MikeSharp01

Try These then: They include the fire proofing as well: https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/FB4235.html?source=adwords&ad_position=&ad_id=&placement=&kw=&network=x&matchtype=&ad_type=pla&product_id=FB4235&product_partition_id=&campaign=shopping&version=finalurl_v3

They sure knew how to make rafters big enough back in the day didn't they!

The one from Bosch - measuring master. 0.1mm is daft on a building site as a 1degC change in temp makes more than 1mm change in the length of the longest aluminium gutter section (10m) but +/- 2 is fun to work with.

We have gone architect- self build - site stick built I-joist with specialist trades as we go for things I didn't feel I could do EG the roof slating - no head for heights. We wanted the architect, was good value I think standing in the spaces now, because we wanted to stand out yet fit into what it a very traditional street and have our exact needs - including future older age living built it. It has been slow but I enjoy just plodding along. We also chose to go full Passive House but probably won't go for certification as we are, for reasons we all know, over budget! Even doing most of the work ourselves we won't come in close to the £1.2k/m2 (without the plot cost) we set ourselves in 2016 when we brought the plot. So I guess it is horses for courses.

Nope - hopeless.

Welcome to THE forum for people like us.

Ye gods!

we would have to break the rules to tell you, but a new member got past the entry checks by being dishonest - trust nobody, not even me, that's my motto, or will be from now on.

Definitely not me!

What is included in the scope for these two. If it includes full Passive House work up and all the detailed specifications including drawings / schematics for all.the systems it might represent good value. But as @Mr Punter says you can go other ways for most things.

Sounds awful - very sorry to hear this. No contract no payment seems like a plan to start with and report to ARB.

What people? What am I doing down here in -2DegC then, perhaps I am not smart enough or not in the majority, or just stupid Systems of systems have probably the biggest bear traps.

Gap in the market I guess but be aware that books are static things and in our world of technological chaos and complexity they struggle to be relevant at the bleeding edge for any great period of time.

Yes and this points up the classic system of systems challenge. We are all, Google included, building systems of systems with component systems over which there is little or no control. So google changes something and your system is broken and very little you can do about it other than rebuild it using another system. As we have seen reverse engineering is not an easy answer.

Yes but the DNA has got survive and be finable, the whole planet will be so overgrown, loads of plant DNA, needle / haystack doesn't come close to the scale of the problem. Of course you could make trillions of copies and scatter it about everywhere but even then....

Yesterday I fell into conversation with one of my plant science colleagues about the whole global warming / catastrophe thing and her most telling comment was that although see would not be happy to leave them the plants would be OK and would restore the balance without us - I suppose we might think about letting it come to that. I then speculated that then they can evolve back to us, or something similar, in a few billion years. At which point her concern would need to be how to preserve her research so they could find it after such a period. OK so here is a challenge - how to preserve something and so arrange it that it can be found in a couple of billion years - I know bake it into one of my mums rock cakes

This has been said here and seeing the statement out of context here sort of sums up the issue. As @SteamyTea points out it is, has been perhaps, so cheap that we have not focused on it in the bigger picture. There are several dimensions to the wider discourse here. Firstly, the planning system which itself has several dimensions. IIRC we had a discussion several years back about the need to revert to the much greener building standard that the current government (I get the difference between 'terms' but essentially the same government since Cameron) removed prior to 2016 - have I got that right? At any rate this would have meant several million homes, by now, would have been built using a lot less energy and perhaps the message would be plainer to the wider population. "Look at those people over there aren't they lucky to be living in one of these new homes with ultra low energy bills". In addition, planning is also stalling our ability to build on-shore wind farms and solar farms so we are not able to invest in RE at the rate we should. We are a mile from the Cleeve Hill / Project Fortress 880,000 panel solar farm and that has taken 6 years to get through planning and work started last month. (I wish I could buy solar panels at the price they will be paying!) Secondly there is the elephant in the room that nobody really talks about but @Roger440 hints at above. This is a simple, often missed fact, that RE systems still have a carbon footprint across their lifecycle. Even abundant free energy, as might (probably will be abundant but won't be free) be arranged from fusion reactors, is not going to be carbon free in the delivery of the power stations and wind turbines / solar panels have a carbon footprint as well. This implies that there is, as yet, no carbon footprint free form of energy generation so we should strive to use less of it wherever / whenever we can in my view. For instance even if they give the energy away from fusion, which they won't, I still would not wish to live in a swiss cheese house if it meant that there were 2 fusion power stations needed rather than one!

And the answer is YES, because you said they were super 'Human', but in the case of the driving licence only after 6 months of residency IIRC, the case of sit University exams only after paying the fees and taking at least one term / semester of courses and in the case of state benefits only after their asylum claim had been assessed.

More usually, and perhaps less laconically, the ones you start going down but conclude there is no future so turn back, taking experience back with you so no loss, but perhaps unaware of the opportunities that lay just around the bend. So, when later, in more knowledgeable times and with greater experience returning to the point of turning around and looking ahead from there is often fruitful.

For now the human is the inventor and the writer of the AI should perhaps get the credit but also when it does wrong who takes the fall. This is exactly the problem the insurance world is looking at for driver less / self driving cars.

Yes because this gives us the chance to review the untraveled roads that may have just been passed by on the way of doing other things with slightly different foci.

Not like this we haven't and the 'most' in your comment is telling. The lack of understanding of the likely impacts, Chat GPT being perhaps the most marker of this, is staggering. The dystopian futures seen in movies such as you cite may not be the future reality but change is coming and we need to get a grip, somewhat, on its direction and assess the needs of the people in the light of it. For education, and in many dimensions of education, this is like the calculator debate gone universe scale. Questions like; what is the point of current education paradigms when data, information, knowledge and wisdom (with associated links of increasing understanding by the machine) are all available at the press of a button. I am definitely not a doom sayer or against the application of AI but I am against missing the trick and inappropriate application in same way I am generally against eugenics even though we have the capability for it.

Yes - I am immensely enthusiastic about what this technology will do while being profoundly concerned about our inability to get a grip on the scope for misuse, lack of attention to wider social impacts and dim headlights in our education systems about its likely impact and hence future prospects for mere humans.

Hi This image from another post on here gives you a good indication of your system:

I don't think you can reclaim the VAT on plant hire, only equipment and materials that are part of the finished build (as defined by the planning) and labour charged including VAT are allowable I think.