Home DIY

8 inch, that’s an absolutely beat it.

Lol, made even better by him remarking “it probably doesn’t make any difference, I’m just being fussy”, as I’m midway into undoing/redoing the work.

He did at least seem a bit bashful after I pointed out that the ship had already sailed for sentiment like that.

Usually that conversation goes, it can be moved at an additional cost which folk usually go oh that’s fine just leave it there and they aren’t so fussy.

Ha, there’s no money in this job, lol. The bloke that did their garage quoted £600 for the cabin electrical install. It’s £300 in materials, £70 for a mate to sign it off. I’m not exactly rain man but I don’t see any cash being made here! It’s a learning experience if nowt else.

To be fair, matey who did the garage did it all in partially installed trunking, seemingly held together with a mixture of silicone and wishful thinking.
He did write all his r1+r2 readings on the meters tho, which saved me some maths!

You get some like that, least it’s not costing you. fuck I work with my old Man sometimes and he’s been in business for 27 years himself and he didn’t price a rad right a month ago. Charged the woman £160 fitted and it turned out the rad was £250 alone. Just being fuckin regular Robin Hood but instead robbing ourselfs 🤦🏻🤦🏻🤦🏻

Just being fuckin regular Robin Hood but instead robbing ourselfs

Ha! Hopefully the joinery work will offset the lack of cash in the sparky bits on this one.

So, woken up to no lights working in the house except kitchen, no kitchen sockets and only some sockets working in the rest of the house. Nothing tripped in the fuse box and all on separate circuits.

I didn’t change the dimmer switch mentioned up thread but a few weeks ago I did change some toggle switches. Will check all those connections first in daylight. Any other recommendations before I try and track down an electrician?

Are you sure they RCD hasn't tripped? There is often 1 for a group of circuits. I would also check any outdoor connections and reset the consumer unit (fuse box). When you check for outdoor wiring remember something can be discreetly plugged in to a hidden socket!

Thanks, again! Yes, idiot mistake, there was another switch in the box that controlled a group that I could see in the dark. House sockets are on a different group so that’s peculiar.

Small forum donation made

No problem, common when the weather is bad. There should never be one RCD covering the whole consumer unit. The point is to leave you with some power so you can safely find the fault or exit the building.

A little illustration of a nuisance tripping problem for you....

I went to a house in my street before christmas, same problem, tripping overnight. We had a lot of rain and the first for a while so I asked about exterior wiring. The householder told me, no we don't have any. So I'm looking around the garden room and see a light switch on the wall next to the door. I ask, what's that?. Ahh, he says, garden PIR. So we go outside and the conduit comes from the first floor bathroom to the outside light. We look in the bathroom, there's an immersion tank with a spur off the socket to another socket hidden in the top of the cupboard with the outside light plugged into it. Unplug it and the circuit works without tripping. Replaced the cable and light fitting and no more problem tripping.

Just to clarify though, you could have damp in the walls or under a floor that has destroyed the insulation of the cables over time and that can be tested with an insulation resistance tester once the problem circuit and part of the circuit is diagnosed. I had one of those recently tripping the ring in a basement flat. In this case the tell tale sign was rusty backboxes.

How much load can an average plasterboard wall take?

Thinking about putting some 606 shelving in upstairs but the wall is single skin plasterboard. Vitsœ say this is OK, presumably because each rail has about eight mounting points so the load is fairly well distributed.

I'm not going to do a whole 'wall of books' type thing but there will be a bunch of files, a tv, consoles, paperwork etc.

How concerned should I be about it pulling out of the board?

I fear it could be this then, maybe. It’s the kitchen circuit tripping now with everything unplugged other than oven, boiler, dishwasher washing machine. There looks some historic water ingress on one wall near appliances/sockets

There’s a few factors.
How thick is the plasterboard. 12.5mm obviously will take more than 8. If you can hit a stud or two it will help a lot. Although with vertical fixings, I guess you either will or you won’t hit a stud.
The type of plasterboard fixing and how well you install it also makes a big difference.

Because the rails are vertical, that should help distribute the load downwards on to the fixings better than normal/shorter shelf brackets.

Be aware that heavily laden shelves may hold onto the wall, but crack the wall elsewhere. As the shelves will stay attached, but start pulling the plasterboard off the studs!

Ta. Helpful points there. I can remove the light switch and figure out the depth of the board.

What would you class as heavily laden do you think? 50 paperbacks? 100?

Vitsoe recommend against trying to mount to studs - probably to avoid the studs being constraints on the overall layout.

I think they recommend using fischer duoplugs rather than toggles or butterfly fixings.

Edit: ah no, some kind of expanding butterfly fixing.

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We hang radiators on walls very regularly using toggle fixings, as said below if you can hit a stud that would be class but if not toggle fixings is the way to Go.

I read toggles are good for static loads but for loads that frequently change they can damage the rear of the board leading to failure.

I've got a lot of 606 with significant weight on lath and plaster which is much worse than plasterboard. The fixings they provide are great and you're right about the number of fixings on the rail spreading the load. I have a problem with one area where there's a desk, extra leverage of course.

You can narrow it down further with lengths of cable but you might want an electrician to do that because you're going to have to do a fair amount of disconnecting/connecting and testing to narrow it down.

Once you know where it is you should be able to connect the ring temporarily to avoid the problem.

Maybe but I have used them a lot over the years on loads of things and as long as you dont lean on them they are usually sound. If your really worried about that Id cut out a section of wall and put a wooden strap/piece of ply in the back and piece it back over.

Lath is the worst for trying to get a good fixing, i hate when i have a job that i have to hang stuff on it.

Any recommendations for a cheap/small pipe (and/or voltage?) detector?

Just to make sure I don’t drill/nail into anything I shouldn’t when hanging blinds and pictures.

I'm also interested in people's experience with stud/pipe finders. Doesn't have to be budget, but I'm not about to drop a few hundred quid on a top end one.

I've got one of the generic £15 Am*z*n ones. I'm not sure it's that much better than knocking on the wall or using magnets to find the screw heads but I haven't drilled into anything too problematic, yet.