Home DIY

Whereabouts? I'm in Herts, so out of town too. Did you go for a particular brand of door?

Can anyone recommend any painters and decorators?

Banburyshire, http://www.endurancedoors.co.uk but fitted by local installer

Can anyone recommended a decent tradesman/company in East London (am in E17) for an IKEA kitchen fit plus a number of other related jobs (basically stripping out kitchen and starting from scratch)?
Also any recommendations for flooring tradesman as we're getting new flooring throught?
Am getting quotes from ratedpeople etc but always value word of mouth, especially from lfgss folk

What's going to be my best bet for fixing new skirting to plasterboard with a damp proof membrane behind it? i.e I can't screw in past the plasterboard as it will puncture the membrane. Plasterboard is 12mm thick. Obviously going to use grab adhesive but thinking I might need something else to bend / hold it in place while that sets.

No More Nails should do it.

Short tacks or just something heavy against the boards

We used a one man band painter from Waterloo who was ace. And cheap as chips (I'm) at £100 day. Wife has his number so I'll find it later

are you in hitchin? if so i recommend classic windows. they do very good doors. won't be the cheapest quote mind you. installed windows for me and were top notch. will be doing my front door also.

numpty confession to make re boiler and thermostat...

long story but i removed the thermostat (the wires going into the circuit board at the top into RT) from my boiler and now the radiators don't work (i.e. we have hot water, just no heating to the radiators). have i basically broken the circuit? any idea how to fix this? (the thermostat is currently at the bottom of my black bin outside).

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Solvent free grip fill. I've had better results with that on skirting. Dries pretty quick so you can hold it on until it grabs. Horrible to remove, like any of those products. Make sure your skirting has been in the room for a while to allow the moisture content to balance with the environment.

If you short out the two terminals then your radiators will turn on. They will be on all the time mind you.

Why did you remove the thermostat without replacing it?

The thermostat calls for heat from the boiler, it's basically a complicated switch, so no thermostat, no call for heat. If those two wires are the only ones going to the thermostat then it's likely that connecting them together would make the boiler operate. I would carry out some teats for voltage and refer to the boiler installation manual before connecting them, and don't do it live, but a normal household switch could connect/disconnect them. If you don't know much about electrics I would leave it alone though.

thanks for your help guys

basically you established that i'm clueless with this kind of stuff.

the issue was that the boiler and thermostat are located in the kitchen, basically right next to each other. when the walls were replastered i didn't want the old thermostat going back on the wall (it's really manky and the wire is held together with all kinds of electrical tape) so the plasterer/carpenter guy i had working for me said it wasn't entirely necessary to have a thermostat on the wall next to the boiler, you could just disconnect it and set the temperature on the boiler directly.

so he disconnected it and threw it in the bin. i thought the boiler would then work when i either set the timer or just turned it on, and the temperature would be set on the boiler itself.

so how wrong were we?

Cheers, I've bought 3 tubed of this stuff seems pretty well rated for the job. That's a good tip about letting the wood acclimatise though.

I have a new build flat less than two years old. The towel rail in the bathroom has sprung a small leak around a patch of rust on a join, but on closer inspection it has several small rust marks all over it.

I am going to replace it, but I wonder if a lack of inhibiter in the system would cause it to rust through? Is there any harm in me putting another bottle of the stuff in when I change the rail?

That's a solvent based one. I try to avoid solvent based stuff these days as years of exposure has left me with a bit less tolerance for it. I'm not sure how much difference in grab there is but it's easier to clean up the excess non solvent one. Do be very careful that you don't get it on the face of the skirting or up the walls, have some solvent cleaning wipes around to keep things clean. It's a bitch to remove from emulsion once it's dried.

You'll probably have to fill the gap between the wall and skirting (at the top of the skirting) with mastic, resist the urge to do it with the glue!

Are you hoping to run without a thermostat on a permanent basis? If so you need to find out how to jumper the connections at the boiler using a short piece of wire. You can run a boiler without a thermostat in the way you describe, setting the temperature of the water and probably a timer on the boiler too. Thermostatic rad valves can help with that type of system too.

You'd probably want to add some more depending on how much water you have to empty out of the system when you change the rad. I wouldn't assume that the job was done properly in the first place and the fittings might have just been cheap enough to suffer from this kind of failure. Would be typical for new builds to price things like towel rails down to the minimum.

Good advice! I may well use it still but get some wipes. Is there any evidence that this kind of stuff is bad for health long-term, in a sick house syndrome kind of way?

You can get test kits for inhibitor to tell you if you have too much or too little. Reading up, if you have too much it can apparently affect rubber fittings (I guess mechanical valves and pump seals?).
Might be easier to just drain the lot and refill with a known good quantity, but beware air locks and the like.

Not sure, certainly MDF leaches formaldehyde but that's a different subject. I think the solvent stuff evaporates and clears quite quickly. I always try to avoid grip fill et al primarily because it's difficult to dismantle.

I get headaches at night if I've been using these materials all day, I never used to but I've used a solvent filter mask for the last 5 years to avoid the problem. Occasionally I forget and have a really pleasant day, high on fumes. The ones to look out for are the heavier than air fumes that you get with some spray thinners, they hang around for weeks.

Want it, but nowhere to put it :(

Wise experienced DIYers and professionals alike (I'm looking at you @Airhead) I need recommendation for a decentish drill to replace my £10 Argos one. Nothing too expensive really.
All the thanks.

I have three Bosch "green" drills. One mains and a 10.8V and 18V Lithium Ion battery types. Made in Hungary. I've found them to be perfect in use, and cheap to buy. If I was working in the trade then I may have gone down the Makita or Dewalt route.