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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.

I'm surprised how much better that looks. I thought it would be an improvement but it's better than I imagined. Not sure if the mirror now ends up too high but it looks nice on the render. Probably not worth too much further work until you are a bit further along. Still, do bear in mind trying to keep a single line going from the windowsill, through the second shelf on the nook*, through to the level of the nook in the shower and, bonus for points, to the level of the handle on the shower door * You could adjust the lowest point of the nook to maintain spacing or switch to 3 shelves rather than 4. Maybe. Not an area I feel knowledgable enough with to answer. Sure someone else can say more though.

I know this topic is mostly talking about waste but you did mention design as well. I have a some thoughts with the above if you don't mind: 1. Overall I like it. The window cill/shelf aligning is great. Maybe could carry that line through the nooks as well? 2. Medicine cabinet seems wrong. Maybe a thinner one mounted a bit higher to allow the wood to extend along to the edge of the bump out would be better? 3. Have you considered that the nooks (especially the one with exposed brick) may be a condensation issue? (depends how well insulated those bricks are). Condensation there + wood won't go well. 4. If you are having a bump out to cover the plumbing, consider a wall mounted tap for the sink. Looks great and easier to clean. More expensive though and need to consider how to access the connections. 5. Maybe a different sink? Seems like a horrible dirt trap between the back of sink and the wall.

Very good question. I've always been put off by ebay for tools, expecting that a large chunk of them are either completely knackered or stolen from the back of a van.

You can still download* the standalone, local install and free version of Sketchup. Sketchup Make 2017. * They've taken it off the main sketchup site I think but it's available elsewhere

Two points: 1. The basis of this thread was that if you ignore emissions, it is still a national security priority to get off fossil fuels as we don't have enough and we can easily generate enough power using renewables if we just built them.* I tend to agree that the way that we have implemented the drive to renewables has done some damage which could have been avoided if the programs had been structured differently, but that's a different argument. 2. Emissions are cumulative, so even if our emissions are low now, we are one of the highest emissions countries in history because the industrial revolution came to us first and for a lot of that time we were responsible for a very large percent of the worlds emissions. You may say it's woke to consider history when considering energy. I think of it as taking responsibility for our actions and trying to lead by example. * The argument that China controls a lot of the supply chains for renewables has weight. But so long as we are installing solutions that work without a live connection to China then if anything happened with the supply chain the installed base keeps going for at least a decade. Compared to fossil fuels which if the imports stop of those we are utterly screwed within a matter of weeks renewables wins.

Now we know where all the 256GB m3s went: https://www.theregister.com/off-prem/2026/05/15/aws-racks-m3-ultra-macs-that-boast-specs-you-cant-currently-buy/5240901

Saw this on making portland cement using basalt resulting in zero CO2 emissions during manufacurer (assuming green energy input): https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/05/running-the-numbers-on-a-zero-emission-way-to-make-cement/ Obviously it's a long way away from being put into practice and lots of roadblocks but it's an interesting concept. Even at 2x the energy input as the initial concept is seems like a big win, guessing the plant involved would be very expensive though so likely not a cheap produce for a while. I'm pretty sure Basalt is widely available but maybe that's an issue.

Why not just get these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shelly-Pro-Dimmer-2PM-Consumption/dp/B0CV843RRW?crid=2TWY1PEEZZV5N&sprefix=shelly%2Bpro%2Bdimmer%2B2pm%2Caps%2C118&sr=8-6&th=1 Amazon price much lower than elsewhere. £25 per channel is not much more than the aliexpress impulse relay, but this does dimming, has local control (can direct wire switches) and in build wifi/ethernet/logic so you can program it to do what you want.

True you need a voltage or current sensor on each circuit for feedback, vs having 2x the number of coil drivers/retractive switches. Suspect the european market might have 'smarter' versions that do some of this for you (not looked).

Oh. Looking at that datasheet makes me think I misunderstood something about how they do it there. Traditional latching relays have one coil for on and one coil for off. But this seems to be an 'impulse' driven latching relay which I think means it will flip between on and off each time a connection is made on the switch line. This is much simpler for the rest of the circuit and I'd guess cheaper once you have the relay module. Nice.

