Home DIY

My blowout was inside but is hidden by the washing machine

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Cut a notch into the skirting

Do I really want/need to rewire the house?

Thankfully, apart from light switches, all the sockets are fitted into the skirting but still. What a pig a rewire sounds like. Any added value etc? I don't care about house fires or electric shock before you ask.

Have you had an EICR? If you rewire the minimum socket height is now 45cm so you won't be able to put new sockets in skirting.

Oh ffs...

Pretty sure that’s only for new builds. Ours are all about 250mm off the floor and the sparks were fine with it.

You're right, new builds only. Crack on

@villa-ru

Thanks,
Have ordered so will see how tight it is i guess

It’s a really minor tweak. Few taps of a chisel and you’re away

Why won't this go on?
Apart from safety, not the done thing, it'll look shit, you've had a drink, leave it you twat, why shouldn't I no nails this bastard to that thing?

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Cannot answer your question.

But I do have the opposite problem. I have these switches and cannot work out how to take the faceplates off without making a huge mess. Is there a trick to it?

@Airhead Do you have a recommendation for a filler for a Victorian timber front door? I have a few holes and small gaps to fill.

Don’t want to use two-part wood filler as it’s too brittle and will crack over time. I do have some Red Devil Onetime which I’ve only ever used for cracked plasterwork which suffers from movement.

Thanks.

Inverse nonails

Have you considered shrunken heads? They are getting hard to find after word got out on this thread. :)

Repaircare is the answer but you won't like the price of entry. Last time I looked it's about £150 for the starter kit which would easily be enough to fill some small holes and cracks. I've never heard anyone complain about it and most of the pros who've started using it swear by it. Only downside is the price. There's a new product from Toupret but I've not tried it yet, called extrem'wood. It looks similar to repaircare but in a pot.

Try loosening the screws holding it to the wall. It's possible the back plate is flexing to the uneven wall so the inflexible cover doesn't fit it properly.

You could get an electrician to come and check the insulation resistance of the circuits. They'd probably check the earthing for continuity and calculate the zs for fuse ratings etc. If the wiring is less than 25 years old it's unlikely to be a problem. Older than that condition will depend on circumstances.

There are lots of advantages to rewiring to todays standards but they're safety and convenience related. If you're not worried about fire safety or electric shock it might not appeal to you. There's little to no chance that your installation will pass current standards unless it's been fitted in the last 5 years, installations pre part p (2005) are looking a bit risky these days but mostly function fine. It's easy to have simple problems in older installations that weren't thoroughly tested when they were installed or have been chopped about a bit in the meantime. They can be fixed by a competent electrician but some problems like shared neutrals in stairways can be a bitch to track down.

What are you even asking yourself the question though, what's the concern?

Frame assembled.
Today will be building a frame for the mattress and cutting out the desktop.
Still need to fashion some form of stabilisation. Probably a couple of tension straps into the corner that will be hidden by the mattress and then coach screw into the floor when happy with position.
Annoyingly didn't account for the rad when planning so it's further out from the wall than I hoped.

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Small flat blade screwdriver or knife under one of the edges and ease it off. maybe put some masking tape on the wall if you're worried about marking it.

Forgot to mention that the Red Devil is usually for very quick re-decs or electricians needing to patch around stuff fast and easily. It's not a great filler for any other reason. Toupret TX110 is one of the best for proper decorating plaster filling jobs. If it's a joint between 2 different materials then Fibacryl is a good option but needs a different and time-consuming approach to get it smooth.

Seems like it would have been sensible to fix it to the 2 walls at 3 points as most of the movement is going to be high up. That way you might have been able to drop the leg next to the rad.

To start with I'd like some sockets put in a locked cupboard that are currently in the skirting (out of reach of toddler hands - not for safety, just so he doesn't keep pulling the bloody plug out of the internet router). It'd also look a bit tidier etc. But figured also that in time I'd like ethernet throughout the house rather than rely on WiFi even with extenders so wondering whether to get it all done along with electrical work in one fell swoop. The wiring that I've seen looks very old. The consumer unit is of an older type even than the one at my last place which was a 60s build. This is Victorian and while I presume it's only 30/40 years old it frankly looks like something from the 1920s. (Obvs do have shock/fire concerns - facetious not showing through in text).

A vague list of projects:

Discover stairs for boarded over cellar and re-open them.

Install staircase to loft and potentially add dormer to one said of roof to allow for a doorway up there (ideally remaining free of firedoors in the rest of the house - so presumably, unfortunately, hardwired alarms).

Turn pantry into utility room, turn utility room into wet room with shower etc

New windows.

Rewire with cat6 throughout.

Just trying to figure out which comes first from a 'mitigating prolonged chaos' perspective.

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Are those plug covers? Don’t let @mashton see them...

Discover stairs for boarded over cellar and re-open them.

This has to be highest priority possible!

Yeah, the plug covers are unnecessary but whatever :)

Rewiring in Cat 6 - I finally finished ours a couple of years ago. It's kind of unnecessary now, for the price of a decent base unit you can get amazing coverage at lighting speed. If you're still on a land line rather than fibre I would look at upgrading the master socket, we got 50% improved speeds from that. Ethernet is supposed to be kept away from 240v for interference reasons but clearly it makes sense to wire it at the same time if you go down that route. Bear in mind the cost per ethernet socket if you have an electrician chase them in.

If you're considering re-wiring you have to bear in mind that the existing wiring can be used to pull the new wiring in a lot of cases but changing the location of sockets becomes very much more expensive. Then you have to supply earth cables to the CU from the gas and water supplies which could be expensive depending on their location. Beyond that you have to consider the location of the CU as new regs are strict on that as well. It's not going to get any cheaper in the future, the price of fittings, cable and labour are only going in one direction. Do not cheap out on the fittings, it only increases the labour costs.

If you chose to put a socket in the cupboard from that existing one, assuming it's on a ring, you could add a spur in the cupboard by gaining access under the floor in the cupboard and pulling a cable through to the socket. You could just make it part of the ring in any case by running 2 cables. If the basement you're looking for an entrance to runs under the floor of that room it would be very easy. In any case you can see the joist runs in front of the cupboard there so it's an easy enough cable run to inside the cupboard.

Re-wiring the entire house is going to cost reasonable money, there's no getting around it, lots of work involved, lots of making good, a lot of hardware and you end up pretty much back where you were but with massively enhanced safety (RCD protection) and some extras like ethernet. Only you can decide if that's worth the outlay.