Home DIY

Are you on 'London Clay'?

On clay, but in Dorset...

Mate of mine, on London Clay, came home one evening during a heat wave,
and found the 2-storey bay window of his Victorian villa 'peeling' away from the house.
He knew the property did not have much in the way of foundations.
He left the hosepipe on overnight.
Following day the gap had closed up.

We have a shabby prefab concrete workshop which I’d like to spruce up with contemporary cladding and new door/windows. The asbestos roof can stay, ultimately I’ll remove the entire structure and rebuild in brick to match the garage. Any suggestions on material, styles etc, cedar seems in vogue and I quite like this baton idea as I can easily construct it.

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nice

I have surveyor coming out to assess today and offer up advise before I speak to the insurers (if applicable)
I don't have an outside tap nor hose so i'll grab one later - the hose that is!

Fitting pine and sapele reveals today. One down, six to go. Only took 2 and a half hours. I can finish them all today yeah?

Plaster will go right up to the timber, windows end up totally frameless when closed.

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are you back? I need you

Anyone installed shingles on a shed before? Do I need drip edges or will it not explode without?

Mmmm, no screwheads, noice job.

Looks like your slab grout is cementitious.
This means it has no elasticity, or ability to recover from induced stress;
anything moves, and you get cracks opening up.
Your best bet is to remove the cementitious grout from along the wall,
and replace it with a tough sealant, (not silicone as they have no tear resistance).
Without messing about with pro 2-part sealants, you should be able to find cartridge packed
1-part Polysulphide sealant in a decent Builder's Merchant.
You want the gap to be sealed to be wider than it is deep,
and you need to put some kind of tape, (electricians if nothing better to hand),
along the bottom of the gap to ensure your sealant is only anchored at either side.

I'd like to remove a window from my garage wall and replace it with a door. It's single skin , dense concrete block wall. What do I need to cut out the opening? I'm thinking a disc cutter from a hire shop.

Rewiring. 3 bed 1st floor flat. Ancient fuse box (only 4 circuits, just fuses, no RCD) so it'll need a load of rewiring to get things split up onto many more circuits.

From memory the existing fuse box has two white fuses, one blue, one red (and one other red master fuse). I would assume that's something like: two lighting circuits (white 5A), one ring main (blue 15A), kitchen (red 30A).

If everything in the kitchen is on a 30A circuit then we'd get quite close to that (or exceed it) if the oven (12A), kettle (12A), microwave (4A), dishwasher (?), washing machine (?), toaster (4A) and fridge (?) were all on at the same time. I wouldn't ever have all of that on at the same time, and it would only likely have that load of 90s max (given how long the toaster and kettle will take).

There's no real heavy electrical usage in our flat. We never need electrical heaters (combi boiler for water and central heating). The TV/computer/BT-TV box draws <1A. Almost all lights are low energy bulbs (<10W each). Over the winter we sometimes run a dehumidifier but that's <1A.

I know it's a piece of string but if the rewiring was £4k how much is a typical redecoration afterwards be relative to this, the same? I'd hope there would be minimal new chasing outside of the kitchen as they can lift the carpets and floorboards for the bulk of the wiring.

Also, I'd look at getting Cat 5/6 into all 3 bedrooms, sitting room (two locations) and the hall with all of the cables going back to a patch panel and I can handle the network switch stuff. I'd also have TV coax back to the same central place so I can distribute TV to the three rooms at a later date if required.

Anything else to consider if I ever get this done? I'd have multiple network ports for each room so I can use those adapters to smash HDMI/IR over that if I wanted to push that between room at a later date. Can't see the point in laying specific HDMI cables. Boxy trunking with string for pulling through future things?

It's coming up mortgage renegotiation time so I'd be looking to borrow an extra £10k or so to fund this work. LTV is ~30% so there's a fair bit of equity there to borrow against.

Oven/cooker normally on its own fuse/rcd/rcbo, separate from the ring for sockets for the kitchen.

Whereabouts are you?
Makita 9inch 110V angle grinder/transformer for borrows in leafy Ruislip.

Sure, that's what it should be if it was installed now, but the current fusebox is 20+ years old and the kitchen wiring is 15+ years old (an MFI installation based on the paperwork the previous residents left behind). The existing oven is only 12A so it is plugged into a socket at the back of one of the cupboards.

I know how it should be done, and moving the oven to its own circuit would allow me to upgrade the oven at some point in the future to something >12A with minimal fuss, so all of that goes without saying.

I only mentioned it because I know that it'll need a lot of rewiring (rather than using the existing cables) because I already know that there aren't enough circuits, so a load of new circuits will be required.

Questions were more about relative cost of redecoration and also what's the latest stuff that people are also getting wired in at the same time (aside from Cat 5/6 and TV coax). Personally I'm not interested in routing audio anywhere or any smart house stuff but other people may have done some things that could be useful.

Since they're so easy to install and they do help to delay rot by protecting the eaves from creeping water runoff, why not?

Having just had a house rewired as part of a refurb...

Can’t help you with costs of redecoration.

In terms of other things to consider. We went Cat6 everywhere (the incremental cost over Cat5 was negligible). We made sure that we put at least 2 ports behind each TV and have all our Sky boxes in one place and send them over cat 6 to multiple rooms, means I have Sky in every bedroom easily.

Only other thing to consider would be potentially speaker wire, I have that going to two corners of every room and all going back to central location so I can pipe music to any room remotely.

First sapele in.

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Ta, noted.
Building Surveyor has been round, no concerns. Foundations are 1.5m deep and no signs of movement of property. Fortunately its located next to the new part of the property. The rest is late 1700 - no foundations!
As you said, 3 weeks of no rain and scorching sun has taken it's toll. No point doing anything with it until it's 'resettled'.

new part of the property. The rest is late 1700

The materials used between the two behave very differently - I hope your surveyor has highlighted this to you. It's very possible this can cause ongoing problems.

That's very kind of you but I'm in deepest Devon. If you fancy coming down for a few days you're more than welcome.
Is that the tool I need then? I've got a regular angle grinder, do you think I could score into it with that and then bash through?

Even a 230mm grinder won't make it all the way through a medium density block.

I suppose you could use a 115mm and stitch drill a bit too, but it does sound like a bit of a bodge.

Google says you can hire concrete saws, I've learned just now.

Remember your respirator / water spray though.

Can't find any! Selco, wickes and b&q no have. Unless it has another name?