Sure. I started replying because it sounded like you were against using concrete because it wasn't renewable which is true but the decision is much more nuanced. 👍

Feels like this is one of those new technology startup issues. Turbine size is still growing but I'd guess we are near the stabilisation point where its not worth going bigger. Once that happens then replacing like with like at end of life is likely something that can planned for. Not sure it's necessarily been something on the radar up to this point.

Congratulations on your first shower in the new bathroom!

They are, though I don't think this is really an argument that can be used against wind turbines or similar. The amount of concrete used in them (even if massively expanded) pales into insignificance compared to other big projects. Concrete + steel are pertty good in the end. Steel can be endlessly recycled pretty much. Using ground concrete as filler for other things is relatively good compared to many of the other things we do in terms of materials recycling. I believe ground concrete can be used in place of virgin sand/aggregate when making new concrete at least in a decent percentage of use cases. Concrete over its life absorbs a lot of the CO2 put out during manufacture and if we can switch from gas firing to renewable heat we lower the carbon footprint a decent chunk. A lot of more renewable building methods have overinflated/misreported environmental credentials once the full lifecycle is considered and once those things are considered concrete really doesn't seem that bad, especially given it's about the cheapest construction method. At a societal level spending more for a more environmental construction method may mean less money for more beneficial environmental spending.

My point is that they haven't replaced the cores on the existing fleet that is going to last to 50 years. They have had to do some very expensive repairs, some of which were particularly expensive because the design didn't allow for them. New designs shouldn't make the same mistake and either design out the need for those types of maintenance or plan for them. Well quite. That gets to the bottom of my issue. I don't particularly have an issue with nuclear power if it is competitive price wise. Given the ginormous construction costs the only way it can make sense is if the plants last a long time.

Yeh if it's a case that the financals work out for 30 years but the plant has been designed to last longer then fine. Someones planning for future profits, that's a different issue. If we get to 30 years in and they then turn around and say we need further massive investment if you want to continue for another 20 years then given the previous massive investment it's very poor planning.

Sure. I would expect that for a plant opening today that very few of the components would be original in 30 years time. But that to me is maintenance. If our existing fleet is running for 50 years, it just seems like we should design new plant to have the same life (with the expected maintenance). It's the parts that can't easily be swapped out that need to be designed to live the longest. And if we have managed to get parts that we built 40-50 years ago to live until today then we should be able to design the new parts to do the same. Not maintenance free for 50 years, but to last 50 years with planned and scheduled maintenance. Most importantly with a design that allows for all the maintenance tasks we have found necessary on the old plant to be possible and planned for on the new plant.

Prices at Bimble Solar don't seem much higher than last time I checked. Guess they have older stock but worth looking at if looking to buy.

Well quite, it's why I'd expect a new plant to be designed to last at least as long without the expensive life extension. Obviously maintenance, even fairly expensive maintenance, will be required to last that long. But if planned for upfront it's a lot cheaper than just building for 30 years and dealing with extension at a later date.

Yeh you clearly have the design right for the 'rip it out and replace with dumb wiring' option. But personally I want a solution to be that plus 'if the central hub fails, the light switches still work'. This is easy with sonoff style smart solutions (the switch modules can be programed to work like normal switches if the central hub is down). Little more difficult to find solutions with centralised dimmers. If installing a relay based solution then the european way of doing it works well (assuming you can get three way retractive switches and use latched relays). Switches on the wall are directly wired into the on/off coils of the relevant relays and in parallel you wire your smart system. Thus a switch on the wall directly triggers the relay but so can your smart system.

Honestly surprised by this. Given the cost of it (financial and environmental) I was thinking it was more like 50years. AFAIK, the last gen of nuclear is generally delivering 50 years ish of life.

*tongue in cheek* That's not the answer I expect from someone who decided there weren't any good heating installers so became one himself. Time to become a 'pv and heatpump' specialist

To add, having a fancy custom automated home is a nice idea but it is well worth taking a moment to step back and think: If I get injured in some way that temporarily or permenantly stops me being able to maintain the system is what I'm doing going to continue it's basic function? Can someone else understand enough about it to fix an issue? If you live with others, can they maintain/operate the system if you are temporarily unavailable? If you can't say yes to these then well worth taking a moment and thinking what changes you'd need to make to allow that to happen. In my mind, automation should be an add on for extra functionality and if it breaks the basics like light switches should still work.