Home DIY

Yeah that's a good idea. Better than going back to the guy and going, "Erm, your quote seems mad expensive?". But he did talk a lot about what good shape ours were in generally, how they've never been sanded or messed about with.

Next door neighbour but one used him and theirs were in a state, so god knows how much he paid.

Starting to think all my neighbours are ballers or something...

For what it's worth, I think we paid around £35m2 for the reclaimed boards in our place. They'd removed nails and cut ends, but the boards were different widths. I ended up ripping them all down to size myself and will sand/finish once we've sorted some other bits.

We had a quote from another place that was ~£80m2 for 'finished' boards (cut to width but not sanded). It may have been more for tongue and groove, but I can't find the email.

ours were £30 psqm in two different houses with two different companies - that included all of the repairing, rectification, stitching in donor boards etc. £85psqm seems crazy high to me

I will likely be sanding and hard waxing the boards in my office myself. Not going to bothering hiring the big sander this time as it's a tiny box room, too small to even maneuver the thing. Will use my belt sander and cordless RO (the latter worked better than the edge sander I hired when doing the loft spare room floor).

My daughter's room on the other hand, is massive, and the boards are fucked. Not in a structural way, just that they will never come up nice and there are far too many gaps. It would take a huge amount of work to make them anywhere near good enough to have a wood floor. We are thinking of carpet in their anyway as it will be a small child's bed/playroom. More cushioning for the inevitable swan dive off the furniture, a bit warmer and a bit of noise deadening for when she hammers about the place.

What would be the process for getting carpet on crappy floorboards? Do they get boarded over? If so, with what? Would carpet fitters do that boarding or would they normally expect to rock up and be able to fire down the underlay and carpet? Does this need a specialist? Again, I could ask my builder but it's still early in the relationship and not sure how readily he will say yes to things that I should really be getting a specialist for.

We have similar and secured anything that is creaking or unsupported because it has been chopped in the past, replace any which are particularly short or where a board has been chopped into 3/4 pieces. My dad's recommendation is to PVA the first 18 inches around the walls, caulk under the skirting and for the first few cm floorboard gaps to try and stop dirt getting around the underlay at the edge and into the carpet

Carpet fitters will on the whole turn up with underlay, carpet and the bits needed to fit.

the bits needed to fit

Including the boards/sheets needed to cover 170 sq ft of shitty floorboard?

No, just carpet grippers and the door threshold things

That's my question then, who does?

Next door neighbour but one used him and theirs were in a state, so god knows how much he paid.

Starting to think all my neighbours are ballers or something...

I reckon most people can't face / do a quick time / materials / value calculation so just go along with whatever shit is put in front of them to save themselves the hassle of getting more quotes.

I've been guilty of this at least once

Whatever you do, don't just use the neighbours recommendation without getting other quotes because that's surefire way of paying over the odds. They increase their price every other client or whatever and are always 'experimenting' with what people will pay.

I've been guilty of this at least once

I've been guilty of it on a whole project :/

That's good advice and I am determined this time to keep things vaguely on budget. We have to or we won't be able to afford the key/most expensive bit which is the side return extension and new kitchen.

Thanks @cozey and @atk - that's good to know. I don't want to DIY at all as I've got enough to do already and I want someone with experience to handle it all and make it look good. Happy to pay a premium for that, just not that much!

I still look at our decking and fencing the back garden and wince at what we paid for them but I just wanted them done by that point and couldn't be arsed shopping around

At least the job gets done : /

This has been stuck like this for months

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You do. Get some hardboard sheets from builder depot and a load of ring shanked nails delivered and it’s all done in an hour.

https://www.builderdepot.co.uk/3mm-standard-hardboard-2440mm-x-1220mm-8ft-x-4ft

is it worth having anything between the hardboard and floorboards? Like a thin underlay?

Underlay between carpet and hardboard only I’d say.

I covered my uneven floorboards with hardboard and with the carpet down it’s pretty unnoticeable how messed up the boards were. Would be even more so if I hadn’t been so tight to not splash out on posher thicker carpet underlay. Get some “dream walk” or “cloud 9” and you’re sorted

Finishing up birch ply doors for the kitchen with Osmo oil, does it need a light sanding back between coats?

Have you done a coat yet?

Yes, sanded to 240 grit before the first coat.

240 is good. Best way to get nice finish is that, then apply oil with a micro foam roller. Once it's all oiled, wipe the surface with lots of clean rags, I use catering blue (white) roll, until it feels pretty dry and there are no streaks or wet looking bits. Wipe in the direction of the grain. No need to sand between coats.

If you didn't wipe it may be worth knocking it back with a scotchbrite pad or something like 400 grit. 2 coats should be fine, three if you can be bothered.

Cool, thank you.

I got a forum approved gas engineer to come round and work out what is going on with my heating as it didn't really make sense. Turns out I have two zones, UFH in the kitchen and the other is the Rads, both have their own wireless stat controlling a diverter valve and the boiler. BUT, there is a 3rd 'zone' that feeds the rads in the loft conversion, however it just tees off before either of the diverter valves meaning that those rads come one when either roomstat is calling for heat. Genius! I can 'fix' it with a two zone Tado system, with the rogue radiators controlled by their own tado smart radiator valves.

I have spoken to Tado and they say I can replace the wireless stats with 1 x Starter Kit - Wireless Smart Thermostat and the other one with 1 x Add-on - Wired Smart Thermostat however I'm not sure I can run cables from the boiler to a suitable place for a wired stat to go. Tado can't run with two wireless controllers apparently.

Are there any magic tricks to running cables without taking up floorboards etc? Both diverter valves are in the kitchen where I want the wired stat to be and are directly wired to the boiler. But the boiler is in the bathroom, one floor up in and the diagonally opposite corner. The bathroom floor is entirely tiled with slate on top of the original floorboards and joists (I assume) and the kitchen has been extended (side return) so the ceiling if fully plastered barring a few spotlights and there are steels in there somewhere as well.

What @cozey paid isn't really comparable as he lives in that wild barren no mans land that exists outside the M25.
Thinks ours cost 1200 for downstairs hallway and stairs, the guy wasn't the best bless him but got it done.

Are there any magic tricks to running cables without taking up floorboards etc

Push rods, and a lot of anger patience.

I'm not sure that you need the second wired smart thermostat - What would the end result look like?

What wiring do you have from the current wired stat in the kitchen? How many cores does it have, and does the Tado wired stat not need the same?

Currently I have two wireless stats, with two receivers by the boiler. All the cables go into a (messy) junction box and then go out to control the boiler and also the two diverter valves. The two diverter valves are in the kitchen cupboard and each appear to have a 2 core flex coming from the junction box by the boiler.

I 'need' a stat in the kitchen to have separate control of the under floor heating, running it at a different temperature and timing from the rest of the house.

I assume I 'need' a stat for the rest of the house? It has a separate diverter valve so I assume there needs to be something controlling that?

I've got a 1980's OS map I'd like to frame and put up in the kitchen, any recommendations for getting a frame made to size for it? Measures approx 840x1060 mm.

Not sure where to post so trying in here.