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Now to stir things up. Say you have a private regulated pension. The provider goes bust.. the UK gov often pick up the tab. But Private BC's need to hold cover for apparently 15 -30 years.. but if the company goes bust then what? To put this into context. As an SE I hold £2.0 million cover as a sole trader and it's expensive, but rightly so. If, god forgive I do make a mistake and someone gets hurt then the very least I can do is to have adequate insurance that could go to help someone that I have hurt. It's common knowledge that nearly all SE's stop practicing if you have designed something that has killed someone. Personally I would also hang up my boots.. the guilt could be very hard mentally to deal with. But private BC in England.. it's every man for them self! The piper calls the tune.. It's chancers charter! Private BC's are writing very much more liability that is supposed to be on 15 - 30 years for cover time! If bet if you look at their T & C's they have not factored in run off insurance cover. I think that this length of cover (if including run off) is not really going to make private BC's competetive? But what happens when private BC goes bust. I'm battling with a warranty provider at the moment.. deny, delay, defend,they do everything to avoid engaging in a Claim, same will happen with private BC. The thing lots of folk on BH don't get is that if your house is non compliant and someone like me turns up to value it.. it's blighted if not compliant. In summary private BC may be fine to get you over the line.. but in ten years time you may struggle to seek recourse. It's frankly an English gimmic. In Scotland we have a much more robust system that protects the public, not the best but much more in the round. OH I feel outrage from some of the English members of BH..! But deep down I know lots of you know you are chancing your arm!

@Bornagain Sounds like a well built house. Do you know what your total heat loss was? What size hot water cylinder did you choose? Mines going to be exactly 200m2 too, floors, cold loft, 2.4m ceilings. UFH and radiators, MVHR. 4.8kw of almost south facing solar and anti sun glazing in the South windows. I'm applying a lot of detail to air tightness but I just wouldn't expect it to retain heat all day like yours. I'm designing the the heating system to have a max flow temperature of 35C at dt5. How big is your PV system? I've nothing against heat pumps and home battery, its just that the more electric I convert to, the bigger the battery needs to be plus the inverter to handle it all. To get a decent ROI, youneed to be on a time of use tariff and if the battery is undersized, you end up paying for peak or day rate, and with everything electric, I'd need a bigger inverter. I had a company highly rated add some in roof PV to my build as a late decision, and just for once I wanted to not have to research it all and put the trust in a company, they were saying 90% of customers have a 3.6kw inverter, then I realised I'd need bigger with an ASHP and possible induction hob and electric oven, so they said 5kw hybrid inverter and they'll do the G99 to DNO. But looking at it again, 2 or 3 hobs in use with the oven on puts me above the 5Kw, so in 4-7pm peak rate which is 45p, I'd be in it every day even with the heat pump in set back.

This is common, I despair at times that professionals are so bad at listening. It's good for business to do so, to listen and understand Client requirements, it's a common law of business.. just listen and deliver what the Client is asking for, but always question if you think they are doing the wrong thing, something that is unsafe or will destroy their financial investment. Sometimes you do the best you can, but some Clients self destruct.. is this you? I try and cover their arse professionally so they don't do something stupid. Now why do you want to do this? Is it some kind of liberal thing that you can boast about to your pals or would you consider getting something close or just the same at a good value? You could lose your shirt here! Ah, Absolute pish as you are resticting your choice of contractors. If you know how to design this kind of stuff.. like I do in the day job why are you here on BH asking about it? So no PH is going top cost you a fair bit more. Ok you have binned your Architect, you are on a mission.. but you have a massive learning curve to go through if you want to make your project a goer. That said if you put in the work then you will reap a massive cost and self satisfaction benefit. Do you have the time to do this? It can be done but you have to be on site a lot.. so you don't end up paying for something that does not get delivered by the contractor. The building business is not for the faint hearted, there are few rules when you get into a dispute with a builder. This is where you make the savings compared with buying a new house off the shelf. Can you cope with a stand up arguement with a builder on site? To get to passive house standards you have to pay a builder more for the quality of delivery. That is your starting point. Post some sketches and you'll get load of helps on BH from folk that have done it and worn the tee shirt, that might stop you losing your shirt! If you have a design you want to go for then that is a great start. If it's you first self build then my advice is that unless you have loads of money ( by emulating PH build and don't mind losing a bit of it|) then just try and go for a practical, maintainable and a well insulated build that will hold it's value. The above is a bit of tough love.. but best to hear it now than later? But to finish. You have a desing you like..you have suffered a bit of torture.. well done you both. Think.. if self building was easy then every one would do it. Self building is hard and you should be proud of your achievemnets to date, even if you have made some mistakes, everyone does including me. . I've been there, worn the tee shirt, made mistakes that cost me money. But Build Hub was not around at the time. All the best on the adventure and your best friend will be the folk on BH!

