Home DIY

Toolstation have a range of Mapei products listed,
but,
no self leveller.
Do you have a proper builders' merchant or decent Tile stockist locally.
They may have stock of a suitable self-leveller.

Sorry not been on the forum much recently.

Scribing is relatively easy to do to an ok level once you get your head round the basic principle. Bear in mind that if you do it to an ok level you can cover up minor boo-boos with caulk. It's all about knowing exactly what the offset you will be cutting to is then setting that precisely on your scribe (I use a compass) but there are many, many ways to do it and they all have their advantages / disadvantages.

Very easily done for what you want.

You may struggle to find someone willing to do just a couple of scribes at present.

If you want to try it yourself I may be able to write up a guide.

I may be able to write up a guide.

Promises promises - my kitchen is still waiting 4 months later.

It's almost like giving free advice here isn't your only job.

Bay window curtain rail/track query:
Looking at either these or these due to budget constraints (posh ones like these jump up to 4x the price)

Anyone used either of these cheaper brands, or have better solutions? (NB. would like curtains to be a pair that meet in the middle as opposed to three separate sections for each bit of the bay window)

Big difference as £ go up is usually weight of curtain they can support, I'd check that as obviously a bay pair = lots of fabric. Bending the tracks is fine as long as you take your time.

I put a couple of wall-hangers up for my bikes a while ago, into the party wall of a 1910s brick house. As far as I can tell it's failing plaster straight onto brick. Within a few weeks both had fallen off the wall - my diagnosis being the rawl plugs and screws hadn't gone far enough into the proper brick, big chunks of plaster came down. I want to re-hang them: should I just be looking for longer more substantial rawl plugs and screws or do the metal-sheathed rawl plug chaps offer any advantage for my requirements?

Cheers

Someone mentioned burnt sand mastic a while back, I rolled past this short video this morning, it seems ambitious but that's what it is.. https://twitter.com/DarrenMcLean_uk/status/1173503968674222080?s=20&t=Ctj4fmBy1TL8_SsFvgys8Q

+1 for mapei self level, used 600 kg of it in workshop and its mostly held up 5 years later. Some better prep on my part and doing it in more stages (some parts are 30mm or more in depth, when I think its mean't to be 6-10mm max with that compound?) would have resulted in a better finish.

Was easy to paint though afterwards and cost was about right.

Buy or make nail spike sandals and get a nail spike roller on a big long handle is the best advise I'd give, trying to push it around with blades and brushs is not gonna go that well. Prep + temperature are everything.

Check there’s some good brickwork under there first :)

Longer screws and a deeper hole will do you. Lightly screw into a rawl plug then tap it gently in to the hole until its through the plaster and settles in to brick. Wind out the screw then add your fixing.

Ta, that was me.

The bar at my gaff is pretty low

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Thanks for this. How would you suggest checking the quality of the brickwork?

What’s behind the plaster chunks? What kind of dust comes out when you drill it? Does a drill go through it like it’s cheese? etc.

If it’s really soft crappy brick then you might need another type of fixing but it’s unlikely.

I'm pretty sure that's all just CGI - The way the sand mix stays on the tuck pointing trowel doesn't happen in real life.

Well - not in my life, that is.

The pile of oily sand on the floor is testament to that.

Criminal.

Pffft

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Currently here. Cill is going to come out completely and be replaced. Will splice in new timber to rebuild the frame.

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Good job.

Hah, if only I could scramble together the remaining two whole days I reckon I need to finish the bastard thing.

In the same type of house my issue was that the brick was shit. Bigger plugs helped but it was still not amazing.

Forum favourite Peter Millard has an ace video on scribing. I think this was the one my gf described as the most boring video she has ever seen, but that was before I watched the one on MFT hardware.

Edited to add link:

https://youtu.be/g0W23buOgoE

There are three videos in this thrilling series.

“Yeah, just slap some two pack on it mate.”

I hate everyone who has worked on my house

That includes myself, obvs.

The more you dig, the worse it gets, always :(

Our future holds a full self build, or DIY assembly of a known decent flat pack passiv haus. Only trades allowed in will have to enable me to view their work every day, happy to pay the extra for no short cuts to be made.

One of my staff couldn't come in today as their upstairs neighbours new bathroom fitted last week has just blown a full size waste pipe and has filled their ceiling, lathe wall and even down into the flat below, with waste, lots and lots of low pressure turds, washing machine juice, shower, and anything else that was flowing since yesterday evening. They got back in early hours after a party and then sort of noticed, then this morning are literally in a sewerage hellscape. Reckon the 'bathroom fitters' have actually knocked off or somehow damaged the main waste down pipe that comes from the flats above all of them (5 floors total, they are on 1st, so 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 above, x2, so 8 abodes flowing through. Mental.

fuck that