Home DIY

Is your boiler down low or up high?

Out boiler is in the loft and the return, uphill, side of the house has cold radiators. I am told it is due to gunk collecting at the bottom of the loop and robbing heat from the water.

I need to install a filter apparently, but that means ripping out the carpentry in my cellar.

How old is the system and do you run an inhibitor in the central heating system?

What filter is being recommended?

If it is a gunk problem then a quick flush and proper inhibitor should resolve it. First I would balance the flow/heat output of your radiators. That should compensate for moderate gunk problems or show if there is a serious gunk problem. The general advice is for a filter close to the boiler on the return side, so avoiding carpentry in your cellar.

How would a filter close to the boiler get gunk that is not returning up the side of the house?

Is in kitchen, ground floor.
Only have 2 floors.

I think it's something to do with having two massive rads in the back room (living room).
I think the flow goes boiler, split, upstairs front, downstairs hall, upstairs back rooms, downstairs.
but fuck knows. I'm not a plumber.

Usually installing a filter means a drain down and then either a power flush or run some cleaner in the system for a bit and then clean filter a few times and see what comes out.

A power flush is just the pump being removed and the system circulation a solution to clean the system and then back to a larger filter system. That sometimes doesn't help so removing rads and flushing them out.

Which is the hottest rad ;)

Being coerced into wallpapering a stairwell. I've been quite happy with an unpainted/unplastered mess for the past 2/3 years but what do I know? I haven't wallpapered since I was about 10 years old and this seems like jumping in at the deep end.

It's an 'open plan' staircase that is also in the living room so it would be the area above and below the stairs themselves.

It's a patterned wallpaper - 10m x 53cm with a repeat at 53cm.

The wall/ceiling is kind of staggered/ divided into boxes on the way up. Measurements are:

Ground floor to ceiling: 240h x 120w (the last 30 or 40cm see the stairwell start to creep in.
Stairwell first section: 240h x 85w (240 is the max height)
Stairwell top section: 330h x 220w (330 is the max height and there's also a fairly significant window in this space):
Underneath the staircase: 220h x 240w (220 being the max height right)

How would I work out the number of rolls required from the above measurements?

Square meterage of 1 roll = 5.3m2

1. 2.4*1.2=2.88m2
   
2. =2.04m2
   
3. =7.26m2
   
4. =5.28m2
   Total =17.46m2
   divide by WP = 3.29
   round up to 4
   
   

Basically trying to cover wall square meters with wallpaper square meters, that is where I would start anyway.

It all depends on the system and the skill of the plumber. I usually get them to do it when they come for the annual gas safety report if the tenants have reported a problem. I've not had to get it done often, it seems to go along with a boiler that's underperforming.

You'd be looking at the plumbers call out fee anyway. You could try and figure it out yourself, I've never got my head round it. When the guys did it for me I was taken back how easy they made it look.

But you need to match the patterns together so it looks nice. @CYOA do you mean the vertical pattern repeat is at 53cm? ie. it's a 53cm x 53cm repeating box?

Yeah. I have the feeling I'd be fiddling around not knowing what the fuck to do.

You're in at the deep end there. It's fine calculating the overall sq. meters (+the usual 10%) but you also have to allow for the pattern overlap and take into account the diagonal cuts on the staircase which burn through a fair bit of paper. Probably easier to buy enough to do a part of the job and see how you go, you'll have a better idea of how much coverage/wastage after you've done a bit.

Sods law dictates that no matter how you calculate it you'll either need 6 inches more than you have or there will be a roll left over.

Balancing it is apparently a piece of piss. Turn the heating off and wait for the radiators to cool down. Then switch the heating on and check if any of them get extremely hot very quickly (probably the ones nearest the boiler, downstairs). If they do, shut the valve off on that radiator (not the thermostatic valve, the one on the other end) and then open it again by a half a turn. It should then heat up slower than the others but eventually reach the same temperature. Do that until all the radiators heat up.

That's the "DIY-person-who-knows-nearly-nothing-about-plumbing" technique anyway, I believe.

hmmmm.
looks at life situation. wonders when I'll get a chance to do that.

You could bodge it and just turn down the valves on the hottest two or three radiators or something. It would probably result in an improvement and would only take 5 mins.

