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That's quite a dark and moody nighttime render. Worth doing one for the morning view as well. You look like you have plenty of space for a wide sink/table to put things on. As for space, suspect space around the toilet is more useful in case of aging/disability than around the sink but in a room that size everything is going to be a trade off.

I watched an interview of open ai to journalist . Journalist asked “ How far are we away from no human coding ? “ . Open ai guy asked the room of spectators “ put your hand up if llm writes 100% of your code “ . He then asked “ put your hand up if it writes around 50% of your code “ . He then turned back to journalist and said “ that was roughly a 50/50 spilt so we are 50% of the way there “ No humans allowed soon!

But for 90% of housing stock they will not be drilling into walls to find out how construction was done or any improvements completed in x years. You may be lucky and they will poke their head into loft, if it has a suitable ladder. They will make a huge bunch of assumptions. Funny old thing just like MCS assessments for heat pumps. We have to most of that now in Scotland, as we need an as designed EPC prior to Warrant issue. Getting those details for existing housing - 90% of the public would not reply, as it's all stuff for someone else to understand.

looks a bit too cramped? this is with an 800mm wide shower rather than the 900 pentagon. I was thinking id need more space at the sink, hence moving it down "into the open" but still working on these ideas.

Just looking at other peoples experience. It works until it doesn't and then randomly decides to delete a load of stuff. Don't give AI access to your main machine. Give it a VM with controlled access. Regular backups beyond the control of the AI.

You’re bathroom SVP will come down in the middle of your rear wall, just something to consider. Also bathroom width needs to be 3m. Id be tempted to make the entrance double height. Personally I don’t like you’re layout, bit dull and awkward, but its your house I guess lol

Nice little benefit of moving the sink and mirror near the window will be that the mirror will much more reflect the light from the window and make the space feel a good bit brighter/larger I suspect.

I didn't get to the point of talking to them. Just reading the planning permission that had already been granted. Was a while ago so can't really remember more than I've said already. Edit to add: If you are subject to those restrictions be worth checking that your quotes haven't assumed you are (if the companies are used to working in Barnet they may have assumed).

Just been reading it now. With everyone forced to use the same calculation engine and the defaults being designed to be 'punative' the incentives for accurate data entry go up a lot. How that translates will be interesting. Definitely going to increase costs and I'm sure plenty of lazy accessors will try to find ways to be lazy but will probably lead to more accuracy overall. Going to be annoying from a scheduling point of view if you have to specify a lot of this detail early in the design. Pipe diameters, length, flow rates per outlet, make/model of mhvr/heatpump/hot water cylinder/etc.

all great stuff, thanks people. See attached for a few top down options of flipping the bog and sink and shower change to a rectangle. The idea of the pentagon shower was to make it feel less cramped, but im not heart set on that idea at all, everything on the table currently.

Access isn't terrible for London. It's suburban. ~9m no parking zone immediately outside the house and a off street parking space next to the house. Road could be wider though. How big would you expect the crew to be? One quote breaks down costs and has labour at 30K (10-12 days on site). That's either a big crew or a lot of margin. Would ideally get demo, groundworks and foundation done together, but we might have to book demolition in before groundworks/foundation plans are finalised. Great. Nothing specific has come up yet beyond the usual (ecology, tree protection etc). At what point did they inform you of additional restrictions? In response to section 80?

I doubt cutting internet cables would be a big enough shock (there are too many). But a week without working internet would likely do most people some good. (Any more and logistics start to break in really bad ways)

I looked at a plot in Barnet. The council had all sorts of restrictions on using the street and co-ordination of works*, though it sounds like a more constrained plot than yours. Is this an issue for you? I'm sure it will add substantial cost if so. * They wanted an off-site mustering point for workers (no parking on the street), restricted access times, advanced co-ordination of movements, regular communication with local residents.

It'll have to be hand picked-apart, so will be time-consuming and at the higher cost level for sure. Not sure about DIY as you'd need to be insured for all eventualities. What's access like for grab trucks to stop and load? Typically these would need 15 mins on site to pick up a full load, possibly blocking the road and needing a few people on traffic management, and to reduce costs you would likely need to segregate waste / spoil / inert hardcore etc vs mixed loads. You can use skips, but you'd need parking space for 2 skips per 24hrs, and get them collected and swapped out for new ones at the end of each day, say 4-4:30pm to miss school and 5pm rush hour, and folk coming home from work etc. You need a gang on site for 2 weeks, semi-skilled, probably a general builder and his skivvies, and drop it floor by floor; roof covering off and gone via a skip(s), then timberwork of roof down, same, then fold the gables in, same, then pull the 1st floor walls in on themselves, same, and so on. Damage to neighbouring properties is the biggy, so you'd need PWA's in place and scaffold with timber barriers to stop falling object debris from causing personal injury, the whole 9 yards. Whole site will need to be fully wrapped in scaff with sheeting, one guy on the hose pipe all day long to control dust, then also you need to prevent access by kids etc....list goes on. May be cheaper to get the same contractor doing the grounds and new founds to price you turnkey (demo and founds) same I am about to do for another new client (demo and new replacement dwelling), as value-engineering is difficult when piecemealing a project out and having multiples of contracts done in isolation; more meat on the bone, the lower the cost etc.

