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Don't do as I do - do as I say, comes to mind. Not much different from a multi millionaire pop star, movie stars, telling everyone to dip their hands in the pockets to give to charity.

Can you move another 400mm away from your neighbour?! That would simplify things greatly.

Hiya. To provide a bit of context, much of my initial SE training and Masters research was on portal frames. I know enough to make a contribution on this type of design. Here is my offer. You can call me on the phone on (mobile number removed, PM for contact details) for a 15 -30 min chat. It's free for BH folks! This forms part of my pro bono work that is good for my soul, my primary qualification is in Civil Engineering, you work for the public. Text me first so I know it's you. I'm pretty deaf so sometimes miss calls. I use my own name and can be easily found on the internet.. I get some interesting calls and offers, these range from "massages" to lots of "financial" offers and other "stuff" that actually breaks up my day, hence me filtering calls. The section sizes you quote might be dependent on your eaves height, wind loading and the types of finishes. That the best I can do for now.

Yeah, that's not great. It should be fully insulated and the insulation should go all the way through the wall. Just resting like that isn't good either. I would personally probably have 2 clips - one just after the bend as it exits the wall and the second before it enters the down pipe. Also, wtf were they thinking with the black? Just looks crap. Not very good standard at all and enough to question the rest of the installation, frankly. Get them back to sort it out as it doesn't comply with the regs or with the manufacturer's instructions on condensate drainage for a start. They should know better.

Local Authorities have no idea what things should cost, so selling them a £300 wind turbine made for a boat, a fifty quid PV panel, a small battery system for say £500 and a person to put it all together, should probably be about £1000. Councils will probably pay 5 to 6 times that amount. Then, where there is a meeting to fit renewables to council buildings, someone in accounts, will drag out the £5000/kW number and say 'it is too expensive'.

Our last house had a fully insurance approved and maintained alarm. Out of interest, at one renewal time for insurance, I asked to quote with and without alarm and got the same cost. All these things were true if I declared the alarm. Kept the alarm, didn't declare it any more.

Hmm, no. The logic defies me here. There is no possible means of producing a proper objective measure in comparison. Instead I'd hope that Rasmus et al would be making more sensible decisions around the necessity and means of travel and thus reducing it as far as possible, not trying to justify it on the basis of 'I do more for the environment so it's okay for me' which just gets us into more trouble and bickering. To affect change in behaviour there needs to be systemic change, because the system absolutely rewards air travel financially as a start right now - just think of the cost of a short flight from the SE to Scotland for example versus the equivalent cost of taking the train. The economics right right are shear insanity. But there are also other systemic factors that blind people to the environmental cost of activities and decision - so this becomes a societal aspect, but then there is of course the individual responsibility about taking a stand and making a statement, which in itself may affect the societal and systemic. But who is actually making this kind of stand in such a way as to shift the curve? Our politicians aren't, nor are other leaders, nor are celebrities really doing this to a great extent... but there are lots of more quiet people just getting on and doing it - maybe they're the ones that will eventually provide the gravity necessary to shift things from the bottom up? Who knows, but the winds are blowing in a direction that rather depresses me right now - it feels like taking a positive environmental stand is the higher risk path, both personally and professionally versus embracing and continuing with the status quo.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. Let them cut their 'carbon footprint' first and then us plebs can follow.

You make a good point about the skills you have, I accept that. The regs have become a lot more stringent particularly in relation to portal frames on or near boundaries. Best thing you can do is to give your SE a call and discuss.

