent, stress apparent, productivity improvements for the coders that are left but where that productivity as measured by the normal metrics is coming out much less than expectations and that may in the medium term, because of maintainability, be even less. This is not to say I would advise cutting back on LLM coding but rather seeing it for what it is - more of a challenge than expected as it is now. The advent of more " agentic" LLM coding along the road Codex seems to be heading will change the perspective again. Anyways it's all good clean fun and I am off for cream cakes and lashings of ginger beer - tallyho.

I need to do the same stud walls and fluffy insulation between the studs- DIY project. I know its basic question but can you advise how to make sure I get the studs level both vertically and horizontally so that when plasterboard is attached to the boards it sits nice and flush and wall is nice and even to prevent cracking of plaster at the joins between adjacent boards. Will I need to use packers behind the studs to level them. I should have added some of the walls are bare to the brick so I will be getting plasterer to do a parge coat of lime based plaster for breathability. How long do I leave between the parge coat and adding the stud wall? dunno how long lime based plasters take to dry up and become nice and firm

Question for those who have installed (or had installed) timber cladding… I know we need an airflow behind the cladding, and because we need to fit our shingles onto horizontal battens, we have vertical battens followed by counter-battens. I’ve 2 questions: How large does the gap at the bottom and top need to be? What have you used for the insect mesh at the bottom and top? Does it matter if the top and bottom of windows doesn’t have a gap? Around the windows, our builder has installed double-thickness battens, which is good for the fire stopping, but limits airflow - however, because we have counter-battens, there is still airflow laterally and the windows don’t cover the full wall, so does this still meet the requirement?

DIY project- need some tips please. So I need to plasterboard my ceilings. Problme joist are in good condition but old and when I put a level on the ceiling joists are not all level. Now If I fix plasterboard its not going to be level. How do I overcome this? Use packers between the plasterboard between the ceiling joists?

Wet rooms have tiles, main living space oak, bedrooms carpet (it's rubbish with UFH)

Explain? It close too which means what?

What is everyone's go to floor finish for UFH on a solid slab- LVT or tiles or something else. My main considerations are longevity of the floor finish and also one which gives the best heat outcome for UFH- basically which one will feel the warmest to walk on. Had a little google research LVT can last about 10-20 years wheres tiles can last a lot longer upto 50 years. I've got experience with neither floor finish. So floors in question are for living room, bathroom and a kitchen.

Bit like giving an 8 yr old a chainsaw and then telling them to chop trees….

We've a very airtight build (timber frame) and the plant room has a dry screed floor. I want to tank the plant room so the if the DHW cylinder leaked / flooded, then the plant room could hold the 300 L long enough for me to pull the plug out of the drain (before laying the floor I installed a pipe that it could drain through); the floor of the house is suspended off the ground, so there's no issue with where the water then drains to btw. The photo shows the plant room floor with the various ducting and airtight tape. I need the tanking area to be 150mm deep to hold 300L, and was going to batten off the bottom of the door area to create a step-over into the plant room. What would you recommend for tanking the plant room floor and up the sides of the walls to the 150mm height? Any other comments / advice welcome (is this overkill? I'm perhaps being over-precautious about having a timber framed house and not wanting to risk anything significant). TIA

Plucking pheasants here! Seriously, pecking the bottoms of our glazed doors at four in the morning

Thanks all - really appreciate the advice. BH win again!