Home DIY

I’ve got a new electricity meter cabinet arriving today so I can route our supply underground.

ENWL have been very specific about the ducting they want to bring the supply into the cabinet but I can’t get hold of the sparky I normally use to tell me what ducting I need to pre-instal into the concrete base for the armoured cable.

I’m guessing it’ll need to complete a circuit. So does that mean that the cable can come back through the same ducting from the consumer unit? Or do I need to put two lengths of ducting in?

Yeah, the ceiling has been patched previously and so when the water spread out over the plasterboard it found all the edges of the panel. Those are where the splits are developing.

Thanks, I'll pull down as much of it as I can this weekend...

Crack filling materials and methods?

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https://www.lfgss.com/comments/13195686/

Am mulling over options one how to increase the warmth of our sons bedroom. It's a very small room in an external corner of the house, north facing. Brick wall, no cavity. The walls get very cold, and also get damp in the corner due to condensation.

My current thought is to use insulated plasterboard, thickness yet to be determined. It's already a small room so I think I would lean towards a thinner product.

Would dot and dab be an option in this instance?

How does the vapour barrier on foil backed products work at the edges, no way to join the seams if they are at the back, unless im missing something?

Alliteratively could batten first and put a polythene sheet up first, but would eat into the floor space even more. Am debating chipping the plaster off back to brick to compensate, would make a hell of a mess though and not sure how much I'd even gain.

Anyone have an experience doing this kind of thing?

If there's a condensation issue, you'll need an air brick behind any stud wall - even a polythene wrap won't be 100% effective, other than at keeping any moisture trapped.

Taking plaster back to the wall is a pain though - particularly if it's gypsum over lime. The dust is killer (almost literally) and you need bith good extraction and filtration. It might gain you a couple of inches though.

we have this problem in our bedroom and never came up with a solution that didnt reduce our already low floor plan

we got new 'open' furniture (nothing closed back against walls) and have to wipe down mould a few times a year.

we got two tubular heaters for the worst areas that are on timers. but anything that touches the wall gets mouldy.

Admittedly, I didn't fit the kitchen myself. But we will be finishing the floor and tiling ourselves. You have no idea how nice it is to have a working oven after 2.5 weeks of raw or microwaved food

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Wooden worktops, brave

They're laminate. Lucky to have a worktop at all as the original one got stuck in Holland after the driver came down with coronavirus, our designer managed to source a much nicer one in an hour from somewhere in London

I'd hope that these aren't from the last few decades as health and safety means there should be less machine injuries.

Anyone want so maia stone look alike worktops? and a crapy german made novalia kitchen ;)

Gave my lockdown office a coat of paint...

Craig & Rose paints are ace. 👌🏻

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Nice bright colour, it looks great.

I finally ran out of excuses to tackle the corner skirting today.

I tried Kerf cuts first, but the skirting seemed to go from inflexible to snap too quickly so I gave up and cut it into piano keys instead. I'm going to need a lot of filler - but it's something.

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I hoovered.
Fucking hell.

To be successful with the kerf cuts you should have tried taking material out of the face of the skirting in this case. Cuts on the back if you had wanted to bend it around the external radius of a corner. Even writing it seems wrong but I had to do it with some 9mm Mdf under a sink recently.

And all the cuts should be completely uniform - same depth and width, and very importantly, the spacings have to be equal. Annoyingly I find that a standard chopsaw blade kerf is too thick too.

Similar issue in the old toilet extension - we used some insulated wallpaper(the fabric kind from efurt i think). Works well to take the chill off the walls/stop mould/damp build up. Not a significnt difference in terms of insulation but was the cheapest/easiest solution.

How hard is it to add insulation to the outside?

Was looking at this for the house in France as there were grants available to increase insulation to the exterior, the additional insulation and the then special render over the insulation. Would cure any single wall condensation problems.

That does make sense. So the gaps you make by cutting squish together.

Anyway - this seems to have worked, albeit inefficiently.

I used a flat surface (spirit level) to line them up, then duct tape to keep them together but flexible, and then Gripfill/panel pins to attach them.

If filling in holes etc when is it acceptable to use expanding foam? Or better to fill by layering it up

Depends on what type of hole you're filling and the finish you would like to achieve.

Generally speaking expanding foam products are intended to seal penetrating gaps for example round window frames, or round penetrations between internal spaces where firestopping is required.

From a decorating standpoint it's almost never used. It's not practical to use it in small quantities anyway. Bobbo has covered the usual uses.

For large holes in plaster you use bonding in a thick coat followed by a skim of multi finish plaster. In practice it's easier for a decorator to carry product which can be stored for a long period which will fill a deep hole and dry in 24hrs. Toupret make a few different fillers which do this, if you look at their website they describe the use case including maximum depth.

Thanks. I have a hope where the socket has been placed. Internal wall which is lath and plaster. The previous owners seems to have cut into the end of the wall to lay the wire and fillered over it. So has I’ve gone to remove the wallapaper it’s pulled it off so wasn’t sure to how to fill it