Here is a bit of a good news story. There are two common ways of fire protecting steels. We can box it in with steel angles and say Fire Line plaster board or we can paint with intumescent paint. But BC often ask up front for a specification on the paint system. I wrote this morning to Rawlins Paints the following: Dear technical Department. I'm seeking assistance with a paint specification for steelwork fire protection and certificate / data sheets for a building warrant submission. Attached is a drawing showing the proposed steelwork. The project is a single story domestic house extension with a pitched concrete tiled roof in Scotland. The requirements are: 1/ Level of fire protection required 30minutes ( short duration). 2/ Section sizes are 178 x 102 UB19 S275 or S355 and 152 x 89 UB16 S275. 3/ The load ratio for the 178 x 102UB 19's is 35% and the load ratio for the 152 x 89 U16 is 50% 4/ Exposure to fire: Three sides are exposed; bottom flange and sides. The top flange has a 145 x 45 timber wall plate shot fired to it to support timber rafters. 5/ The beams are orientated in the vertical plane (top flanges upper most), loaded vertically downwards about their major axis. 6/ Quantities:The steelwork lengths are shown on the drawing. 7/ Steel design code is BS5950 part 1: 2000 8/ Exposure to weather: All steelwork is within the weatherproof envelope of the building. Thus dry conditions. No chemical exposure is required. 9/ Application of paint is to be on site, ideally brush applied. This can be done before fixing of the wall plates. By the close of business today I had a paint specification and an undertaking to supply the certification certificate provided we use their product of course. That is a fantastic service! Now for folk on BH. I'm putting these steels in awkward places, thus to box them in is going to be very labour intensive and that is very costly. On a technical note in item 3. I refer to what is called the load ratio. The steel sizes on this project are sized on how much they deflect in service. That stops cracking in ceilings for example. But in a fire we just want to make sure they don't fall down. The load ratio is the load on the steels in a fire compared with the steel beam ultimate strength / buckling strength. Long steel beam design is often governed by buckling, it twists and distorts first. That is why we tie floors into the steel beams for example to prevent the twisting in normal use. But during a fire that contribution can get lost as the floor / roof can burn away to the extent that it stops restraining the beams. Thus the load ratio is based on the strength of the beam when say part of the restraining floor or roof burns away in less than the required fire protection time. But even so using a paint system can be very cost effective. If a beam is not fully loaded up to it maximum capacity during a fire then the intumescent paint system can be of real economic advantage. To explain roughly. If a steel beam is loaded up to it's maximum capacity then it will fail at a lower temperature. A beam can still carry a bit of load at a higher temperature and that is where the load ratio comes in. The paint acts like an insulating blanket that slows the rate the steel heats up.. and that gives us the fire duration requirement we see in the building regs. The above it intended to give you a bit of a template if asking about intumescent paints.

Really wouldn't bother, tech will change by the time you get it working. Or you will change your phone it it won't work.

Yeah, we’re just starting the basement part of our build. This is ‘not easy’ (basements are quite unusual in the UK remember) unless you’re very comfortable with risk and/or have deep pockets. Most UK suppliers won’t want to guarantee water-tightness, the odd European supplier might, but my experience is that they are v difficult to deal with. As others have said, without some kind of sketch - to give an idea of size & shape & ground levels, we’re fairly much in the dark, so can’t say much.

Tektite push fit copper might be a decent alternative - slimmer than plastic push-fit externally and wider internally, no need to hire / buy tools versus press fit (which Tektite sprint looks similar to assembled) Working on our own house they're my preferred option if I do need joints in copper but generally I prefer long runs in Hep2o terminating to copper only as needed.

