Home DIY

The CK one may have better rubber for the cups, so maybe hold suction better... however its still a lever action so you cant restore the vacuum without undoing it.

Get two of the cheap screwfix tripple lifters, that way theres six cups holding.

Blowing £50, get this... i have actually hung from mine with it attached to a garage door.
https://www.dortechdirect.co.uk/woods-n4000-powr-grip-suction-lifter-with-carry-case.html

Is removing an internal chimney breast (just on the ground floor) something that would need a visit and sign off for building regs?

Cheers

I do hope you are implying the installation of suitable rsjs, or other support, for the remainder of the chimney breast and stack?

That was the next question. I have a vague memory that gallows brackets aren't acceptable now and it should be rsjs in structural walls.

This isn't one I'm planning to remove. A mate has some cracks appearing in his upstairs flat and is wondering whether it's due to downstairs removing the chimney breast and what sign-off there should be on it

There should have been party wall agreements but it will depend when it was done. I've seen some awful 70's jobs where the floor bounces inches in the middle because of the way the fireplace was chopped out.

If your mate didn't have a party wall agreement at the time it's going to be a nightmare to sort out. On the other hand cracking is normal in victorian properties regardless of the other work which goes on, although that work usually makes it worse.

It was done in the past year or two. There's no PWA (upstairs and downstairs each own a share of freehold so probably not viewed as necessary at the time).

There's no guarantee that it was the chimney breast removal that's caused the problem but seems a bit of a coincidence. He's just trying to work out what should have been done, obviously if it should have been signed off by building control and wasn't or they used the wrong support there's some leverage there.

Anyone come across [relatively] low profile shelf brackets that will still take a heavy load (about 0.8m of stacked vinyl 12"s) or is that asking too much? I thinking something like the below, with a bit of triangulation, but still fairly low profile (can't find these in the UK) so the shelf hides most of it from sight under the front lip.

Or

Sounds kind of iffy to me. How about an L bracket that has a wire or thin rod support from the top to the base at a 45 degree angle?

Should be with the next door on that side, if they have one

Presumably your pal’s place is 1st floor and the chimney breast was removed on the ground floor, and not necessarily supported afterwards?
I’d hazard a guess it’s more likely to be the two floors-worth (a few tons) of bricks causing the cracks than a coincidence.
Whenever we’ve removed ground floor stacks it’s been done with labc approval and engineer’s calcs to accompany the 3 steel beams put in to support the remaining chimney...

Concealed cisterns for wall hung toilets. What's the plumbers go to / favourite?

Do you really have no side walls to fix a frame to. .8m of vinyl is still a good weight. Otherwise the Vitsoe system works, I'm not sure if you can hand the large shelf on tiny rails though.

In general Hans Grohe, but the cistern is not as critical as the porcelain. Hans Grohe is helpful if you need to source parts in 10 years time. If you use a frame you might have to use the matching cistern.

I want to replace the lights outside and spotted these in BQ however they come with integrated LEDs which I don't like the sound of.
Can anybody recommend the same light (2 downward facing spots) but with non integrated LEDs? OR am I wrong to be concerned about integrated LEDs?
Thanks

1 Attachment

OK, that's wonderful, thanks very much. Looking at a nice Duravit one and from seeing them online, looks like they play nicely!

We have a separate toilet and bathroom on the first floor. It will need to stay that way for economy reasons but would like to modernise the toilet room first. Was thinking marble for the walls and floor. Anyone aware of a nice showroom (preferably in SE London but will travel for an awesome one) where I could check out a decent selection of different types of marble tiles?

There are sides actually (alcove), I was just thinking I didn't want it boxed in. The tutorials I've seen sandwich a fairly thin frame with board, I'd worry about that coping with the weight, but could potentially reinforce with metal T-section.

Is the fixture about a GU10 lamp size?

Find a GU10 Halogen version and swap the lamps for LED GU10 lamps?

Belated thanks, @chrisbmx116 @hugo7 and @Airhead !

@Mr_Sworld the problem with the lights I put in the post is that you can't replace the bulbs as they're completely sealed. Bloody weird, it's first time I've across lights like that.

You are probably wrong to be worried about integrated LED. There are lots of occasions when they are the best choice. I do worry about having to replace individual downlighter in 10 years but having seen the issues with 12v downlighters over the years I'm happy to fit an integrated if it fulfils the requirements.

Metal just bends over time in any case. There's a calculator for shelf sag called 'the sagulator'.

The sandwich type with 40mm pine should do it. That's a dated look though! The modular box type of record storage is popular at the moment.

IKEA Kallax then lol. I get what you mean, less capacity but probably simpler to construct. I'll have to draw a couple of versions up. Cheers for the tip on sag calculator.

Loft insulation.

Our house has a loft conversion, but there's storage in the rafters with a little door to stick stuff in there.

However, there's no insulation in that space, which I'd like to address. I'm not sure whether I should be insulating the inside of the roof (i.e. the diagonal rafters above your head when you're in the space), or the floor of space (i.e. the interface between space and the inside of the house). Or both...

Does anyone have any recommendations.

Does anyone know of free, or easy to use interior design program?

Cheers.