Home DIY

my guy was nice, are you in SE London?

Yeah.
We're in SE4.

You going for 'truth to materials' interior finish, Carrara marble and gold, or somewhere in between?

"man-made kitchen"?

..from heritage sustainable forestry products, curated by artisan scandi elves, before being stripped, chipped, shredded, steeped, reformed, cured, final machined, flat-packed and slung on ikea's shelves..

Spend big to win big, well jell.

In other news, our extension has started, please no rain.

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What did you end up doing with your soil pipe / sewer?

New sewer will be in the corner of the utility, soil pipe breather will be on the far right of the photo and the bathroom wastes will be concealed in the pitch of the roof. The position of the breather is wrong in the drawing! And we're not having bi-folds, we've spunked the budget on a triple pane slider.

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Looks good.

I've just filled an entire six yard skip up to around a metre above the top of it, just from our minuscule extension. I can't believe how much rubble you get from excavating. It seems to expand.

Racist ???

In irrelevant news I can solder joints again and use compression properly,

I guess part of that is due to the location of the coal fired power stations just round the corner, apparently the whole area was a bit toxic originally.

It's this stuff: http://www.richlite.com/
Have gone with West System epoxy, which seems to be up to the job. Haven't worked with loads of epoxy since my A-levels... think i might have a play around with the stuff - filling gaps with colours, giving a good surface to things. It's nice to play around with new materials.

Soundproofing - anyone have any experience of and/or recommendations for soundproofing (some rooms of) a flat?

I'll be heading over to the 'Leaving London' thread if I have to listen to my upstairs neighbour entertaining visitors many more times. We're in a Victorian house converted into two flats, and we're on the ground floor. Relations with the neighbour in question are civil enough that we might be able to talk about splitting cost/getting access to her floors as well as our ceilings.

What I really want to know is how effective it is - lots of websites talk about a 25db reduction in noise levels or whatever, but I have no idea what effect this will have in practice on your average headboard-banging or fake orgasm noises. Any chance of a good night's sleep or do we need to start looking at estate agents/hitmen?

ideally the upstairs decouples and insulates their side of the floor/ceiling and you do the same on your side; could achieve ~50db reduction if done well

informative site > https://www.soundproofingstore.co.uk/floors

If you want to know whether a 25db reduction is enough, try these one evening and then decide if you want to splash the cash.

http://www.nationwideworkwear.co.uk/warrior-25-db-ear-defenders-0114m-913-p.asp?gclid=CM2tiJCHq88CFQ6eGwod7qAEtQ

Wow, brilliant response as always from the lufgus hivemind. Thanks, all.

@diable house was built 1902 and, judging by the lease for the flat it was converted in the 70s.

@rive_gauche - great link, thanks

@Ramsaye - ha, brilliant, why didn't I think of that?

Will do some more research and steel myself for the conversation with 'her upstairs'. Does anyone have a ballpark suggestion for a reasonable cost (per square metre?), materials and work since I don't think I'll be taking this on myself (I know, I know, it's the DIY thread...). I've seen figures ranging around a median of £1500 per average room per installation (i.e. floor soundproofing OR ceiling soundproofing, double it for both)

Does anyone know the purpose of those sticky patches you are meant to put on the Ikea sinks?

Described on page 14 in the assembly instructions.

very appropriate considering the most recent topic - sound deadening pads, to reduce the 'tinny' sound

sound damping?
late again

Same as on car body panels. To dampen any noise/resonance in the thin sheet metal.

material prices per sq m given in that link for the various products, you then have to factor in labour and re-trimming and finishing costs

Cheers.
Explains why they don't specify the purpose - "just put on the damn patches, it's not like our sinks are tinny or anything"

I think your biggest issue would be persuading a neighbour to let you lift their flooring. That's quite a messy job involving getting the entire floor cleared.

I think you could possibly get away with a shallow false ceiling to provide some mass to damp the sound.

Don't bother with the rubber acoustic matting stuff unless your budget is bottomless and you have low ceilings. The advice I've seen is put cement bonded particle board between the ceiling joists to add mass, seal it in to make it airtight, then hang a false ceiling off steel furring (2-3 layers of acoustic plasterboard with green glue between) and put dense rock wool in the gap between the two layers. Very diy-able with a board lifter!