Went through the same thing with my own build and here's what I gathered after countless hours of research and AI aid as well. Ajax - is the Apple like new entrant into the market, and has the most stylish keypads, sensors etc. But they don't sell direct and are the priciest - got some quotes and it was easily 2-3x other competitors so I dropped this idea. Texecom - this is the industry standard for a graded system (I think you need Grade 2 for home security). Kit is pretty well known and standardised through the app and keypads are a little dated - works but nothing to look at is the consensus. Apparently there is no charge to use their app if you have the WiFi/Ethernet module. Orisec - relatively new entrant in the market and seems to have been setup by ex Texecom people. App is slightly newer and seems to get more updates. £45 charge to use the app on a yearly basis. Pricing is virtually the same as Texecom - based on the installer so you take your pick based on what you like. Pyronix - seems to be lowest rated of the lot (at least if you look online). This is the one we have in our current house (a wireless one). It works but the app is quite shit and frequently logs me out so I miss the notifications(!) when an alarm is triggered. Also currently £45 for annual access to the app. The other choice you have to make is a wired or wireless system. Wired does add a chunk of cost upfront (wiring and labour cost to do the wiring), but you don't have to change batteries every year which means high Capex low Opex. The advantage with most of the systems is that you can start with a baseline wired system for your key doors/windows and then expand gradually by adding wireless sensors in the future (like if you're adding front gates, rear outbuilding etc). FWIW - I've chosen to go with a wired Orisec system with option to add wireless sensors in the future. It was a toss up between the Orisec and Texecom and I'd be happy with either - went with the installer recommendation.

Just a warning - some window & door suppliers show windows on quotes & drawings as viewed from inside (e.g. 21 degrees), some from outside (e.g. Rationel). This makes a difference re handle / lock positions etc and other asymmetrical detail. Also, some UK suppliers show the handle position at the point of the triangle e.g. 21 Degrees, some e.g. Rationel show the point at the hinge side. Often this is fairly obvious, but sometimes not. Just to add a bit of spice ... if the suppliers source extra detail drawings from their European suppliers, they may well be the other way round.

Obviously it has its limitations, but this is exactly the sort of question that AI very good at answering. I just put the following prompt into Claude: This was the reply: Try modifying the prompt if you want something different. I just bunged in what I thought were some reasonable assumptions.

British Gas are just shite on toast, and their forte is ripping off pensioners. Be lucky if she got a Worcester, more likely they've gone bottom shelf and fitted a glow-worm. The above is exactly what I would have drawn if someone asked me to sketch a typical BG condensate arrangement. Just shocking. I went to one pensioner that had become another victim, and as they hadn’t brought a ladder, above 2m around the side of the house, the copper gas pipe just wasn’t clipped, literally flapping in the wind. They put a combi in and left the old boy with a manual mixer shower, so he was getting scalding hot water from it; you can’t leave anyone infirm with a non-thermostatic shower fed from and instantaneous hot water heater. List of this goes on and on, from what I’ve seen over the years from BG. Great adverts, even better sales-people, then the most dogshit plumbing you’ve ever seen.

Google says.. Minimum Dimensions: Both the clear opening width and height must be at least 450mm. Total Area: The clear openable area must be at least 0.33m^2. If you make the opening width the minimum 450mm, the height must be at least 735mm to 750mm to hit the area required. Height: The bottom of the openable area should be no more than 1,100mm (1.1m) above the internal floor level for safe access.

UPDATE: ITS ALIVE😅😁 I purchased a different USB drive, because when I read some of the reviews on the first one they made me think it was possibly the USB drive, as I looked under a microscope at all the capacitors etc. and tested them and none looked blown etc. anyway. Great result - the newer USB drive works like a dream, all files are there, I have a replacement motherboard coming so hoping that I can just plug in the SSD and it will boots as a PC.🤞 but for now the files are safe, and I have ensured that Google Drive is backing them up....

Pointing almost as important as bricks. Your picture looks like a lime based mortar. Bricks look like a non standard size. For our build used Furness bricks, Natural Orange, with “weather struck” pointing. Our builder built several sample walls with different mortars and styles of pointing for us to choose from. Furness bricks sent us a list of builds, using their bricks, in our area we could go and look at. https://www.furnessbrick.co.uk/clamprange Took us ages to find the builders merchant with a big display, found one with over a 100 different bricks. https://www.huwsgray.co.uk/branch-finder/huws-gray-brick-specialist-centre-llay?srsltid=AfmBOooEFD64AmY0O74nf7f4WBMuWxwa7IFkcH1dfvjX8aSZYIeKeboo About 700 on their web site, but that’s in N Wales a long way from you.

