Home DIY

No reason at all.

For anyone here that glues stuff. Aldi have some nice squeeze clamp sets in at the moment.
£5.99 for two 12" clamps
£5.99 for two 6" and two 4" clamps

I have two rooms with an opening of 155cmx222cm. I want to put some doors in there. Ideally oak bifold but they appear impossible to find in custom sizes.
What are my options? I’m thinking getting some 24mm ply cut to size and simple bang some hinges on?

There isn't really a standard size door. You buy the nearest size and cut it down.

24mm ply is very thin for a door. There are fire door blanks available, they're very heavy. In the past I made pairs of bi-folds out of fire door blanks using hardwood to edge them. It was quite difficult partly because the door frames were all over the place, partly because they are very heavy.

Sorry, should have said, don’t really need to be fire doors, they are more just to keep heat in one half of the two rooms.

I didn't mean to suggest you needed fire doors, just that they are available as blanks of a thickness more normal for internal doors.

24mm is only 6mm thicker than a lot of kitchen cupboard doors, when you try to use it as a door it can be prone to warping. Especially if you have differences in heat and humidity on either side.

My gran always had heavy curtains behind the doors which came down in the summer. Maybe we'll see a return to that this year, might consider it myself.

Thicker doors it is then!

My gran always had heavy curtains behind the doors which came down in the summer. Maybe we'll see a return to that this year, might consider it myself.

This is what we are doing. Insulated curtians behind external doors and on all curtians.

And cork in the bathroom I hope. :)

I have a 24v continuous LED strip under some kitchen cabinets that have stopped lighting up. My non-contact voltage tester confirms there is current after the driver and along the LED strip itself. What could be causing them to not illuminate?

Edit - just checked with a multimeter and it looks like the power supply is faulty 🙄

Tiles. I'm not a madman.

Anyone done any research in thermal curtians and able to offer advice? I really can muster no energy for such a task.

I'm suppose £££ curtains might be better insulated, but I couldn't see much distinction and just bought the least 1970's pair I could find off eBay.

Search for "thermal" or "blackout" and the longer the better (floor length ideally).

Cool thanks.

Another question (non electrical). The interior walls of my house are plaster on block. In various places they've been drilled quite deeply to accept rawlplugs for hanging pictures and fixing cabinets to them. Having removed the plugs I'd like to fill them with something solid to minimise the (probably small) chance of crack propagation and prevent any holes where future fixings might want to go. What's the best method for filling them to full depth with something that's as close to the strength of the blocks as possible?

I have the cheapy thick backed John Lewis blackout curtains. Worked well this summer with our single glazed southern front room.

Resin?

Thanks @Howard too.

Yes we have single glazing in bedrooms so will help a lot. Got shutters which will use too.

Yeah, same.

Might chuck a curtain pole and curtains up above our leaky front door. Reckon it would pay off in a couple of years tbh - I won't be paying anyone to fit anything which lets face it is where most of the cost is going to come from with OTP stuff.

This is really worthwhile. Used to have one in the early '90's when I was living without central heating. All of this stuff should be making a comeback this winter.

I've often wondered about packing blankets sewn into curtains:

Idk about the insulating properties, but the are cheap and flexible so always thought it would work.

Anyone had their old single glazed sash windows converted to double glazing (just changing the glass and retaining the nice original wood frame for maximum OG forum points). Worth it?

Thinking better insulation and reducing road noise.

If you go to places like New York and Moscow in the winter the restuarants have all got curtains over the doors to keep the heat in.

@Jameo I looked at this but didn't bother as the windows were either in a decent state or so knackered that I got new sashes with double glazing. However, just having the existing sashes refurbed with new draught strips, tighter fit, etc made a huge difference.

I've got the plumbers in atm sorting the boiler and the water pressure is now a lot better. Has anyone installed a kitchen spray tap? Any feedback or are there other tap upgrades that i should consider? We have a bunch of cooking/food prep stuff that isn't dishwasher friendly so looking to make washing up simpler.

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We have a dark middle room and are looking to bring some light in. Don't want to go full window, because external wall faces back of adjacent property and likely to encounter grumbles. Also, don't want to get into lintels etc.

So thought about adding some porthole / very small transom windows up high, but not sure about a few things:

• what size hole could we make in the victorian double-brick wall without needing to add lintels, etc.?
  
• whether (modern) glass bricks could be used - and if so, how do they perform thermally / is condensation a concern?
  
• whether there are any suitable double-glazed units that could fit the job (everything I've seen is relatively large)?
  
  

Any thoughts gratefully appreciated...

Check your water pressure based on the tap tails size. We bought a Hans grohe with tiny European feed pipes of about 8mm and the flow is crap.

That's a nice shelf. Any idea where it's from?

I went with the full replacement including the boxes. Yes, it was worth it.

I renovate sash windows and replace the 3 or 4mm glass with 6.3mm acoustic laminate glass. I looked at all the different ways of adding double glazing but to make it work it needs a big gap in the middle and it's near enough impossible to achieve that with conventional double glazing. There are also issues with the edge sealing, if you have an edge seal small enough to be hidden by putty it is also vulnerable to leaking which means blown units. Bear in mind the extra weight of the dg units needs larger balancing weights and even the acoustic glass is approaching the largest weights you can fit in the og boxes.

There is a modern type of dg unit which is very thin the way it's made is complicated but too expensive to produce in small sizes.

I've found properly sealed sash units with acoustic glass are the best option if you really want original frames and boxes. If you can stand to have larger boxes/thicker sashes they can improve on performance but getting good fitters is difficult.