Why does it not go below 2kW? Viessmann and Vaillant and many other well know state 2.1Kw minimum compressor output which I find strange. Forgetting costs of running, does the heat pump provide any difference in comfort or less short cycling than when you had the boiler, and if it does, is it purely because it can modulate lower than the boiler you had? How does a cop of 2.5 break even on a gas boiler. gas 5.4p at 100% efficient, 6.1p at 90%, electric 25p, scop 4.1 required and even in summer you wont get a cop of over 4 on dhw which ruins the scop. An 11Kw boiler will provide 18Kw for DHW vs 6Kw heat pump, but it isn't going to change between summer and winter temperatures. My figures indicate gas cheaper and quicker on dhw and ashp slightly cheaper on space heating. Why do you choose immersion which is only 100% efficient vs the heat pump which is much quicker to heat and 250-360% ? Are you just running on off controls for a fixed flow temperature like you mentioned?

I went with a pair of locating nails driven perpendicular to the jack rafter face and three 4.5mm Ø nails at ~23° to the jack rafter face at the thickest part of the connection. All piloted in the jack.

A hell of a lot more than you (x3 eg 30+ years of it). I appreciate the title though, quite catchy If a wall isn’t skimmed, then its bare plasterboard, so either way you’d need to call Tanky McTankface. Absolutely zero issue to have skim on the boards. “15 all, new balls please!”.

Nonsense, Mr Tank it, Tank it. How many shower cubicles / wet rooms have you tiled onto skimmed plasterboard in the last 10 years?

This is completely inaccurate. A single failure, once, is no measure for the rest of the trades and how they deliver work. If the tiles leak then having hardie board wont save you, it'll just delay the inevitable. @Lincolnshire Ian, why are the walls white?

Hard to tell from the pics, but I would say bumblebees - certainly doesn't look like honey bees Bumbles will only use a nest for one season, so this was probably last year and they shouldn't return Pic 2 of the second post, looks a bit like the base for a destroyed wasps nest

For me there are two major strands here. First is that to really properly develop tools using AI you need domain specific knowledge - not only in terms of both functional and technical specification (because in my experience AI misses this and can very easily run away with itself in some rather bizarre ways and totally forget the original specification, even when taking into account context window and memory degradation), but also in terms of the domain of development - you have to be able to properly and fully sense check outputs and assumptions made by the model. If you don't have the experience, you're going to miss not just major stuff, but the important nuances required in good development. There are definitely problems with how knowledge gaps will develop from short-term profiteering. Second is that I see it as something similar to the 1990s off-shoring of customer service call centres to cheaper locations to eventual great cost and a requirement for brands to re-onshore those services to keep customers happy, or at least provide decent escalation routes. Although it still does happen it was largely a failed endeavor. A lot of what is happening in AI is the same and I think it will bite back - I've already developed an allergy to those cheap horrible customer service bots/agents that never actually answer my question. But on a much larger and equal scale, I think the realisation might be something along the lines of the long term costs of off-shoring all our industrial and manufacturing facilities, knowledge and capabilities. In the UK we've done this in favour of financialisation and services and it's coming back to bite us now. I see this as being the fault of hailed people like Dyson who had a very patronising and blinkered view of offshoring back in the noughties. I remember listening to one of his speeches where he was ever so confident that off-shoring manufacturing to China was nice a clean in that it wouldn't involve any transfer of IP or high value knowledge, as it was only the low value stuff they'd get - oh how wrong he was. So the more we indiscriminately off-shore to AI the more we're going to create a rod for our own back. None of this is to say the AI is universally bad. I use it all the time and it helps me a great deal to get things done in a myriad of ways. Just need to know where your off-ramp is for when it merely gives you the impression of benefit.