You can use cavity closers there are ones keyed to accept wet plaster https://www.coversmerchants.co.uk/dacatie-tf-multicloser-cavity-closer-100-150-x-2400mm

Apply a good few coats of primer / water solution on to it a few days before tiling, to ‘size’ the surface and reduce it’s porosity. Mix up some 75% water 25% primer and give it a good few lashings, a couple of hours apart, and you’ll soon see the board becoming saturated. Apply some neat a day or two before tiling, and then tile on to freshly applied wet, neat primer.

Why? Required, or choose to?

This is pretty crap advice? I've done a LOT of insurance work over the 30+ years of me doing 'this kinda thing' and tanking would have saved so many homes from very significant, long term erosive water damage; all caused by leaking tiles / grout / sealant / shifted baths and shower trays etc etc. Tank the FECK out of it and you'll never look back.

There's too much variation in 'interpretations' from various BCO's, as the last one made me put rodding access internally to tick his boxes. The IC is simply rotated so you use the lower invert throughput, angle on the input and same on the output, and defo not come in on an angle from one of the higher branches. Then, then IC is simply a straight piece of pipe. Zero blockages, zero issue, done it enough times to know it works perfectly well. Agree than another downstream IC within a couple of metres max will be plenty good enough for clearing blockages, but a blockage isn't going to happen if the job's done well (robustly) by a conscientious installer.

right bast today. been dragged down many a rabbit hole of things it created and patches to fix patches to fix patches to fix patches - which are (expletive deleted)ed

Also make sure not to have doors that automatically lock when they close - lift to lock only. Although these don't always work easily single handed, they are still easier at waist height than yale lock handle combo. A single key for all locks is a boon as well.

Is it necessary? My phone is old and with poor battery life, even that only needs charging once a day which I do overnight. How often do you really think you need to charge your phone in the kitchen?

In a word, ‘no’.. does the fence not do the same job, anyway?

I've posted a first Buildhub blog here on our experience and learnings from concept through PreApp, planning application and getting a recommendation to refuse over-turned at planning committee. Its a pretty niche situation - listed building curtilage, conservation area and also wheelchair mobility needs but hopefully some use to others.

My understanding is that disabled access is required only to the principle entrance.

In light of current and future changes to UK environs, what other provisions should be looked at. I already considered these when building my extension and upgrading my house (unfortunately Covid restrictions meant that some of these were unavailable/unaffordable at the time of build) : Larger roof overhangs for better shading and and rain protection Larger gutters for higher rainfall (I went for deepflow, but I now think that was a mistake as we still get over flow, so may change to industrial or import some of the larger metal gutter systems they use as standard in Hungary Breathable and high decrement delay materials for roof insulation - along with an agressive roof ventilation stratagy to ensure that any moisture can wick away in winter / damp periods High Albedo roof coverings. (I wanted to buy white EPDM but this is unavailable in the UK and expensive to import from the EU. Now looking for reflective paint suitable for use with standard black EPDM) High maintenance 'green' roofs are probably not an alternave that is sustainable in the UK climate going forward As much rainwater storage as possible to allow for garden watering (and 'other' activities when the privitised water industry has sucked every last penny into shareholder accounts and bonuses and shuts down) Composting toilet for the same reason. Breathable (sorbative) insulation and high decrement delay wall materials wherever practicable House designed for level access and services suitable for old and infirm residents (raised socket hights, wide doorways, provision for stairlift or through floor lift) Plenty of fruit trees and bushes to provide shading, localised cooling, and dependable food supply External shades or shutters on South and West facing windows (Probably better make that steel shutters on all windows to deal with the innevitable civil unrest when the economy collapses...) No 'smart devices' whatsoever to go wrong/be held hostage to Sorry, that got a bit bleak at the end! I wan't to be a 'Positive Prepper' What else?

