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Thanks @SimonD, very comprehensive. We are planning to use a Thermowood cladding and current thought is not to have heads showing (much - there will be some viability of the nail/hole I believe). Sounds like a 2nd fix nailer is what I need.

That's what a decent nailer should do, 1st or 2nd fix - just adjust it correctly for use and you'll get a lovely finish with the nails. E.g. I have interior birch cladding fixed with brads, but my extrerior cedar uses round head and used a 1st fix nailer. But it depends on what finish you're after. The round head nails that are traditionally used on cladding will have a nice shiny round head that sits on the surface of the cladding. For these you use a 1st fix 'framing' nailer as mentioned above. If you want hidden fix, or you just want a pin hole visible on the surface, then you use brad nails and for these you need a 2nd fix, brad nailer that is made for the gauge of brad nails you need to use. Difference in diameter is about 0.8mm as brads for cladding will be about 2mm and round head nails about 2.8m diameter. Bute when you buy your 2nd fix nailer, just make sure the angle and size of brads is available in the right material for that nailer. So to help us give you proper clear advice, you need to decide on what finish you're after and also let us know what timber you're using as there are some timbers that can be a bit brittle and still need pre-drilling to prevent splitting, in which case you're probably better of hand nailing, however painful that may seem.

It will have been an external consultant, or the developer's designer but the same will apply.

Hence a membrane under the joists. Not the biggest issue. If there is no draught then the air in any tiny gaps warms but stays put. The rockwool covering the pir remains in place and closes off thermal bridging.

Same here, plus Sqlite and Maria DB. Open Heat Loss has been my first project using Postgres and it's great, especially the way cloud hosting providers like Railway support it natively - makes life a breeze. Although for me the only thing has been learning its quirks at the application layer so had a few issues there - but that's just learning any new DBMS.

When I built my place I had a Senco 1st fix and a Senco 2nd fix nailer. I used 50mm stainless brads for cedar cladding.

Or a downpipe? If it’s a combined sewer that is taking rainwater? If that’s a foul then it should just be going to a local IC. Is this bloke older than Jesus?

I think I’d still want to line these with dabbed and screwed Marmox / Jackoboard (min 10mm) and the wet plaster over those. At the very least I’d want solvent-free gripfill / other similar mastic to attach the leading edge of the above closer to the internal leaf of masonry.

What’s the bottle gulley for ? pipe down through floor and connect into a chamber. the only reason for the bottle gully would be if you had an outside tap positioned above it.

Bringing back and older post as we're almost through planning and making decisions about wall make up. Brick outer skin. Wet plaster inside. Options are: 1. 175mm full fill dritherm (or other brand) 32 / 37 with medium density block inner leaf. 2. 150mm full fill dritherm 32 with lignacite blocks. 3. 150mm full fill dritherm 32 with fibolite blocks 4. 150mm full fill dritherm 32, medium density blocks and a lightweight plaster? Just trying to weigh up the pros and cons of each, and making sure they reach 0.18 u-value. Any thoughts would be gratefully received!

Exposed face fixings or secret nailing?

It’s a bit crap seeing the pipe on the wall, but what stage are you at? Is the pipe no longer able to punch through and come up internally? Why are you having arguments?? You’re paying this goon, so stop arguing and start instructing him! ”Put the pipe here, don’t ask questions. If you can’t do it, I’ll get someone else who can (or will)”. 🤷‍♂️

Hmmm. Seems to me that a first fix nailer would not be suitable for cladding as it uses larger nails and leaves a larger hole! What I am after is a nailer that uses smaller fixings that don't need any further finishing work on the timber once nailed.

Thank you @saveasteading. I thought the risk would be from warm moist air in the kitchen finding its way past the insulation to reach the (now colder) plywood deck. It would be a hybrid roof, which are sometimes seen as a bad idea. Particularly if the insulation was permeable like Rockwool. Even with PIR, gaps might appear over time as foil tape delaminates slightly, sealants shrink etc ?

For a door handle, plug, switch etc I'd think in terms of swapping one out from the least used room rather than preemptively buy spares. Kitchen door/drawer is probably the one that worries me a bit and if I was having a custom colour or finish would worry more. Expensive to buy just for spares though. It's always reassuring to have a couple of full tiles or flooring planks left over, but generally from a planned %wastage rather than buying a whole extra pack for spares

Amazing quality of finish - excellent job 👏

I have been an SQL server & MYSQL user until about a month ago when one of my students was showing me some work they were doing on a knowledge hub with Postgres and I thought I should give it a go for my next mini project idea and I found it very good all kinds of ways the pgAdmin software is excellent.

Yes This 👆 I have an air coil nailer, and for cladding and featheredge it is just so much better. My 1st fix Hitachi just explodes the featheredge if attempting 'hidden fixing' on the leading thinner edge. Coil nailer fires a full round head too vs a clipped head, so offers the benefit of less penetration into the wood.

Ah well

I've got a DeWalt first fix as well and it's f'ing huge. Never used it, got it at work but I'd only ever use that for framing.

I fitted a Texecom Elite system in our self build into house, annexe and garage. House and annexe are treated as independent areas, each with is own keypad with a RFID sensor. Steep learning curve to program it using their PC application, but doable. It monitors via PIRs, plus smoke and fire detectors. Also drives my door-bell. I agree that this is old fashioned tech, but it's now in year 10 and I've only had to change one backup battery in that time - the panel alerted me to the pending failure of the old battery. I abandoned their android app a long time ago, but I believe they have upgraded that tech a bit. I use home assistant integration for remote monitoring and management. I wanted to avoid reliance on wireless and battery powered devices, so everything is wired to the central unit. All devices, internal and external sounders etc take power from this centre which has is own fused spur. Solid steel cabinet and well built. Their corner PIR sensors are pet friendly, however I have one 360 sensor that is not. I'd use then again based on this experience, though I'd probably see what other companies are doing and what progress the tech has made first.

I bought a spare handle set when changing all the handles on the doors in our house. The previous handles had all been on for twentyish years and I'd never had to replace one. Less than a year in with the new ones and a bunch of stuff fell over in the garage, against the handle, and bent it badly. Now, the handles are still available to buy, but the moral of the story is these things do happen sometimes, and it's a small price to pay for a little peace of mind. I have a spare handle set (or more accurately, one side of a door now!), spare catches, a couple of spare hinges, a spare LED spot for the ones used across the whole of downstairs, and a few other bits and pieces. Never had to use anything other than a handle yet, and I'm sure some things like the hinges wouldn't be really difficult to replace, even if I had to do all three per door, but it's just a lot easier and my mind is a lot more peaceful knowing I have some spares to hand to fix issues almost immediately. I do make a habit of very meticulously keeping things like part numbers and supplier information when I do projects, so I don't always keep duplicates of everything, more so the things that I'd feel forced to change as a set if one failed and I couldn't source an identical replacement. I've thought the same thing about larger items and don't know where I'll end up for some of those in the future. Solar panels are a good example. Do you buy an extra one just in case one fails in an array of eight identical panels or end up with one looking slightly different to all the others if you have to replace it with something different because they are no longer available?

Well you have answered your own question, as you have already sorted out your storage of the bits. Why build that big, you must rattle about in there

You put them in one of the 3 spare bedrooms that nobody uses.

And the spares, where did I put them? Bugger I've looked everywhere?