No idea how far you are off retirement, we decided to do single storey, with an eye of getting older and limited mobility, making the house fully future proof. All bedrooms have access to decking as does the dining room and all are level thresholds at the doors. Single storey makes passivhaus more difficult due to form factor. We went architect, but on the basis I reviewed and approved all drawings. Treated on a proper engineering basis. He came up with a design I never would have, but to the spec I wanted. I decided build method, insulation, airtightness, designed heating and how to achieve everything. He did the leg work of building regs etc. Worked for us. Be prepared to roll up your sleeves and get stuck in, it isn't a part time task. If you are working full time and doing a build management, be prepared for delays and maybe not getting what you want. But good luck and enjoy the journey. I did.

I have used "3CSharedServices" for the building control for my (solo) self build in Cambridge city. I am currently at first fix and the next inspection is for completion (still some distance ahead). I have been happy with them all the way through. Happy to provide more information if you like. Dreadnaught

Welcome! I am self building (solo) relatively nearby in Cambridge city (at first fix). Be in contact if I may be of any help. Dreadnaught

A couple of people have built to Passivhaus standard and I think that @Gone West got certified. But then he did move down my way. As @MikeSharp01 says, it is easy to go 'geeky'. Good engineering practice will get you to 90%, the thermal properties are not that hard. Then, as we often hear in here, you only have 90% left to do to finish.

Are you tiling past the shower door or flush with shower door frame? You could keep the tile backer board and tiles inside of the door frame which is then fixed back to plasterboard depending on the width of door. Would need a very good seal. You want a T shape trim to cover both the board and tile or a straight edge trim to cover just the backer board. Have a look at: https://www.protilertools.co.uk/categories/tile-trim https://pureadhesion.co.uk/trims/

Hi folks! Gema's other half here! Thanks for the warm welcome. RE PH certification - it's a relatively minor incremental cost given everything else (especially since we are doing all the design work - so it's really just the certifier cost), and we feel it's actually pretty good value for money, given the extremely detailed review and guidance that comes with it. As for the architecting, it's been a steep learning curve, but well worth it. We found trying to iterate over the design with an architect more tedious than helpful, but maybe that's because we are the ultimate control freaks. Let's just say the architect wasn't loving it when we rocked up with full daylight simulations (using Rhino + Ladybug Tools) and resizing & relocating all his windows, for example. Never mind asking for some up-front PHPP modelling and being told to wait, as that'll come during "detailed design". I'm sure there are plenty of good architects out there, but certainly not the one(s) we found. On the [visual] design side is probably where an architect would have been most useful as we aren't normally the creative types. However, we found our mojo and have concocted something we genuinely like (and is simple-ish to build).

We do have rules about firing workers to replace them with cheaper ones. Things like TUPE. But our current breed of politicians tend to focus on the wrong things and AI regulation has been low on their list. Especially since Trump got elected as they seem particularly wary of doing anything that might upset him and the tech industry makes sure he knows about anything they don't like coming from us.

Well you're both right! What you see there is a reflection from the wall, but there is a small amount of shading until about 9:30am in mid-April - this time will become earlier as the sun rises earlier/higher. Yes I could move the panels left a bit but it would be a royal pain in the a**e to do mostly because of the clamps and spacers I've used. If I feel the need I'm more likely to remove the concrete bolts holding it all down and drag the whole frame left a bit. BUT just to the left of the array is a gate that opens onto the frame.... So the further left I go the less the gate can open - which is an issue as I need it to open fairly wide so I can get my boat in and out of the barn that's in front of the array [only twice a year though]. I had given a small amount of thought to putting an optimiser on that one panel but I'm not Ure it would be worth it or even work! Anyway, I finally got round to finishing off all the DC cabling today through surface mounted conduit over the concrete yard and then up into the barn and along the roof steelwork to the inverter, AC isolator and into the barn consumer unit via an RCBO. Total run of about 45m each way The inverter has a DC isolator built in and I'm not sure whether I need to fit an external one as well - I had read that it's another point of failure and wasn't really needed if the inverter has one.