If the rooflights are toughened and laminated the requirement for balustrade may be reduced anyway. Don't forget access for cleaning with all that glass.

With pretty much all makes, it's very easy to go back to copper or plastic as they sell them everywhere. For example: https://naturalgreenheat.co.uk/product-category/wras-approved-press-fittings/transitions-mlcp-to-copper-pipe/ I've used Tweetop, Maincor, Riifo, Uni-Press, etc. etc. They are all pretty much the same. The only thing you need to be aware of is what press jaws the brand uses. Some are available that can accept both TH and U, some are only TH or U and some brands have their own. So when you invest in a set of jaws, just make sure you use the compatible fittings. I have both U and TH as I had one supplier who was very good with one brand and then seriously let me down one time by supplying a huge coil of 32mm that was damaged in transit because they couldn't be bothered to package it properly and made it a nightmare to return it, so I had to switch to something else with reliable supply. But for me it's useful to have both sets of jaws because I use the stuff on all my installs. With all the systems you have to plan out your job carefully to ensure access. Having a set of angled jaws helps but obviously adds to your setup costs significantly. The advantage with MLCP is you can often bend the pipe to give yourself access, but sometimes you need to use your imagination in tight spaces - e.g. crimp and then thread pipe into place.

If you think it's where the sheets overlap you could run a strip of roofing membrane in between the sheets at these points (cut just shy of the edges so you don't see it. This might allow some slight movement between the sheets without the noise. Actually, thinking about it, when we put our sheets on the roof (same as yours, 13/3 black corrugated) we used a mastic strip where they overlap to effectively stick them together but allow some movement. Did you do this? Our roof isn't that noisy at all, though we do have a ton of PV covering most of it.

It is not just British Gas unfortunately. 88 year old family member with dementia had a boiler breakdown with a service contract. As his boiler was old he asked them for a new one and was passed onto the sales team. Next thing they send a salesman around to his house, who then sends him a quote to replace his UVC system with a combi boiler. Was a hell of a job for us to get things unwound and sorted for him - endless phone calls, emails, medical documents, LPA documents. Fortunately the subcontract maintenance plumber (who had once been a carer) knew what they were like and was very helpful. Too many companies are happy to rip off the elderly it seems.

That’s a fantastic offer from @Gus Potter. I love steelwork, so designed and fabricated and erected my part-portal garage/man-cave. Roof is 100mm kingspan but why o why did I go for valley’s 🙈. They look great but we’re a pain to make work especially keeping headroom to max by putting purlins between the rafters.

Ah, perhaps not a sensible assumption - it seems that your GPT (LLM) is not telling you about the self attention (is all you need - where all these machines spawn their approach from) 'quadratic bottle neck' it is trying to manage in helping you. If you double the context you effectively quadruple the compute needed to handle it so stuffing your context window with the problems you created with the last stuffing is effectively melting the planet and means that 5.6 won't sort a 5.5 generated mess because the whole thing is an exothermic reaction of sorts (compute runaway) . It creates problems and in trying to sort them it creates 4 times the problem unless you can tail the context back at every step - not easy because you a creating something which is growing. You will have already found that bigger contexts have interesting effects on the attention between tokens, it starts to weaken the connections between them - the LLM effectively has a weaker grip on the whole context. You can help by reiterating important stuff in the context / prompts (teachers will know all about the power or reiteration in learning situations). You can read more here.

Ditto our builder 20 years ago.

Where we are, if you don't have the right ducting the DNO (UKPN) won't run the cable. They will tell you what they need. Just re read and I see this is your side of the meter, so 100mm rigid duct will be OK.

Maybe you can try to identify exactly where the noise is coming from, does it eminate from the fixing points, or the overlaps, or movement against the battens etc ? Not sure how you do that, but maybe you could rig up a test piece at ground level replicating the roof structure, then apply heat ? Maybe you could photograph/measure the sheets/fixings etc when cold and hot in different places ? I can only say plumbing felt helps a lot with noise from copper plumbing/heating pipes expanding and contracting as they get hot and cold. They eliminate the friction between the pipes and the joists they pass through. So if you could identify the exact source, you might be able to insert some felt or other material which allows movement without noise

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.

