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Sorry not answering your question - but more or an observation. Why are you installing gas on a new build? Install a heat pump and save your self a fortune in running costs. Add a battery/PV and save more. Our new build was completed in 2021, with gas boiler. After a year or so fully optimising how it it ran, I added an ASHP specifically for cooling the floor. Operated a hybrid system. Realised, with standby charge for gas and the great cop from a heat pump, the boiler had to go. Since added more PV and battery and pay almost nothing for energy even in NE Scotland. Gas it last century.

I've laid my 63mm underground yellow gas duct for a new build and i have it coming from horixontal underground with a sweeping bend up vertically to the hole under the built in external meter box. The electric one has a red and white hockey stick to complete the transition between duct and meter box, but i cant see anything online for the same with gas. Looking at completed wall boxes on neighbour’s houses they just have a white plastic conduit coming out the bottom of the gas meter box into the ground. Does the gas company provide this? Is there a coupling for the 63mm to stick? Hoping to not have to dig down through comlacted type 1 to add a plast sweeping bend when the yellow duct already does this with the draw cord in.

@hauntedicecreamvan Which door did you go with? I'm currently looking for a fully glazed door.

Thanks that's very useful. Would you do the plastering differently if you were starting it now? I totally get what you mean about getting it 'good enough' so that you can move in but I want to try and avoid doing things twice if possible.

What was the lime render used?

Mean coating, hay fever eyes, fat fingers and autocorrect. The holy trinity of (expletive deleted)ing up text on a phone.

I had such a visit back in December. I had requested the visit as a pre-completion review. They called it something else, but they did follow up the visit with a list of things they needed to see before completion. Very handy for the work plan needed this year.

Thank you What do you mean by costings? As in money? I think I'll brush off what paint I can and leave until October as you say. Is that the best time to do any remedial work?

Building control visits are normally focused on checking as-built versus approved plans so they can look at any details, ie. level thresholds, smoke detectors, escape windows etc, etc. They wouldn’t have time to look through documents but for final submission, I would add; SE calcs/drawing, roof truss calcs, any MCS certs, Gas Safe certs, planning approvals, window and door specs …

Hi folks We are thankfully getting to stuff I understand with our build - painting, kitchen, bathrooms etc. As we approach BC Completion I'd appreciate some feedback on my "checklist" for what BC will want to see. Documents * Electrical Installation Certificate (EIC) * MVHR Commissioning Report * SAP EPC Calculation * Air Tightness Test Certificate Observations * Everything signed off from previous visits including windows. * Level threshold for entrance door. * Outwards opening downstairs toilet door. * Drain test. Have I missed anything? BC are coming for an "advice" visit next week and I would like to be prepared 😊. Thanks

I’ll use chat as my reasoner but I need local to do my local actioned stuffed until I can source enough ram . Bigger model did mean better but now smaller better optimised models can out perform a larger one . Obviously there’s a point when you can’t go smaller without too much compromise . If you ask ChatGPT itself how long before a model matches its capabilities of today in a ‘ reasonable ‘ size it reckons within 2 years a 256gb model will be comparable to ChatGPT 5.4. That’s insane ! To have that capability sat on your desk in a relatively low ram config. Moe and potentially’ bolt on ‘ specialists seems to be the next level . A medical specialist , maths specialist etc plugged in to the reasoner.

Sorry about the nonsense speak in my first para above. I don't even know how to get that px character. I'm guessing this all happened in my back pocket. Ie I didn't edit and post consciously. What does it even mean? Ignore first paragraph.

Enjoy!

Thank you all for your contributions. We have sent 2 separate letters. First one for the PWA and second one for access, trespass, legal action etc. We will see what happens on Tuesday when they arrive. Got so much going on at moment with work, Scotland plot, holidays, it just really wasn’t needed now. Myself and partner discussed it a few months ago saying that when we get notification, despite not wanting it built, we will be amicable and let them have access with conditions but the way it’s all been gone about. One working days notice on work comencing and been spoken to way I was is not how I expected it. I’ll go and enjoy a 3 day weekend now before battle 👍🏻

Kindness is always taken as weakness. Sad, but true. Be on top, or underneath, but decide now which one of those two options sits least well, and dig down deep.

