Home DIY

What's the recommendation for a cordless drill these days?
Need one for general usage.
Going to be boarding out the loft so need one that's got a slow speed for screwing the boards into the joists, but also can be used for making holes on brick walls when needed.

Trades mates of mine said this was ok to purchase... they were still a little snobby as they are used to fancy 300 quid drills which make holes even better than this, but still, they said it would be good enough for DIY... https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00L3XK06C/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Personally I'd just get a cheapish wired drill for making holes in brick walls.

@chrisbmx116 looks ideal, cheers

@aggi needs to be cordless, some of the walls are in my unpowered garage and it's too far away to run extension cables.

http://www.toolstation.com/shop/p16812?mkwid=s3Z3fpJI3_dc&pcrid=142000627567&pkw=&pmt=&product=16812&gclid=CLqMnsmoydECFcYp0wodeaEH1Q

I have the Bosch one linked above, works fine and if I have a job which needs more power then I also probably need to get the trades in to do it.

I'm laying a plywood subfloor (8-10mm) for tiling over, and the floor underneath is not flat and level. I was thinking that the easiest and best way of making it so, thus preventing the plywood from bouncing over any dips, would be to put a layer of self levelling or concrete under the ply and then squish it down, allowing any excess concrete to squidge out.

Is this mental?
Would the concrete dry OK under a plywood sheet?

Why bother with the ply, just do a decent self levelling cover and then the small undulations are taken out by the tile adhesive. Self levelling doesn't really self level though but it will level enough as long as you spread it sensibly and tile adhesive allows you to cover a multitude of sins. Unless you are talking abut vinyl tiling in which case you'll need the subfloor to be properly flat but again why use ply if your substrate is cement. Unless you are on a wood subfloor in which case don't use self levelling at all it will just crack into flakes and move about.

And self levelling drys fast enough even if you suffer from ADHD. Do not cover wet cement with ply for a lot of reasons, if you want a level cement screed then do it properly and allow the proper lengthy drying time.

I'm laying over a grand's worth of clay tiles. I do not want to have to do it twice. or to have any break.

The floor, awkwardly is part floorboards and part concrete (in poor condition). I figured that laying ply was the right thing to do

I wouldn't use self-levelling compound on a large (expensive) area if it's your first time as its easy to fuck up. Not that I would know if you've used it before. Thin matting and ply might be an alternative.

Oooohhh, badass :) If I had to guarantee the same (no breakages) to a client over floorboards I would replace them with 18mm ply screwed down at 10cm centres on the joist. It could still move enough to break clay. Without knowing the current floor heights I'm not sure what would work best in terms of thickness but I'd be tempted to level the concrete floor with self levelling and then match the height of it with ply on the joists of the wooden floor (so you could calculate your self levelling level based on 25mm ply for example). Then lay your tiles direct on the self levelling and the ply but have a grout joint at least (or possibly even silicone) where the substrates meet because it's that area which will be most prone to cracking.

A lot depends on the size of the tiles though. Generally I just don't fit tiles on wooden floors, ever.

So never in an upstairs bathroom?

Hmm, is that possible? 1st floor in an 1850s Mews house.
I should lift the boards and see what the concrete bit is resting on. I suspect it's a cast iron beam as the house was once a stable attached to an iron foundry.

I could replace the boards with ply or chipboard to make that stable, then level the concrete to the same level, then put ply over the whole lot so that the tiles are all on the one surface.

I've got the Bosch drill and its great for drilling wood and as a screwdriver, plus batteries don't lose charge when not in use, but for serious wall drilling not so sure....

I wish I knew. There's a big section that goes across 3 rooms.
Whilst now it's a garage with house above once the ground floor was the stable and the first floor a hayloft

It's the hallway that I'm tiling, with a nice Victorian geometric pattern. Bit too upmarket given the house's history but they looked so nice :-)

Possibly hollow clay pot floor structure?