Thank you, will say that to the groundsman. Huge help

Personally, I think that would be a godsend 🙂

Yeah it’s insane ! Today we are going to implement a local version of codex chat writes prompt local reasoner proposes how to do it local coder implements local reasoner checks it ; tests if fails reasoner adjusts prompt and around the loop we go 🤣 Decided 3 attempts then it fails and we give it to big boy chat . Obviously no commits or anything until proven correct . The thing that still blows my mind apart from zero coding is that I can create whatever I want . No deciding which languid might have to learn or software stack documentation to plough through , heaven forbid stack overflow ! The prompts from chat are very precise - no running amok across the entire repo. One small task at a time rather than big chunks - all tested . Then ‘ magically ‘ the final bit is added and it works !

Really need to start planning the final part of the external insulation, which is going to be topped with timber/composite cladding (haven't decided yet). This is a photo of the area to be clad, its not huge. To the right hand side, the lean to roof meets the soffits, so nothing to match here, but on the left hand side there is the existing EWI i did a few years back, which will be around 100-110mm thick, so the timber cladding needs to be a little bit more, to overlap this, the dream scenario would be the frame behind will be the same depth as the EWI, and then the timber cladding will sit nicely over the EWI for a couple of cm's. And thinking of overlapping the lead flashing below to protect where it enters the brickwork. This bit will also get insulated as part of the job (figure I may as well since everything else is done), in case the loft ever gets converted (unlikely but you never know). My initial idea was to use 2 layers of crossing timbers, each layer filled with rockwool insulation, breather membrane, battens and then the final finish cladding. Do I need anything from a structural engineer for this? BCO are clueless around here, haven't asked for anything, so this is more for my sanity. The floodlight and sensor are already disconnected, and just need removing, the vents are staying for the MVHR. I've approached a few cladding companies, but so far none have even replied, but i'd rather do it myself anyway, least i know its done right then! Any thoughts? Ideas? Comments? Cheers Mike

Honestly, I haven't been brave enough to give it access and control of my system and docs. If I set up a dedicated machine, I might do that. But yeah, it's amazing. This morning I was working through a problem and within 25 minutes I've got a working app that does exactly what I need it to do and I've haven't touched a single piece of code, job done. But I'm still surprise you haven't had to touch anything. I've still got to roll up my sleeves every now and again but maybe that's because I'm restricting access?

I need to demolish a 3 bed, 120sqm 2 storey detached house (so 60sqm footprint) in london borough of barnet. The house is near one other house (alleyway in between), otherwise we're pretty far from any other structure. I'm sorting out as much of the "pre work" as possible myself, e.g. fencing, utilities, asbestos. I'm getting quotes that I think are pretty wild. So far 70K and 50K from small demolition firms. At this rate I'll be doing it myself! How would you go about trying to get this done for a more sensible budget?

I have not used this one but have been able to get an email address to send Build Zone documents in the past, as at the time their portal had file size limits. Call them and ask what they suggest.

My husband is a bit of a technophobe and not computer literate. He is struggling with the Obi portal to upload required documents. Asked me to take a look. I am usually fairly confident with tech and if I don’t know how to use a system I will find out how to. Well I can’t make head nor tail of it. There is clearly going to be a lot of info to upload and we are clueless. Any suggestions for support in this process?

Help us @CalvinHobbes : does your question relate to the area with the red cone ( patio ?) or the entrance gate - or both? Patio area = if you want a drain, have one. French drain will do - just a simple soak away Entrance gate = MoT3 raising the drive to a good few mm above the water running down the road - topped off as @Conor says above If the apparent slope of the road really is down towards your house - ( image taken with camera level ?) , you might want to consider a French drain to the right of your entrance gate ( looking towards the road ) . I'm thinking of a cloud-burst type rain or persistent heavy rain.

Who can do this please? Scraping the crush off of our drive is enough of a job to be honest. Going down half a metre would be a nightmare. My plan now is to scrape the crush away, lay a membrane, perhaps a French drain away towards the rear garden,200mm of type 3, compact. Then worry about what the top dressing will be.

I'm happy with Fermacell, really tough product so I'd do the same to retain control over the incremental timings it gave me. Otherwise I'd be calling the plasterer back every few weeks and waiting on them before I could paint and finish a room. Not really what they are about and not a skill I wanted to develop! If you have a friend / relative who is a plasterer that might work though!