Home DIY

Bonza, I shall mask the work surfaces off and get painting tomorrow.

The carpenter is making an additional kitchen unit for us, and also the library shelving will be going up next week, I am excited.

Why had I never heard of paint pads?

I am definitely buying a set to do the final coats.

Dripping tap replaced but nothing is ever easy. Thought it would be a simple case of undo the tails at the tap, screw in new ones and Robert is my avuncular relation.

Old monobloc tap had 12mm tails, new one has 10mm tails.

That's fine, just get new flexible tails and all good.

No. Tap to water connection is ~350mm. Tails are standard size of 300mm (no idea where the previous person got these longer tails from).

So, get 10mm x 300mm x 15 mm tails and 300mm x 15mm flexible hose and join it together with an offcut of copper pipe.

First attempt I overtightened the compression fittings on one pipe and it was dripping out of the back of the compression fitting. Removed it, saw the olives were compressed to bits, did it again without over tightening it.

Now I've just got one very small drip from the back of the compression fitting at the water connection (same nut and olive as before).

Now stuck in a "turn off water (luckily an inline valve), undo slightly, retighten, wait hours with paper towel underneath hoping it stays dry, lather, rinse, repeat".

Last resort: plumber.

No. Tap to water connection is ~350mm. Tails are standard size of 300mm (no idea where the previous person got these longer tails from).

So, get 10mm x 300mm x 15 mm tails and 300mm x 15mm flexible hose and join it together with an offcut of copper pipe.

Just start humming "Hakuna Matata", and get a bit creative with them tubes!
Creative plumbing is en vogue right now!

_Q116_L1010604 copy by Ming Thein, on Flickr

You can get different lengths from a decent merchant but doubt any are open on a sunday. You can even get flexi with a 15mm bore all the way through.

B&Q do a range of flexi connector lengths

In the middle of painting chaos:

Are you using putty on the olives / tape on the threads?

What paint pads are you using and how are they working for you?

Ongoing work on my lounge. When we got here, there was a damp problem on a couple of the walls. So has a membrane installed and dry-lined (not DIY) Then stripped wallpaper and patched up the plaster on the other 2 walls. New plasterboard was proud of the picture rail so took that out and battoned around the top and fix new picture rail onto that (thank you Lidl £80 mitre saw) harder than it should have been because the top of the new plaster was all over the place and walls curved (the guy did it quickly and cheaply to be fair). Today I decided I couldn't live with the crappy old picture rail on the remaining walls, so I'll replace that too. Painting before installation has made things much easier. Then repaint above rail, touch up walls, plane the door so it shuts, pull old carpet up, replace crappy floorboards, install cable channels underfloor, sand floor, treat floor, install new skirting.... done! I'm slow and it's a learning curve, but I feel like I'm slowly starting to get somewhere.

3 Attachments

Odd request, but does anyone have any tips for taking parcel tape residue off a fridge?

I taped some cardboard to it a good while ago to protect it from our builders, but a lot of the tape has decided it likes it better on there than in the bin.

I've tried: a washing up sponge, water and washing up liquid; GT-85 and kitchen towel.

Will meths ruin the paint on the fridge? Anything else I should try?

Just a set from B&Q, one rectangular one, one shaped like an iron, one like a toothbrush, came with two pots - one large one small. Seem fine.

Meths should be fine. If not isopropyl, but same difference really.

Lighter fuel? - may be a bit less 'assertive' than meths and perhaps less likely to take the paint off.

in reply to @tommmmmmm
You can get stuff called "sticky stuff remover" from Dyas and the like , it works really well but with parcel tape you'll need the plastic top surface off leaving only the adhesive behind.
I find it's best if you squirt it on and let it soak for a bit and then using cloth or paper towels wipe it all off, I say wipe you need to scrub it off.

I reckon WD40, whilst smelly, would also work.

The big guns would be acetone but tread carefully with the painted surface so try a test patch.

Rubbing/isopropyl alcohol is the best bet. Acetone is a bit too strong, normally starts softening most plastics. If you don't have any then pm me, I have a few litres from the lab.

Or soak paper towel in vinegar, leave on the tape marks for a while then it come off. The same works with oil.

or hens bane mixed with hedgehog bile, applied with a rosemary poultice

Hast du die Becken selber gebaut?

Many replies^^^

15mm to 15mm flexible hoses come in many lengths but tap tails (10mm to 15mm) only seem to come in 300mm (I checked Homebase, B&Q, Screwfix, etc). It's a monobloc tap so it has smaller connectors.

It's a compression fitting so it uses an olive, PTFE tape shouldn't be required for a compression fit but the previous install had it and so I used it when refitting.

Anyway, another 1/8 turn of the nut and it has been 22 hours since the last drip (paper towel underneath remined unsullied) so I'm declaring it safe and sticking everything away in the cupboard under the sink.

Total spend (other than taps) was £35 which the bulk was a £25 pipe cutter, but it's a more expensive one that is big enough to do alu fork steerer tubes so that's a bonus for me. Of course about 6 hours of my time isn't factored in, but I'd rather spend £35 and 6 hours doing it and learning a few things and collecting some tools than pay £100 for a plumber to do it and have no tools.

Next up is repainting some masonry window sills. Should be relatively easy, just need a wire brush, stabilising solution (possibly), masonry paint and a masonry brush.

i just did my window sills. here's the most recent pic before I've had chance to put the mastic on. I spent pretty much the best part of an afternoon with a scraper and wire brush and just about managed to get it in good enough condition to paint. then I discovered a heat gun in b&q which was a god send and went through the old paint much easier.

http://www.diy.com/heat-guns/earlex-heat-gun-hg2000v3bq/191366_BQ.prd

2 Attachments

Heat gun not required for the front window sills as most of the paint has come off already, so it's just a job for a wire brush.

Some of the ones at the back will require getting paint off, but I was just going to do the front ones first and see how those go. Heat gun link noted for when/if I get around to the back ones.

Scaffolding not required for the majority of it as I can get to the front windows by standing on the roof of the bays of the flat below. One small sill I'll have to use a ladder to get the paint right underneath but I can do most of the work from the inside now that we've had new windows fitted and they open nicely.

At the back I've got 6 window sills, 3 of which I can get to standing on the roof of the bay of the flat below. 2 others are sash windows, so I hope can do it all from inside (bathroom and kitchen). The last one is the toilet window which is a uPVC casement window that'll be a git to work around as it doesn't open fully. No chance of doing that one with a ladder either as it's above a sloping roof extension of the kitchen downstairs, I'll probably do what I can and leave it for a time that we (or the flat above) ever put up scaffolding.

Definitely a job for a nice summers day.

Fitted wardobes:

Why the fuck are the options so rank? I don't want hi gloss white in my bedroom.

http://hem.com/en-gb/shelf/volta-basic-11084/?ref=static.customize_storage.sku_list_prod&showWiz=1

ref. standing on bays of flats below:

1 - are they loadbearing?

2 - low parapet is an inviting trip hazard; falls from about 8-9 feet up invariably end up with a head/ground impact, with associated mortality

so, advice would be to check loadbearing ness of the roof - (send mrs greenbank out to check this...)

and, tie a clothes line round your waist and fasten the other end to something heavy (possibly mrs greenbank...)