All Activity

PS Found yet another hidden bodge today which doesn't help my paranoia. Top board on the omnie u/floor heating fitted by our original builder - was sticking up vs adjacent boards, so took it up - turns out the board was wrongly cut so the pipes didn't match with the routing in the top boards. Whoever screwed it down must have known - but why give a shit when you are being paid to work on someone else's house eh. Don't have a router or a spare board, so chiselled out a new groove to put it right.

Yes OK thanks. However what bugs me most is that you can clearly see the pattern in the surface colour in the first two photos from the floor mats and their joins. You would think this would be due to greater drying out where the mat joins were. Therefore removing the mats would see these areas gradually dry to the same colour. The surface of the floor has been at 24-25C for periods because that has been the ambient temperature, and the doors have been opened to create air flow over the surface. In fact when sunlight somes through the rooflights or bifolds the sunlit floor surface temp gets up to 30/31C. What the temperature is lower down in the slab I have no way of knowing. What I don't want is to turn the u/floor heating on at 45C when winter comes, producing a floor surface temp of 26C, but driving moisture out of the floor leveller causing cracking and ruining an LVT floor. That could be £10k and more down the drain and a ruined room.

A lot of conflict between ever changing panel sizes, and trays. Both GSE and Easy roof seem slow to get newer sizes through MCS for them to become certified and distributed. Not sure if that's improved recently, but defo something you need to have in check before you order panels / trays.

Knowing what you’re looking at and being able to interject positively / productively is crucial. Too many clients with big balls but zero construction industry experience or knowledge = disaster.

Yes, but take the box all the way to meet the AT layer at the ceiling, so all the cables can go up in an AT riser. Requires zero GAF for the electricians then.

Just build a box like you say, like you would a shower niche, except airtight instead of water tight.

Frequently its "given up" today. Seems to go through hourly phases even with the same code of amazing and shite. Chat's bodging again now. Gave it a specific render description and it did a cheap BBC B demo for me. It's like it's programmed to sometimes offer cheap solutions i.e less compute. I reckon at the end of the day when it goes home to Mrs Chat it bitches about this guy who's only on the 20 quid plan and wants the (expletive deleted)ing world! Now its basically forcing me to use codex cloud ... "I cant do it but codex cloud can patch this" . I'm going to conclude this is deliberate as now each scout/patch uses around 5% of my 5 hr quota. These companies are shit. Need to use codex cloud for major revision or feature add then tell chat to do one and use local llm for scout.

Yes, it definitely struggles with this and needs guidance. Anything that involve geometric sense seems to be a crux, unless it's very simple. I've also just found something else it's rubbish at. Ask it to build a website and it'll build something very good in the blink of an eye. I asked it to re do a couple of adverts I've got in print media - the output was just terrible, so bad I'm actually speechless so I just said I'd go and do it myself! I've been finding the bliss of work with Claude & Claude code and it's like magic. It's also funny how Claude restricts Claude Code, admitting the constraints have to be very clear so that Claude Code doesn't try to do something 'helpful' - it just makes me laugh 😁

On sound brickwork we've had good results using brick acid. Soaking the wall first with water to minimise penetration into the bricks, brushing on the acid, leave for 30 seconds or so, give it a scrub with a scrubbing brush not wire brush and thoroughly rinse off. You can try it diluted first and on a small area. Always wear eye protection and you should, if diluting, add acid to water not the other way around! I'd be more wary of doing this on stonework, a stone mason who worked on our build suggested it's okay if the stone is saturated first and the acid not left on for long but I'd definitely want to try it on an off cut or something first, as the acid will react with the stone much faster than brickwork.

Yeah mine is going to be in a separate building.

I would place it well away from house, not sure how your house insurance would react to a house fire caused by self install car battery to house using YouTube instructions? Is the price savings even worth the effort these days, plenty of cheap battery setups available.

I've got the same problem on some stonework - It's turned rock hard. The only thing I've tried so far is the combination of gently chiselling with a nail and a rough brush to get the worst off. Then clearing the excess off with water. It wasn't perfect though and will take me ages when I get around to doing the whole lot. So if you come across any products that shift it faster, please let me know!

I'll just put the links to the YouTube vids I am talking about here in case it helps anyone in future. He goes over every step including the flashing. Part 2: Here's a video re landscape install of the GSE trays. I haven't watched it so apologies if it isn't helpful.