I suspect because they can make laws like this in China - we cannot do that here. We have always adapted to new technologies and we will again, it will be tough for many but an opportunity for many also. This is the knub of the issue and here you and I can share much more common ground - this is down to short-sighted entrepreneurs not realising that if you want longevity you need a pipe line. This is the problem we had with apprenticeships in the 1980s, 90s and noughties here we can demand intervention to stop people saving money and pocketing profit in the short term while destroying productivity in the long term - this we can legislate for. Those who neglect history are destined to repeat it.

Coder who uses llm absolutely! . It’s not about writing code anymore - as I said it’s orchestration of the llm ! ( using the tool ) The issue I see is less juniors / graduates and when ‘ seasoned ‘ programmer / se retire who carries the knowledge/ understanding forward ?

Yes, and China has already started grappling with this. Chinese courts have reportedly ruled that companies cannot simply fire someone purely because AI can do the job cheaper. That proves this is not just imaginary pessimism — governments and courts are already seeing AI replacement as a labour-market issue. And that is exactly my point. If AI were merely “another productivity tool”, why would courts need to decide whether workers can be dismissed because an AI system now performs the role? The fact they are having to rule on it shows the disruption is real. It may make the cake bigger overall, but it can still destroy specific jobs, squeeze wages, and collapse small teams into one person plus AI. That is a major structural change, not just canals becoming railways.

You are absolutely correct there and I can see it in front of me with my students - getting jobs in coding is now very difficult but getting jobs in integrating LLM coding with business objectives is booming. That is also true - just 7 people, all of whom have a finite amount of life left, are making all the headway and a lot of the profit BUT underlying that profit is enough people able to pay for their products when that dries up it all goes phut! Nope, but then maybe the next technology will follow the trend and be even faster, each technology of the recent past has had faster adoption curves than the last one its just the way it is and, so far, we have not seen a breaking of the pattern in my view.

Another point is the speed of improvement. I accept local LLMs are not frontier models. They are behind the best cloud systems. But the pace is ridiculous. Every few weeks there seems to be a better open/local model, better quantisation, better tooling, better context handling, better coding ability, or better inference speed. That matters because the argument is not “can today’s model replace everyone?” The argument is “where is this going over the next 3, 5, or 10 years?” I’ve never personally seen a technology move this fast. With most technologies you get gradual product cycles. With LLMs, the capability jump over months is noticeable. A model that felt barely useful a year or two ago can now write, debug, explain, summarise, plan and generate code well enough to materially change how one person works. So yes, today’s local models are not AGI and not frontier. But the gap is closing fast enough that dismissing this as just another normal productivity tool feels complacent.

I agree it can make the cake bigger. I’m not saying AI is only bad or that we should ignore it. But “the cake gets bigger” doesn’t mean the slices are evenly distributed. Yes, canals to railways to roads changed employment. But those transitions still destroyed some jobs, shifted power, and forced people to retrain. The fact society eventually adapted doesn’t mean the disruption wasn’t real for the people caught in it. The difference here is speed and breadth. LLMs are not replacing one transport system with another. They touch almost every desk-based industry at once: coding, admin, sales, marketing, support, accounts, legal prep, design, analysis, documentation. My own project is a good example. What would once have needed a small team is now potentially one person directing an LLM, with the AI doing much of the manual coding and iteration. That is brilliant for me as the person using it, but it also means fewer people are needed to produce the same output. So yes, learn to use it. I completely agree. But that doesn’t remove the labour-market issue. In fact it proves it: those who use it well become far more productive, and those who don’t are under pressure. That is not just “another technology” in a mild sense. That changes the structure of work.

My project would be a small team . Now it’s 1 person who doesn’t need to manually code . Just this in its own changes everything