Home DIY

Thanks @TW I will give them a call tomorrow and talk about colours.

I’m in Canada and the stuff around here was never associated with asbestos

Canada banned asbestos for domestic use long before we stopped exporting it.
From the picture it is impossible to tell what that insulation is. Anyone working with it should at least wear proper personal protective equipment.

True but as far as I know asbestos was never used with cellulose, being more expensive than newsprint, it was mostly associated with Vermiculite.
Always wear approved respiratory protection when working with these materials, obviously.
You may have information that I don’t of course.

There are online guides to identifying the stuff you have, or bring in a pro for peace of mind.

I did find an old bag of 'Cellulose Insulation Non-Toxic Non-Irritant' under the eaves. Which looks like it had been filled with fibreglass and stuck to a board as a makeshift hatch cover. The stuff itself looks just like all the images of cellulose insulation - tiny bits of paper and other fibres - so I'm not worried about asbestos.

Good news.

Bit of a whiff from the sink area of the kitchen. Not blocked sink whiff,
but,
something a bit mouldy.
Sure enough Mrs. M has wrecked another mixer tap with the pull out spray head.
Tap has been slowly leaking down the flexible pipe connected to the sprayhead.

Quick trip to Toolststation and given her track record, just a £30 mixer tap
with a fixed head. Hope the kitchen cabinet under the sink dries out in the next few days.

Hehehe.

Mixed professional/DIY sorting of rusted iron railing. Couple of pros cut the rotten bits off and TIG'd it back in place and then we spent a day grinding all the surface rust off before hammerite-ing it. Quite satisfying. Also interesting to watch them TIG weld in the wind, guy wrapped himself up in a little tent to stop the gas escaping.

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The solution would be to do the dishes yourself.

Also tore out all the old coaxial cable (insane amounts) and got rid of the aerial.

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Next doors 20+ yr old ivy bush consumed the fence between our properties. We didn't realise how bad it was until we cut back about 1 ft of branches extending into our garden. The fence was in a terrible state with several gaping badger, fox and cat access points.

We aimed to build a robust fence panel feat. concrete kicker into the existing concrete posts to avoid;

• The need to remove / disturb next doors ivy
  
• Future ivy intrusion
  
• Badgers and foxes destroying the fence + entering garden
  
  

Unfortunately the flimsy and rotten fence was structurally integral to the ivy and on removal the entire bush collapsed. We have lost the friendship of our neighbour but gained a solid boundary. Final panels to follow this weekend but this is the completed work to date.

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are they honestly pissed at you? They can get to fuck.

Not looking forward to a similar fence confrontation with our very very insular neighbours

The husband is, the wife is empathetic.

I'm sure they will come to terms with the change, we've gifted them with about 2ft more garden and a lot more sunlight. And a new fence.

It is difficult to be diplomatic in such circumstances

Re fence replacement, anyone know how it's likely to go down with our council neighbours each side? We are midterrace and bordered by two council tenants. Is one side likely our responsibility and the other the councils?

Neighbour one will be fine to deal with, she's great, the guys on the other side however are likely to be a bit more problematic.

Yeah, you're always only responsible for one side, I don't know if there's a rule, I only found out which fence was mine by asking my neighbours.

I suppose I'd rather do it my self as they're are only 6' high at the moment and the rest which the council have done are 8'.

Where I grew up the back garden fences were about 3' and you could look down the row of gardens, much nicer and communal.

It should say on your deeds which fence is your responsibility. Our deeds are vague but it suggested that the fence we replaced was actually next doors. Fortunately, the neighbour thought otherwise so we kept quiet.

http://www.boundary-problems.co.uk/boundary-problems/fences.html Someone on here kindly directed me to this site which was helpful

It's really interesting that when many terraces were first built, there weren't any fences at all, and very often a path between the gardens that ran the length of the terrace.

Today ...

Has anyone had to deal with ground level air vents/bricks?

I have one of the front of my house which is right at ground level. Heavy rain today so I went out to look and there is almost definitely water ingress as the pavement is slopped towards the house front. We have a subfloor so I could take a look to see how bad it is (if at all).

Just wondering what the ideal solution to stopping water ingress but keeping the flow of air coming in.

House is very old and the brick work is not the sort you can chip away at easily to move the air brick up off the ground. The ground level is a pavement managed by the local council so I cannot dig the ground out either...

Has the outside ground level has been built up over time? If it has, I would guess that the council has a responsibility to do something about it.

I reckon your choices are
1) lower the ground level to an appropriate height,
2) build a levee, much like you would around a ground water drain / downpipe drain, or
3) brick up the airbrick, and install a periscope air brick*

* In what way is the brick is not easy to chip away - too soft / hard / crumbly? Is it a solid or cavity wall (whether it is stretcher- or cross-bonded should give a good indication, particularly if you know the age of the property).

[Edit] 1) is supposed to be striked through, but apparently that's not a thing any more

(think the comma might be breaking the strikethrough)