Andeh

HDMI in duct for room to room runs, ie sky box in corner TV in the wall. Cat6a for central house distribution. HDMI is more fragile then most realise, and gets very patchy over several metre. It's also a bigger cable, with a thicker plug so harder to route and protect. Just run lots of Cat6a everywhere, they less fragile and more flexible for use 5.

Good luck! We've all had those stinky feelings ourselves, we all get through it on the end.

Alternatively.... From those photos you can measure them, with the bricks and mortar gaps giving you a pretty good idea of where they are. Drill small holes to see if you can find/break through... Even if it you miss a few, a magic man will guarantee to make those holes invisible (or use grout yourself)...... They've hidden far worse damage on and in our house!

If you're going through hell.... Keep going! This forums exists more as a self help group for these bullshit times then anything I think. We've endured some horror periods over our build. For what it's worth, I also opened this thread and went....'oh wow, that looks nice'. Are you to tap the porcelain and see if you can detect hollow spots in the general vicinity of the drainage holes? Or even a thermal camera might detect them? Blow heat over them to detect temp change/discrepancy maybe?

Damn, that does look good!

Would be interested in the labour rate you're accounting for in your time and yours wife's time!

We installed a big Stovax, with an external air supply to underneath it. Mvhr in the bedroom area and seperate one for lounge/kitchen etc area (bungalow split in two halves) During long periods of inactivity, I just stick a foam blocker in the outside. That being said in 18months I've remembered to do this never....

Modern 2 part polymeric sand 1000%, I used some stuff from Nexus and was impressed with it.

Wish if known this several weeks ago, when we had normal block paving sand laid.... Ya win some ya lose some. No idea on sealer yet, it's a minefield!!

Polymeric sand is great between patio slabs, I think it's be too thick for block paving. We are also considering a sealer, though good advice apparently is 'you get what you pay for' apparently '.... 5x longer lasting costs you 5x more etc....

We just had 305sqm laid! I must admit, it's comforting knowing it is repairable should we have any sinkage, which around a new house is reasonable to expect! Tarmac was the other thought, it having spent so long living in new build estates with tarmac driveways (which my 4x4 would leave indents) we ruled it out quickly.

Yep, smart meters and smart home energy management. When over supply in the grid, homes intelligently increase consumption, when demand peaks homes intelligently stop consumption.

And disconnecting it will be fine, they are countering the issue of too much power in the grid, which is as problematic as not enough power. Both end in grid shut downs. It's more sensitive then a lot of people realise. Encouraging people to manage the issue locally, rather then at grid level, frantically trying to balence grid frequency spikes, makes a lot of sense! Same reason we're all being encouraged with EV and ASHP combined with smart/dynamic meters etc.... All about buffering mass renewables, and the shutdown of nicely controllable/predictable fossil fuel generators. It's frankly the perfect approach to our future social energy needs! Just so many of the great stupid voting population get all bent out of shape over some facet of it....

I would be drilling 300 to 500mm odd deep to resist force, and resin fix threaded bar through the various foundation sub layers as best I could!

We turned ours off! If we wee to have elderly at risk, I'd manually zap it with the immersion I guess!

That's all we did, plastic bag and duct tape!

We ran into the same issue with aluminium frames, apparently hinges not being able to take the weight, with around 1m x 1m being the biggest normal size. Ours were mostly 1.2 x 1.4m by design. Unfortunately, some bastard made the decision to just stick a mullion in the middle and make half side opening without telling us.... So that solved the problem we didn't know we had, in a way we didn't want. 18 months later, it's all but forgotten!

We bought a few lots of the below, and it's worked absolutely fine! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/282675555230?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=6jPG81czROu&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=6mTAxO5WSJa&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

I just manually turn on the ASHP when the sun is really out, especially if it coincides with our cheap afternoon Octopus Cosy tariff.

Please ensure you post the context when setting expectations. You are in the trade and did a huge amount of work yourself. Sqm indications should assume average Joe approaching things. We came in at £2400 build only, for a high spec/large bungalow. Very happy with the cost/final bill

Any opportunity to do some Planting in front of it?

Fair advice from you both, thanks. I'll calm my passions down a notch. I utterly launched builder at his electrician over this on Monday, and builder was suitable apologetic /meek about... Now just trying to decide how much more I want to kick off & keep escalating this, or accept his agreement to resolve ASAP with one of his senior team/who I trust to babysit the electrician for my peace of mind.

We have finished a 3 year house building project, with a brilliant builder & a very good team. The only weak link has been his electrician. We moved into the property last July, with the Electric certifications followed soon after. Since then though, we have a dispute over some outside lights, which were due to be controlled via a timer and PIR. The electrician messed up the wiring which meant the Timer wouldn't work with the external lights (missing an extra live feed?)..... however rather then own up to it, he has blagged & bullshitted over the last 10 months as to why it wouldn't work, every excuse under the sun - and where the timer was due to be installed the cables have been left hanging out. I sent a photo to electrician soon after we moved in (10 months ago) asking if these hanging wires were live & he messaged me they weren't. I ignored them since then, waiting for him to come out & snag them/fit the timer...assuming they weren't connected at the other end. Over the weekend I decided to tidy them up myself, as he has not been forth coming with resolving it. With the message from him saying they weren't live I (stupidly!!) decided to cut them back (as they were c2 feet long and getting in the way of our router) to enable me to tuck them out of the way....and BANG. Electrician is now excusing/explaining saying he left them 'safe' as they had a WAGO block on & some tape, and he will reluctantly (!) come back and tidy it up for me. I am pretty unhappy about this whole situation, that in 20+ years i've never come close to a shock before, and his casual attitude to it feels painfully (!) wrong, after he confirmed in writing they weren't live. My only issue it.... is a WAGO block taped on sufficient for electrical sign off? Is this just down to my own stupidity? Is this an acceptable state for wires to be left in? If not (as I hope it isn't!) is there any formal literature I can use to throw back at the builder to sack him & get my own electrician (at builder's cost) to resolve this? Welcome thoughts from the experts in the room! thanks

Can the design around it be modified to suit? I'd imagine there's a good few days work for a couple of guys to remove it at best. As ever with money and resolve, anything is possible!

Hot paddling pools! On weekends when we have lots of sun, PV and an ASHP we turn the hot water on and use the DHW to fill large paddling pools and water slides with the hot water for the kids! Bath time outdoors. Two weekends we ago managed 1200L of hot water for less then £3 daily usage. Fun all day.