All Activity

I would say that is the intended design.

No, no slope required as that is the area where the glass packers need to be. It is externally glazed though, which means the cladding needs to be removed to get access to the glass if it breaks/fails. This is the case for most outward opening systems, the clips break when removed, so they need to be replaced and service engineers absolutely hate them, as it's it a lot of time (money)/effort to remove all the cladding, place the clips back, and fix the cladding back on. That also means they need to have the right tool to turn the clips to hold the cladding in place (they get broken removing the cladding, easier to snap the lug than turn the clip).

So… somewhere between my contractor, the builders merchant and the manufacturer, they’ve ordered the wrong wall insulation. Whilst what they have ordered doesn’t have a significant difference in u-value (0.021 vs 0.02) when I scale this out across the entire build envelope it does take it above the threshold we set for SAP etc. Plus I’m a little loathed to compromise on something that is going to have to last the life of the house. The correct one will take 10-20 days to be manufactured and shipped from Ireland to us which has impact on brickies who were due to start on Monday to build ground floor walls. Bit of a long shot but does anyone have some Unilin ECO360 CavityTherm ECO/CT 150mm that they aren’t needing just yet? We can get ours ordered and then do a swap once it arrives or have delivered to you to replace.

Fair points, and I agree Apple is probably too important a customer to be left without supply altogether. My concern is more that AI demand has already distorted the memory market. So even if Apple can get what it wants, it may be doing so at a much higher cost, and that cost is most likely to show up in high-end Mac pricing rather than in total unavailability. In other words, Apple probably still gets the RAM — the question is how brutally it prices the top bins, and whether the niche 256GB/512GB configs end up with longer lead times because Apple allocates supply where it makes the most commercial sense.

I should have clarified, but I was 3 pints in at that stage. Nobody who gives a feck basically. I think you’re probably right. lol.

A couple more articles (linked below) from The Telegraph which may be of interest, by buyers of what turned out to be substandard new-build houses and the problems they faced trying to get all the faults fixed.... My nightmare new-build proves how much we’ve normalised substandard work. (Telegraph - 18th April 2026) Leaks, mould and a hole in the ceiling: one writer reveals why her move was not as straightforward as she thought it would be:- https://archive.ph/HrhpB What we wished we'd known about buying a new-build house. (Telegraph - 20th Nov 2022) Four months after moving into their new home, one couple are still dealing with an ever-growing list of construction faults:- https://archive.ph/aEmwj

Agree, Apple will have to pay and therefore so will Apple's customers. They have been suggesting this so far, but the economics are not yet stacking up. OpenAI just pulled back on it's memory order and has recently changed CFO due to accounting issues. They are struggling to complete funding rounds. A lot of the 'orders' placed so far may not get executed (orders in OpenAI case not actually being orders but rather letters of intent). Datacenters that were supposed to be complete by now are delayed to late 2027 (no datacenter to host the server, no point buying the ram for the server). But even if the AI companies are able and willing to pay (and they have datacentre space), so will a lot of Apples customers. Especially those who are buying big memory Studios. These are literally the same pool of people. AI developers spending investor money. Maybe the big labs aren't buying Studios but the smaller startups trying to come up with unique/differentiated products will. This I disagree with. Apple is big enough that the makers will build whatever Apple wants. Micron can produce x amount of wafers per month. Apple commits to buy 20% of the wafers. Micron asks what patterns do you want on them? I was wrong earlier in the thread when I said the dies on the large mac's are not common. Having read more I believe its more that each package/chip has a taller stack of more standard dies (still not anything like the memory used in by Nvidia for their AI chips but likely the same as used in iPhones). So Apple sells 250 million iPhones a year. Both the iPhone and Mac Studio use LPDDR5. One 512GB Mac Studio is equivalent to 64 iPhones (8GB). If Apple is limited by how many wafers it can get, then availability of product is a purely business decision for them, where can they make the most profit. If they can make more profit selling a Mac Studio than selling 64 iPhones they will sell the Mac Studio. I suspect any limitations on Apples supply will be minimal if they are willing to pay because they are a long term customer. Lead times will always be long for Apple. The packaging of these dies onto ICs and then those ICs onto the CPU package adds many steps. So if Apple misjudges quantities it takes a lot of time to correct.

Does it take you a long time to draw off hot at basins then?

But AI cloud buyers have already distorted the RAM market. Apple may be a major long-term customer, but that does not insulate it from higher input costs. If memory prices are pushed up by AI demand, Apple will likely pass much of that on to buyers — especially on high-end configurations. And unlike most consumers, AI cloud operators can justify paying extreme premiums to secure supply. That can also reduce the amount of top-end memory available to Apple for niche high-RAM Macs, leading to longer delivery times or higher bins becoming temporarily unavailable.

Slightly smaller planet than that, most self builders aren't really self builders, they get a builder to build a house, the builder dies what he normally does. Detail is someone else's problem.

Self build/custom homes are a different planet to bog standard UK housing, no? It's a situation where the customer cares about the details (to varying degrees but still much more than developers).

My main argument is that Apple places bigger orders than the AI companies and is a well established long term customer. The memory manufacturers will make whatever their customers are willing to pay for. If Apple wants it and is willing to pay, it will get.