I brought 63/50mm flexible conduit into the house from the garage recently. Inside that is a 16mm² SWA along with two 20mm flexible conduits for data etc. With hindsight I should have gone for 100mm especially as I'm now considering another EV charger. I was mind (still am) tight for money so the 63/50mm came off FB marketplace cheap. Ah well!

That's exactly how I built our 2 "garden rooms", except ours are 4.8 x 3.0, and I used Rockwool (not as good, but cheaper and easier). Been 2 years now and no problems at all. Have the osb on the inside and covered the outside with membrane and then featheredge, which seemed the cheapest solution.

Just download ChatGPT and take all the effort out of it.

Thanks for this @Gus Potter. I'm a very very patient guy. I am possibly too far into the details, but I gave this guy so many chances, we communicated loads. I provided additional photos and dimensions as were needed to articulate the as-built structure. I spent FAR too long trying to mock layouts up in ChatGPT to try to further illustrate points I felt the Architect had missed. The fundamentals were missing though, without adherence to the standard details of the roofing system, we needed to go all the way back to square one and the passage of time thus far made it feel too risky to do with how weakly applied this guy was. With the idea that the ZInc roof needs to be stripped, part of my brief was to try to retain the Plywood deck if possible, as "taking the lid off" and seeing daylight from inside again felt like too much regression and another layer of waste that might have been able to be avoided. I already have 170sqm of 200mm Celotex that I cannot reuse. This might be why he couldn't have oversailed the edge to provide a similar detail as the one you kindly posted. I also now realise he's not as experienced as I initially believed. Keep in mind the total quote was £4000+VAT. FOUR THOUSAND POUNDS to provide a set of 6-8 details. Many people do not pay this for their whole Architectural package. I was desperately in need of help and believed this guy could take some of the stress off my shoulders. Turned out he just added to the ever-growing pile of nonsense that we're battling. We've lost tens of thousands of pounds in this project on "leakage". Poor Architects and this whole roofing debacle being at the forefront. Those elements have BY FAR been harder than physically standing this place up, even at my experience level. Some of the things I have achieved in this build make me proud, dimensional accuracy, level and having 3 ground floor levels that are +/- 10mm from the planned levels being some of them. Why can't professional services take the pride in their work as standard and just do the right thing if the customer isn't happy (and brings justification)?

Frame starting to go up. Two diagonals and horizontals (ledgers) still to be fitted which the panels will clamp to. I'll need to alter a few bits after they've gone but it's much easier and quicker than doing it myself! 😁

Many would say so. I say not, as the VCL is there on each sheet, but not at the joint. You go on to say 'Traditionally', nothing, which is why I prefer working with insulation only (say foil-faced PIR), taping the foil face , then battening and hten boarding. However a few people have started to use 'fluff tapes' like Contega or Pavafix Win, over which you can plaster, so that would work, although strictly that 'bit' of the VCL is not in quite the 'right' place. I think you can get a 'tighter' VCL if you use bare boards and separate plasterbds. I rarely use foil tape - it's too variable. I prefer to use Pro Clima or similar air-tightness tapes.

In true Blue Peter fashion - here's one we did earlier... Ours was all done with standard key clamp bits and some solar panel clamps. Can't remember who we used for the poles and clamps but we did work out how many of each length of pole we needed, so they were delivered ready to start construction. The poles in the earth are 1m long, whacked in by our builder for a flat pack of beer... EDIT - should have added that we set the panels at 45 degrees to maximise winter output rather than the 35 degrees that PVGIS suggested. The actual annual total for 45 degrees was only just under the PVGIS 'optimum' but output was shifted away from the summer towards the winter.