Ask for say at least 10.0 -20 k plus to be put into an account up front as part of a bond. Explain. You are willing to facilitate this but in no way are you going to be out of pocket if their builder goes bust. Explain you just don't have the time to go legal if they breach the agreement. Say if they erect scaffolding over your property without agreement you'll call the HSE. I strongly suspect that you'll end up coming out on the wrong side of this unless you dig your heals in now. The builder sounds like a chancer / bully and the designers (Architect's and SE) are very at fault as they should have advised your neighbour on how to avoid all of this in the first place. Say to your neighbour it seems like your design team are chancers and you have no confidence. Let them justify why. In my day job I would not allow this to happen at all by designing out this major issue. If you are soft now you will likely regret. If they are doing this now what do you think they are going to leave you having to look at from your side of the garden? Their proposal to build "over hand" is likely going to result in you looking at a mess, maybe drainage problems and so on. Also you need to look at their wall construction on the boundary .. if say a cavity wall are they relying on venting that to your property and so on.. you could end up losing a lot more than you realise at the moment.

Does look that way. New Deepseek one for example, and it's been touted has having huge optimizations for reducing memory usage. It might be much better at storing context but if the model is so huge in the first place it's not easy to run at home. Google seems to have done well with Gemma, but of course that is a lot cut down from the leading models and they aren't releasing those. Doubt any western firm will for 'safety' reasons. So far the Chinese govt doesn't seem to care about that so long as their models spout Chinese propoganda at the relevant moments.

I suppose that consumer high end local LLM schemes need large memory but you can do the same thing with a cloud based one while you await delivery of enough RAM, or whatever other semiconductor you are waiting on. Trouble is that the end of the proverbial rainbow is moving away from you faster than you can stuff memory into machines anyway, so, when your RAM arrives there will be plenty of models it won't run because they have grown, bloated, faster than you can add RAM to your machine.

Eeeeeek - remind me not to even think about building next to you or indeed any of your family without my Party Wall surveyor all suited and booted in the crew cabin.

Love a bit of PWA. My daughter had a right fukcnt of a neighbour. Very nasty piece of work. When the neighbours builder just turned up out of the blue, and started taking the fence down between the properties, (That i had paid for and put up), i had to pop over and have a word. I told him i would give him a hour to put the fence back up, or i would cut his fingers off, and post them through his letterbox, to his wife and kids. I made him empty his wallet. He had about £80. I took that off him, and told him that was my charge for me having to come over. Dont worry, i did it all while remaining super calm. I then made the neighbour appoint a party wall surveyor. I objected to the surveyor, and appointed One of my own. The neighbour had to pay. The surveyor i appointed was an old friend of my dads, so i told him to make sure that he did not agree about anything with the other surveyor. This ment that the neighbour had to pay for a Third surveyor for a final decision. Cost them over Six grand, and Six months by the time it got sorted. Then they had to pay for a more expensive builder, because the One i had chatted to refused to come back. Oh, the fun of being young, and a borderline nutter. Fun times. To me your neighbour sounds like a proper w.........anker. I would be hurting the tossers wallet, and hard.

First thing out of the box is the trusty laser. Saved my arse soooooooooo many times. Hopefully the return coving will be perfectly acceptable, and you'll need to fast-forward to a year from now when you (actually) no longer even look at it. Too many people get utterly lost in these micro-details, and then come 12 months later, life has returned to normal, and these things are of zero consequence anymore.

Oil and water. You should see my streaky doors where I did not manage to fully remove all the old, oil based, paint. I love the modern water based glosses, but hate the sanding down to bare wood, and then a bit more, before application.

You shouldn't be mixing water based and oil based products. Have you sought professional advice before proceeding?

Sorry to be a stick in the mud, but your electrician will not thank you for doing this, and it may deter some. You will need to size the appliances, so for my current client I have pulled 1x 10mm T&E for the hob, 1x 6mm T&E for the large double oven, 1x 4mm T&E for the smaller oven, 1x 2,5mm T&E for the fixed microwave (you cannot plug a fixed microwave into a socket, it must have its own cable and its own RCBO), 2x 2.5mm T&E for kitchen ring, and have sized the CU according to the total number of circuits required for the whole house. PLEASE get input from your chosen electrician, as you're just flying blind and will likely just waste time and money vs saving it. They should be happy to let you do some of the 'donkey work' especially if they are busy, but THEY must tell you what to run as you are quite a far way off with what you're typing out here....sorry again.

The amount of debris you can generate per sqM is insane. I did the vaulted side to gain back the space as it was curved top and bottom and like 80mm thick and filled with rusted mesh. Whole thing was brutal, won't be doing that again.