Hi Mike, I just finished reading all your blog to date. Thanks for writing it, I've found it really useful. The IKEA wardrobes are not beyond redemption - you can push the backing off from inside so that the nail heads stick up a bit and then pull them out with a claw hammer. Then get it square and renail. Having them squint like that would drive me nuts! Can I ask a question about your wall finish? You've done what I plan on doing and boarded it out yourself. Have you also done the taping/filling of the joins yourself and if so were you able to do that without sanding? Is there a final finish coat of plaster to go on top after that stage? I hope you don't mind me pointing out that there's a couple of dodgy bits I can see in the plaster around your rooflight reveals - are these getting edged and skimmed later or have they been done but just got bashed during construction on site?

Just to confirm, that vinyl over the blown tiles worked for almost 2 years until I removed it this week 👍

I think you must live on a different planet, Nick. I see series plumbed all the time with absolutely no thought whatsoever. Plumbers (who do very good quality work) who mindlessly just go, 'oh it's unvented so that needs 22mm to the bathroom, bla, bla, bla. Show them a manifold and the tilt function goes into overdrive and they ask wtf? Yes, radial all the time for me. And just like you, rads should also be connected through a manifold - ideally with flow regulators

Absolutely! . Apple could deliberately up their Apple ram tax even more . This would also push people to take a tier lower I.e I’d love 512gb but if price and delivery is horrible would take 256gb. Think I saw meta have also price increased due to ram shortages/costs on their vr system . My main concern is that AI cloud operators will pay whatever it takes to lock in RAM, while a relatively niche market like Apple’s high-end machines could end up squeezed as a result.

Thinking about this a little more, I imagine that provided the dimension in red below is adequate, any water that defeats the seal above will drip onto the sloped part anyway… most unlikely to make its way onto the horizontal area. A non-issue, I suspect!

It's entirely possible there will be some impact on Apple this WWDC. Their pre-orders from last year all being consumed and them having to pay higher prices from now on. My argument was always that the shortages we've been witnessing so far have been baked in since before the RAM crisis started and therefore not directly caused by it (just people buying more high memory Apple products). Apple should be able to get supply they are big enough and have high enough margins (can can always raise the price of the Mac Studio*). Price is the big question. *The people buying high ram Mac Studios almost all want them for AI and therefore will pay over the odds for them if they can get them.

Thanks @BotusBuild I’ve been through quite a number of drawings and can only find a few (e.g. Nordan & Rationel) where this element is sloped, so I figure it can’t be too much of an issue. Most of our windows are fixed anyway. Great tip 👍👍 To be frank, not something I’d considered… definitely added to the check list 😁

My take on this. All the mullions have slope, whether fixed or opening windows which is good. The bit you are questioning is glazing fixed into the frame. In essence, once fitted with the seals all in place correctly, the glazing should not move relative to the frame as designed. The possibility of rain getting into that area between the bottom of the glazing and the frame should be zero as long as they are manufactured correctly which we should assume they will be. You're going to be checking all the seals in these units when they arrive, like I did, aren't you (Hint!). Check for any where you suspect they have put the join between the two ends of a seal anywhere else except the top of the frame. We had 5! glazing units removed after fitting to have the seals replaced and fitted correctly.

Yes we know that . But you have to factor in global ram supply issues . Come wwdc ( assuming released then ) we will see the real world impact of that on Apple . I think you mis understand me . I want you to be right ! I.e Apple have significantly buffered themselves against ram shortages ( bumped the price a bit already ) - that would mean supply of high memory configs on release day no issue . I want to be wrong . But it simply doesn’t look that way too me .

We’re fitting an AKW SMC 26mm thick Linea tray 1800mm x 900 directly onto the joists as per manufacturer’s recommendations and hoping for advice about the best way to adhere the tray. The underside of the tray is webbed and designed for mounting directly to the joists, but the manufacturer’s install details just says, “For wooden floor installation, use a suitable grab adhesive”. The joists are 8 x 2” at 18” spacing with noggins between them and additional tray support timbers have been added level with the joists so that no part of the tray area is more than 200mm from support. The joists/timbers have been shimmed etc to ensure they’re flush all over and within 0.1 degrees of horizontal. It seems sturdy - but I’ve no reference to compare it with. Obviously, the adhesive can only go on the joists/timbers so the incidence of where they actually meet the ribs on the tray underside webbing will be limited. Regarding suitable adhesive, it’s often recommended on here to use flexible tile adhesive but is this suitable for an SMC tray too and if so, how thick should this be and how do I stop the adhesive being pushed off the joists/timbers when the tray is lowered etc? If a particular thickness for flexible tile adhesive / grab adhesive is recommended, what’s the best way to ensure the tray remains perfectly horizonal when lowered onto that adhesive bed? My current plan is to fit a solid spacer of the desired adhesive thickness at each corner of the tray then remove those spacers when the adhesive has set. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry @Iceverge… not sure what you mean by “don’t look hectic”? It seems as though the rebate on the fixed windows has a fall…

We have a brick ornamental pond about 1m deep all over, with plants on shelves ( cheap plastic shelf units). So the fish have cover and roots fof spawning. But they swim around the surface and are very visible from above. Herons occasionally fly in but don't expect the deep water, and panic and fly away. Pots around the perimeter remove hunting stances. I expect it is a quick end for any fish or frog caught. But having an otter! I don't see anyone else with that claim. For the new property I think we will have a swale, with depths and shallows and gravel verge, as part of the drainage strategy. It will go dry in summer. Plus a decorative brick one.

Lives too short to finish the build ! . I’ll try and do a bit when I get back