Home DIY

Hot water and a scraper is working for me. Albeit so slowly I'm tempted just to rip off the plasterboard and start from scratch.

Thanks a lot, will give this a go later today.

*puts down cold chisel

Need to put a shelf over a tumble dryer that'll be in the corner.

The shelf will only be secured on two sides. I was going to put a diagonal brace so it will look like a triangle.

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Not worth it imho. better to put a leg, maybe even removable. All you need is a bit of 2x2 or an old hanging rail from a wardrobe.

Quality! Good effort getting stuck in.

Why not put a shelf bracket on the left edge?

Can you make use of the rails you already have?

Both excellent ideas. Knew it was worth asking here first.

Cheers.

Cheers. A few more board ends to do, then it's just skirtings/threshold strips and sand/oil. I'm trying to get it to a point where only the sanding and oiling (or lacquering) is left for the pros to do.

A small heads up - it might be advantageous to leave the thresholds off until the boards have been finished as it will make sanding the edges a lot easier. Sanding right up to an edge is quite tricky, so having the gap exposed is actually a good thing. I've seen a lot of people doing the whole floor process before putting skirting back on too.

There's a whole rabbit hole of this guy's videos but he definitely knows his stuff
https://youtu.be/MUpRHhxr-2g

Yup. That's the plan - skirting replacement and thresholds done after sanding. Any skirtings that are acceptable and already attached are staying on, though!

My lighting suddenly tripped its circuit breaker last night, not when actually switching anything on/off. Trial and error revealed it's the toilet which is just two GU10s in the ceiling.

Thinking it might be caused by a faulty bulb I've removed them both, but it's still tripping when I switch it on.

Expecting to have to get someone in, but is there anything else obvious I could check beforehand? Might take a quick look at the state of the wiring at the switch, but beyond that I'm a bit stumped.

Nuisance tripping in domestic situations. Always check for water, most often the problem originates outside. Don't rule out someone connecting outside electrics from any interior supply.

There are plenty of possible problems. Just recently I had a system tripping because damp in the walls had destroyed the cables over a long period of time. Testing the insulation resistance confirmed this but ir testers are not usually in the diy toolbox.

You can usually pull gu10 fittings down by carefully wedging something under the edge. I'm expecting you to find decorator-grade bodged wiring.

(and do you have an extractor fan?)

I'd had a serious leak near there (it's directly below where the extension's flat roof meets the back wall) back in August. Definitely seems worthy of suspicion but would be weird considering it was fixed and there's been no other evidence of moisture since.

@grams discovered it's possible to unclip the springs with pliers, they drop straight down then. No extractor fan in the toilet, it's separate from the bathrooom.

Well that disconnected earth wire doesn't look right.

I don't understand what it's doing there in the first place though, or what it should be connected to because the fitting only has live and neutral terminals. Just the metal frame somehow?

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You might expect a floating earth wire in those circumstances.

It should have some kind of termination on it just to ensure it doesn't end up poking in a line or neutral terminal somewhere. Tape would be 'ok' if earth colour coded. Sometimes they are just clipped right back in lighting circuits.

Insulation resistance problems usually only occur when the damp or water has had a chance to break down the insulation on the copper wires. You then get arcing between the conductors. If you didn't have an RCD this would eventually heat up and then it's easier to detect!

It looks like the first picture is your lighting loop in and out with a switch line (this is an educated guess there are other possibilities). If you can identify and mark them and note the connections in the white box you could disconnect them and try and diagnose the problem from there.

Do make sure you use a voltage tester and work safely. If you don't feel confident or know what safe working methods are in this case you might want to consult a professional. If you don't have a voltage tester or continuity meter you might already be at your limits.

Also, never connect all the same colours together in a lighting circuit, just throwing that in there for later because it's a classic, we've all done it and it never works :)

Can you post the reverse angle of the first picture showing how the wires connect? It looks a bit like the live has shorted against the earth but it's hard to tell.

The whole lot needs redoing with a proper junction box.

Yeah, pretty close to being out of my depth here. Thanks for the advice tho'.

Not sure if either of these are any clearer? I can't see any exposed wire other than the earth.

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Any skirtings that are acceptable and already attached are staying on, though!

Definitely. I refused to embark on that epic when I did my floor. C100 year old skirting that is nailed on with a vengeance was not something I wanted to start wrestling with.

It's not the old nailed on stuff you need to worry about, it's the ones that have 'no more nails' and 8" screws in :)

grams has a point, that junction box is not really designed for that quantity of cables. If it were me I'd redo it as a matter of course but I'm trying not to push you too far into the deeper water.

C100 year old skirting

For sure.

The stuff that has come off in my kitchen thus far has a barcode on the back with a very recognisable shade of orange... It's not heritage fabric for sure :)

(The skirting in the hallway is likely older)

can the doorbell in the picture be replaced by the parts Amazon is suggesting? I don't have a model number, but new batteries did nothing and not sure what's at fault.

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