Home DIY

You will think its cheap after you have done it. Sanding stairs was by far the hardest/nastiest job I have done. Awkward, noisy, dusty, back breaking work for little reward.

For context he’s £25/sq m when it’s floorboards. To give you an idea of the quantified extra effort/discomfort involved.

OH god. Cheers guys. Maybe I just burn them down...

It's only worth taking on a job like that if you're already into the DIY thing or you are committed to building up a collection of tools and experience. There are so many ancillary tools that make a difference, just throwing a circular RO sander at the stairs is not going to stop it being a job from hell. How much hell will depend on initial condition of the stairs though.

Er still need an electrician in or around wood green.

Any recommendations?

Yeah I’m not work shy and also pretty tight with money.
Spent 20 years, man and boy, shifting tonnes of mud at the weekend for fun, tickling some wood with electric sand paper ain’t going to kill me.

Although I am old and lazy now.

I've used this guy for a small job before and he seemed fine
http://www.pselectricalservice.co.uk/

It's not your capacity for work that's in question! It's not a very rewarding job to diy. If you are in for the long run it will test your will power and expand your toolbox. You will need to open your wallet unless you fancy sanding it by hand.

Bit off topic, but I know a few of you like Rutlands for tools. Be weary of product reviews on there. I reviewed two items at the same time a couple of months ago, gave one 5 stars and the other 1. The 5 star review is on the website within days, and the 1 star still not there. I'm guessing it never will be.

No wonder everything on there is either 5 stars or unrated.

Right I need to put two lights in the lounge; this being one of main concern,
https://www.urbancottageindustries.com/fairground-hanging-lamp
How much of a faff will it be doing it by myself? Any sparkies in SE?

In my experience, it varies. If your electrics are all nice then there'll just be a few wires to connect up and that will be that. If things aren't going nicely then you'll just have three terminals on your new light (live, neutral and earth) but a load of extra loop wires that somehow need to be connected even though your new rose doesn't have the terminals. (And obviously the inbetween position where you have a load of extra loop wires but your new ceiling roses actually has all the terminals to make it easy.)

It’s also that it’s got two hanging points. Not sure how easy that’ll be...

£1500 quid to do stairs.
I’m buying a sander! So long weekends...

My radiators are very vocal, the tall ones especially. Tricking and dripping away. I’ve bled them all, which fixed the issue, but after a week or so they tickle again. Bleeding the tall ones fixes it for a while but it’s come back. Isn’t it a sealed system? Where does the air come from? Is my boiler farting into the pipes?

It’s a Vaillant Green iQ btw. So no one knows how it works or what the common issues are yet.

Is polyfilla just shit, or am I doing something wrong? I've got some of the powder stuff that I'm using to fill some shallow blemishes in a plastered wall. No matter how I mix and apply it, I can't get it to set any harder than, say, dry meringue. After 24 hours I sanded it and brushed the dust off to prep it for painting. When I gave it a final wipe with a damp rag, it just wiped huge amounts of it off. How is that meant to stand up to being touched, or can you only use it in areas where it will never ever be brushed by the clothing of someone passing?

My gut feeling is that you are doing something wrong. No idea what you could be doing wrong though!

Have used Polyfilla powder to do loads of filling in our place and have never had a problem.

2:1 mix?

I know a great flooring specialist who does sanding. I'll try to PM you his details.

Can anyone recommend some battery powered led sticky strips?

Moving furniture earlier and snagged a cable that was connected to the phone socket, ripping it out in the process.

I've traced the wire and it goes up into the ceiling (and god knows where). Phone still works, alarm still works, tv and internet still work.

The phone socket was only fitted in June, as was the alarm, and the cable in question looks a lot newer than any of the existing ones.

I'm baffled as to what it might be, and don't really know how it was connected, so just covered with electrical tape for safety and left it dangling beside the socket.

Any ideas what it might be? Who do I even ask?

1 Attachment

Cheers

Anyone else?

Is it out of date? Tetrion is meant to be quite good. I use that expensive “red devil” for small patches or where it needs flexibility.

I'd guess it's an extension. Do you have a phone socket in any of the upstairs rooms?

Looks like there are some other cables coming out of the wall, though the pic is a bit dark to see will. I'd guess they're the actual phone line and the bit you snagged will just stop some other socket working. It'll be an easy fix though, just Google phone wiring and match the colours of each wire to the correct terminal after stripping a cm or so of the shielding

GCHQ listening wire, obvs. They clearly are unhappy that you are using hass.io instead of a sanctioned (and backdoored) commercial alternative

You can normally wash thin layers of filler of the wall, it depends on how well it's keyed to the surface and how hard you scrub it. What you are trying o do with shallow blemishes is the most difficult type of fix. Try a filler like Toupret TX110 as it's finer, sand the surface lightly to allow it to key or spot prime first. Paint usually protects the filler in these circumstances but it is more vulnerable to damage. Certainly the paint protects it against being brushed off by clothing. It does seem likely that you are mixing it too thin because it's a fairly coarse filler and you want a fine finish. Toupret also have a fine filler in a blue pot which is excellent for very fine surfaces but it is quite delicate until it's painted.

Second thumbs up for Red Devil.

Got recommended it by a workmate, amazing stuff and is quite happy sitting in the van through all temperatures. My absolute premixed filler.