Also I'm guessing you've bled the radiators too.

Thanks @Bernhard @frankenbike and @Airhead

re. pattern I assume the pattern repeat is a vertical 53, yes. From the website:

Product type Wallpaper
Width 0.53 m
Length 10.05 m
Repeat 0.53 m
Composition Paste the wall
Wallpaper type Standard

@Airhead I kind of assumed finishing the job later would lead to bits that looked or dried differently and figured you'd get the best results all in one fell swoop? Also if I stopped mid way I think there's a 95-100% chance of me never starting again.

I'd anticipated 5 x rolls. Would that sound like it SHOULD be enough? Not worried about any pattern matching above and below the stairs (if that helps)? It's not that expensive as wallpaper goes and I can return any spares "without quibble" according to wallpaperdirect.com but I'm loathe to over-order by more than one roll.

Anyone want to do it for me? I'll give you about 8 pounds in coppers, a half finished packet of baby rusks and any leftover wallpaper. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal tbf...

do you mean the thermo valves or the lockshield?

bleeding radiators tonight/tmrw
then doing an attempt at balancing.

Not the thermo valves, the ones on the other end of the radiator that you don't adjust.

Which bits of wall connect to which other bits?

Probably the easiest thing to do would be draw out the sections of wall on square-lined paper (connecting the sections that join each other) and then see how many to-scale 53x53cm squares you need to cover the whole thing properly.

I don't get much call for pattern wallpaper, not sure why really but I do a fair bit of lining paper. If you're taking it on in bits then you'd want to do whole walls at a time, get them nicely finished and then move on to the next part. You probably wouldn't suffer to much if you didn't get a whole wall done.

There's a strip of thin plastic you can buy that you put under the wallpaper where you want you make a join at a corner, you overlap the wallpaper and then cut through both layers with the plastic strip underneath. You can't just go round most corners with a full sheet as the wall is not exactly a right angle all the way down and the wallpaper will crease or end up out of line. So just 15-20mm round the corner and splice it.

Read the instructions on the paste, you need to prime the wall before you paste it, if you have filler on the wall use a sponge to feather the filler. Get all your filler sorted before you open the wallpaper and clean the skirtings, anything that gets behind the paper slows you down and messes with the glue.

Don't let the paste get too dry when you hang the paper, especially at the joints. There's a plastic wallpaper smoother available for a few quid which does a great job, you'll also need a snap off blade knife, a small olfa one will do, snap the blade off nearly every cut or you'll screw up the edges. That is really important, never touch the paper with a blade that can't cut it cleanly.

Don't panic if you get a few bubbles, they develop about 1/2 an hour after you've smoothed it and they settle down after a few hours, don't try dealing with them while you are papering the wall, likely they won't show the next day anyway. You'll probably get some joints that don't stick, deal with them the next day, you can use a syringe to put a bit of glue in them, sponge then wipe off the excess.

If you're doing stairs you need a decent stair ladder as you have to get right up to the wall/ceiling join. You can't do this balancing on the bannister.

Use a decent sponge and lots of clean water to take of the excess glue, check that the print doesn't react with the glue and wiping the surface when it's wet etc. Some prints are not fixed that well or the surface will show dried glue if you don't wipe it completely.

Like I said, you're in at the deep end. Prepare properly and it's a quick job, rush the prep and its a disaster waiting to happen. Try the small areas first obviously.

Forgot to mention, use a laser level or plumb bob to get your first upright, don't rely on the corner of the wall.

There's also a great product called Gardz that primes the wall and stops a lot of problems with filler soaking up the paste and causing bubbles. Only problem is you don't need much of it and it works out expensive to buy 5 litres.

You should charge for your comments here...

Thank you.

Or do it in sketchup. I once repaired a wood floor that way, had a big hole in the floor and a load of planks that had come out of it. Worked it out like a jigsaw in cad and then did it IRL.

Shower Saga: Moonlight Goth Vampire Wolf Teenage Angst

Baths suck.

Shower is totally dead now. We've ordered a new one but I couldn't resist having one last go of getting it to work so I've (wasted) another £12 on a new TCO. If that fails then I'm getting Sparky back to install a brand spanking new Mira Multifit 40 BILLION KILOGRAM FATTYWATT shower.

Can someone scrub my back?