I know it seems weird but, no never in an upstairs bathroom. I know plenty of people will do it but I like to be able to guarantee my work and I've seen too many fail. Some fail fast but 2-3 years is not uncommon and even 5-10 years would be a bother for me. If you ever get a chance to look at the deflection of some of the victorian floors from below (i.e. when the ceiling is removed in the room below) then you might reach the conclusion I have! Despite the fact that the ceiling will add some rigidity it's still a lot of flex.

Mostly people are following style cues from other countries who have different building methods and climates as well as different age of buildings.

If they are the small geometry type you'll have fewer problems because there's less likelihood that they'll be bridging flexible joints or have to flex across their surface.

I still don't see the need for the thin ply on top of everything else, it's usually necessary for thinner vinyl tiles which have thin adhesive and show any imperfections in the subfloor but the adhesive adjusts for small undulations in the surface when you are using a harder/thicker tile. Use a flexible adhesive and grout too.

So what would you use?

One of the reasons for the ply is that with adhesive the tiles are 12mm thick or so, and the adjacent wooden floors are 25mm. So I need to add something like 12mm to make the floors all roughly the same height.

Just use a thicker layer of self-levelling cementitious screed.

The more different materials you use the greater the chance of subsequent adhesive failure.

The joint over the change in substrate needs to be filled with something better than 'silicone' sealant, which has poor long term, un-primed, adhesion.

The more expensive, (but vanishingly cheap in comparison to the £1k of tiles),
MS sealants are more liekly to give good longterm unprimed adhesion.

Bear in mind any quoted MAF, (movement accomodation factor), is the total movement across the joint, so 25% MAF for a 5mm wide bead of sealant gives just over 1mm, (1,25mm), of total movement, (expansion and compression).

Yeah my kitchen floor is dying. The last owners retiled when they put the kitchen in; big fucking tiles too, around 300x400 I'd say. Laid onto a ply floor, and they are cracking. At some point we'd like to re-tile, but that's a big job because the kitchen units go over the top of the tiles.
What can one lay in that situation then?

I quite like the expensive vinyl tile systems that have grout lines too, some of the wood effect ones are very nice. Amtico are a bit different in composition but very durable. Apparently Dalsouple rubber tiles are difficult to get at the moment, at least last time I looked the flat coloured ones weren't available. Cork is a good option (no one wants to know!). I fitted some woven vinyl flooring in a bathroom recently, it's very nice. For tenancies I like standard vinyl flooring sealed at the edges, it cuts down on a lot of maintenance and it's easy to clean at the end of a tenancy. Or cheap enough to rip out and re-lay.

I just don't need the work so badly that I'd risk tiling a wooden victorian floor, I did a few 20 years ago. One of the common problems in bathrooms is the grout cracking even if the tiles don't.

Some advice on fencing would be appreciated. I'm mounting a fence to a single-skin brick wall (so 100mm) thick. I'm planning on bolting 75mm timbers to the side of the wall (500mm below and 900mm above the top of the wall) and then attaching a further 75mm timber (1000mm high) to the side of that so it sits on top of the wall. The fence panels will be attached between the timbers on top of the wall.

For fixing the timbers to the walls I was planning on using 120mm flange-headed, masonry screws (like thunderbolts) and counterboring the hole so that the bolt head sits below the surface of the timber. Since the bricks may be troublesome (old yellow London stock with hard inclusions), I may have to use sleeve anchors if any of the masonry screws fail.

For attaching the timbers to each other I was planning on using 100mm flange-headed timber screws, similarly counterbored.

Does that sound solid? Any recomendations for specific brands of these things?

If the idea is to get trellis/fence on top of the wall I'd consider drilling into the top of the wall, putting in threaded steel rod and drilling a hole in the base of the post and fixing the post onto the steel rod directly. You can make it all stay in place with epoxy cement and if you put a rubber grommet from electrical backboxes between the wall and the post it allows enough movement to be able to adjust the upright of the post even if your holes are not perfectly vertical.

I did it last year and it was easier than posts mounted on the side of the wall and doesn't take any space on the inside of the garden. I didn't have to worry too much about wind and the wall is double brick with a cement coping so ymmv.

You could still use the same technique to reinforce the type of fence post you are planning.