Home DIY

You are overthinking things.

You would not notice any difference in height, I doubt that this will be finished floor level (happy to be wrong on this) so you still have underlay and flooring to go on top smoothing things out more. If you really must do something for your own piece of mind a good bead of construction adhesive (gripfill, sticks like sh*t, CT1 etc) on the top of the joists before laying the boards this will hold the floor tight (many structural flooring systems require it) and take out a lot of the discrepancy.

The chipboard sitting on joist hangers will not affect squeaking. If you don't want the floor to squeak you need a good amount of PVA applied to both the tongue and groove at each joint squeaky chipboard floors almost always mean someone has cut this particular corner.

Usual (and easiest) way to do it is to put a cap on the top of the chimney, block up the fireplace with thermolite blocks and plaster over the top, remembering to leave a vent to allow any moisture that penetrates into the chimney to get out.

What I have described above us about 100 times easier than ramming that amount of shit down a chimney so someone must have been really desperate to save in skips.

Wow. :)

What's the proper way to block up a chimney?

Wait until Father Christmas gets stuck in it.

for various reasons i need to pocket hole some plywood drawers together and the timber is about 11mm thick, so on the thin side. can anyone recommend a cheap kit?

what an image

saved in private collection

Thanks!

Less thanks

No probs.

One other thing has just occured to me I know you're doing a lot of the graft yourself but be careful clearing the shit out of the chimney. Given how tightly packed it is there is a very real risk of stuff getting held up and then spontaneously freeing itself to come down on your head.

can anyone recommend a cheap kit?

This is not a tried and tested method by any means, but I always wondered how efficient it would be just drilling an angled hole in some timber, clamping that to the work piece and using that as a guide.

I like the Kreg stuff. No idea whether it would work for 11mm thickness though.
Just looked it up, only goes down to 1/2".

All good tips - thanks. I was planning on gluing and using a bead of adhesive too. I made the Mrs lug 5 litres home in the baby buggy this morning.

And you're very correct about the floor height - there'll be another 20+ mm of insulation, heat mat, and then laminate.

(Except in the shed, which I'll have something a little more industrial)

Would modesty blocks work for a not entirely ugly bodge?

you can freehand pocket holes, and I have done so, but it does chew things up and a wooden guide would also get chewed up with the number i need to do i reckon

I could live with a hole off centre by 0.85mm (if my maths is right)

didn't know they existed but i was considering basically the same bodge with wooden blocks...

I've only tried mine a couple of times but it was easy and accurate, I have the 320.

In the last couple of days, it sounds like the meter is always spinning and the downstairs toilet(yes get me) there's a trickling noise to a pipe

Put a line of loo paper around the inside of the pan. If there's a trickle of water from the cistern, past the syphon then the paper will show it up.

If there's a cistern overflow pipe that goes outside , is the water level below the top.

Do you have a pressurised hot water cylinder?... which will have over pressure and over temp valves.
They can leak (or flow water as designed) you'd see it going through the tundish if applicable.

i ended up getting the UJK micro one from Axminster. £20 for the jig and TWENTY MORE KWID for the drill bit(!!!!!!). the bit is 9.5mm thick so i'm slightly worried

The hot and cold water feed pipes to kitchen taps have stopcocks below the sink - which are like slotted screwheads. They are getting kinda mangled and it's a pain having to use a screwdriver on them. How much hassle is it to change these for something you'd get on a tap or levers?

If they have nuts or push fittings at either end, easy, assumkng there’s enough flexibility to get the pipes out of the old fitting.

If they’re soldered, GAMI.

Any tips on pulling up tongue and groove flooring nailed directly into the joists?
And laying floor back onto the joists for that matter. Got a load of reclaimed Junckers Beech squash court that I’m going to lay. Laid a floor many moons ago, but that was in a loft we were renovating, so still at first fix and onto fresh joists etc. I’m hoping to leave the skirting boards on as they’re original and likely be a fucking disaster if I try and get them off without destroying them. They’re about 10 inches tall which suggests they’ve been on for a long time!

Think I’m going to screw rather than nail, using those fancy screws designed for hidden screwing on the tongue. But aye, any tips appreciated!

Hopefully the angle will ameliorate the bit thickness in thinner material - is that what you mean?

Update on the bike shelter - it’s sort of up! Pretty pleased as i struggled with shelves this morning...

Front post struggled on some postcrete from the fence so it’s sitting a little more proud than I wanted, but it looks good.

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I guess I mean that you have the bit at a very low angle with 0.75mm wiggle room either side. If you don't stop it accurately depth-wise, I feel there's a big chance of blowing out at the bottom