I can't, they are the optimum size to fill my roof up. Sounds like a salesman, would not make any difference. That would be my worry. Seems odd, but could make the most sense.

I've recently found this guy who does EV battery installs in domestic projects. I'm going to do the same on my build so it's very interesting to see how he does it, which EV batteries work best and how much it all costs. He is English, from Shrewsbury or somewhere like that I think so it's helpful for me that he is speaking in pounds and pence and UK regs.

Can you tell me where you saw these please? I've hunted high and low for some around this size but I can't find them. Someone near me is selling 1840x1020 GSE trays at a very good price but I can't seem to find any panels that would fit them (which is likely why they are so cheap). I watched a video of the GSE rep showing how to fit one a trade stand and he said the hole in the middle was so that the roofers had somewhere to stand on during install to avoid them stepping on the trays and damaging them. He also said it allows airflow under the panel to stop it overheating. It makes sense, but it also makes me a bit nervous about how waterproof they would be. I know they are designed so that the water all falls away around the hole, but water is a sneaky thing and if it can get where it's not meant to be, it will. It should still be ok as the membrane should do its job, but I'd prefer it if there wasn't a hole there tbh.

That makes sense when it's a surface mounted consumer unit, but when it's a flush mounted one it extends behind the plasterboard. The wall construction is 4x2 studs with plasterboard, VLC (300ga polyethylene), Knaug Omnifit insulation slabs between the studs and behind. I was thinking I could build a box in between a couple of studs and then airtight that and have the VLC taped to it. That would effectively create the 'bump' in the airtightness layer needed to accommodate the rear part of the flush mounted consumer unit.

The thing chat and I suspect all coding AI's are crap at is not 'thinking' about the problem outside the box. For example ask it for code to draw a circle (ignoring a circle primitive) it would use sin/cos/pi because that's standard maths. But! thats really shit. Will work but slow. I can think of 20 ways that would be 1000% faster. Equally a Astar algorithm i.e. path finding from baddy to player around scenery. Standard methods will be used. Shite slow, not practical in a real game. So "understanding" the problem for efficient code is the method not the code. That requires a human. I was at 86% gpu usage because its code uses 'standard' methods. Guide it on different techniques and it visually looks the same but halved gpu usage.

I appreciate your concern, I really do, but I do also feel frustrated that many of the comments I've received on my blog seem predicated on the assumption that I am a total numpty who is the fool from whom money is easily parted. Of course I am going to take every precaution to protect myself in this any every other transaction. That just goes without saying. Am I concerned about it though? Nope. I've been buying and selling properties in Scotland for more than thirty years, so maybe that's why. I've just tried to tot up how many and I have honestly lost count. Around 30-40 though.

Exactly so. The hardening is mostly chemistry, not drying. Changes in colour are normal too, depending on water content, being laid straight or worked extensively, thickness, and any objects or joints below.

I can’t draw for toffee so chat does code so everything is procedurally generated . Reflections , fresnel , blooming all the ps5 effects I love . Lipsync on the bots mouth . Fuzzy logic because when you say “ Birdy “ it could be translated as “ birdie “ . Also phonetic matching e.g “mould play “ = “ Coldplay “ . No hard coding of phrases everything just open source . Love it .

If this is a shed that you will sit in occasionally then it probably isn't a bc issue. A fire is unlikely and you would walk out of the door. If it is a bc issue then the osb is a risk. There have been full scale fire tests on exposed osb and the fire and smoke spread scarily fast. I once had a bco agree that masonry paint would suffice as protection as it doesn't burn. But that wouldn't suffice now as test results are required for everything. The clear protection is intumescent varnish. It is expensive as it needs a thick layer then sealjng coat. : possibly more cost than plasterboard and finishing. It can look OK but can be a bit streaky. Plus, osb can flake and filler would look awful. The same varnish would be required for ply or t and g.

That does look amazing!

I wired a house that was completely clad in OSB on the inside because the owner liked the look. BC insisted on fireproof covering due to the risk of surface fire spread and they found a clear treatment that gave that protection while still looking like OSB.

@Tony Thanks for your input. Yes I think that is a cencern that I may have overlooked, but, initially the room will be used as a workshop and if/when converted will be vapour barried before plasterboarding. Would this not address this ? Also modern, I believe, OSB sold in the UK and EU is typically manufactured to E1 formaldehyde emission standards, and many products emit very low levels of VOCs. The highest emissions occur when the boards are new and diminish significantly over the first few months.