Home DIY

If you have the tools it might be better to get friendly with local parks maintenance / tree surgeons and cut your own, and either use it green or wait a year or two.

Any recommends for sawn British hardwood at cheap cheap prices?

Do it next year. Seriously.

We ended up going with these random ones from Wickes in a reasonably big change from our OG plan. No where stocked the sizes of panels we wanted in the design we wanted. Finding enough of the panels we didn't want in the size we wanted was almost as hard.

We have reasons for doing it now. But we have parked doing a decked area for this year and gone for a halfway house to save the faff. (pic shows it's still wip)

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I've painted green oil based eggshell (f&B) on fence panels in the past and they stayed green. 2 coats but black might take more. I've used a dark grey primer before with some success.

If you just slap it on you'll probably be fine.

I was gonna suggest a horseshoe shaped Lego version of this, then I remembered the application and thought better of it... 🤪

You can fit an overflow pipe to your butt somewhere near the top and then direct the overflow wherever you wish. It'll need to be wider than a hosepipe though, to accommodate peak flow.
We have this arrangement for a butt fed by a shed roof and it works well.

We did a quick test with some spare Wickes black oil based outdoor wood paint. It seems to have good coverage on even one coat. The Ronseal took 4 coats for something just about passable, but not great.

Pic is over a knot.

Drying time is the only pain.

I'm tempted to do a first coat thinned down with thinners to help with penetration to help with colour longevity. OH thinks that's a waste of time and we should just slap it on. Ultimately it should end up 80% covered with plants.

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That's a really good idea.

The gutter on my shed is currently directly flowing into a butt as a temp bodge until I redo the down pipe gutting and add the proper diverter. The veg patch is next to it and previously the gutter pointed a ¼ of the way in.

You've got me thinking that a perforated overflow pipe could distribute the water more evenly down the patch.

I guess it's just how to do it neatly.

Dunno about neatly. We just bodged a bit of sink waste pipe in which dumps the water into a corner of a raised bed. Not elegant but stops the shed sitting on a swamp.

If you want it to be tidy you could run pipe down the back of the butt to ground level, then across to the bed I guess. The pipe doesn't need to be downhill all the way as long as the exit hole is lower than the entrance hole.

If you use a diverter on the down pipe then you can achieve the same result by rerouting the remaining down pipe. If you do that, it's easier to remove the water butt in future as it's not really an integral part of the pipework.

Bosch Classixx 1200 washing machine, completely dead/won't turn on. Checked socket and fuse -both ok. Machine was working yesterday. Any ideas where to start with fault finding?

• Power supply on the PCB
  
• Dead PCB
  
• Blown capacitor/s
  
• dead cable
  

These appear to be the culprits.

Looks like I’ll have to take a punt on a second hand PCB off eBay. Slightly annoyingly it’s cheaper to just buy the whole machine second hand, but then I’ve got to fuck around taking the rest of it to the tip.

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Infuriating.

When my £500 Siemens washing machine needed new bearings within 5yr warranty, the engineer ordered me another ‘it’s cheaper to supply a new one than for my time to replace the bearings’

Crazy modern life.

The plot thickens, Having learned a bit more, it's probably actually just carbon accumulation from static, and will wipe off. So I probably need to investigate the power supply and other parts.

Fuck this.

Caps are a piece of piss to replace.

PCBs are not - they often need to be programmed / flashed, and that can only be done by proprietary kit by authorised service people. And paid for obvs.

Just replied on the other thread. That 7 pin chip is the power supply. if you stick the number into google you'll see plenty of pictures of fried ones in Bosch appliances.

Ah cool. I did notice on a few videos that they all have black accumulations on them. Even on working ones. Having done some continuity/live testing the incoming power is working - from plug to board. So I'm hoping it's something on the board itself and have taken a punt on a 2nd hand one for now.

Cheers for all the help people!

13 hours on the tools getting washing machine in and doing the island. Now looking for some terrazzo tiles, a nicer kettle and a knife rack.

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Anyone got opinions on what could be going on here? Drilled in with masonry bit, goes through initial later of plaster easy enough, hits something harder, the suddenly gives in to what feels hollow. Also sounds hollow when knocked on. Was going to use plugs to hang a curtain track but seems like stone kind of plasterboard fixing might be more suitable.

Context: Victorian house above bay window

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What material is coming out of the hole when you drill?

What are you trying to hang?

Not a lot, other than the plaster. It's a bit odd, feels like a metal lintel, although that wouldn't sit with the age of the house I don't think. Anyway there's at least an inch of build-up so I've just gone with plugs for now. They're the Fischer duo ones so in theory should work in either scenario

I've routed a signboard in pine wood for a friend and need some thoughts on how to weatherproof it. The letters will painted in exterior gloss paint but I don't know whether to varnish the rest of of the board (yacht varnish?) or oil it, and if it's oil, what oil to use? It will be hung up outdoors so will get rained and snowed on (it's going to hang outside a house in Bulgaria, near the Black Sea). Other than varnish and oil are there any alternative solutions that would allow the natural wood colour to come through?

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Not sure you meant to reply to me, but Osmo do a UV resistant Polyx oil

Yesterday, LG Direct Drive washing machine threw up an 'OE' error code; pump unable to empty machine.
OK, lets check the (extended) U-bend.
Some sludge build up, all removed, rinsed and reassembled.
LG still protesting, but does allow a Spin only program, to at least release the door lock.
Washed, but standing in water, clothing retrieved and hung out to dry.
Prepare barrage of old towels and remove filter.
Gushing water mostly absorbed by towels. Filter almost completely blocked by blue fibres and sludge/calcium sulphate deposits.
(Affinity Water's supply not as hard as some Thames Water sources).
Clean filter, put machine on Speed 14 cycle which takes 30+ minutes.
Hmm.
Mrs. M tries machine today. Same 'OE' error code.
Move machine into garden, onto workbench on its side. Filter reveals more blue fibres.
Ribbed pipe that takes output from pump has continuous layer of sludge/sulphate. All dislodged and rinsed out. Rubber gaskets from drum to pump removed, cleaned of sludge.
Drum rotates easily until it doesn't.
Hmm.
Reassemble and run in garden on Speed 14 cycle. Takes 30+ minutes. Remove filter. There is a piece of blue material in there, along with some, (but in comparison), minimal sludge/sulphate.
Run Speed 14 cycle 4 more times. Always blue fibres/threads in filter, but now finishing in the expected 14 minutes.
Rain has stopped 'play'.
I'm picking up murmurs of missing blue sock.
Anyone else ever had a complete sock (slowly) find its way to the filter?

Tldr: check your washing machine filter on a regular basis.

I once pulled a button out of the business end of the drain hose after the machine refused to drain.

How it got through the filter…no idea.

As if to mock me, the button was embossed with ‘Rapha’.