Home DIY

Edit.. regarding loft ladder for my place, sorted.

Measured mine - it's about 600mm wide by 560mm long. No problem with getting the ladder in and out but limited to what I can fit through!

I need a couple of stone interior window sills, have been told that a stonemason may have offcuts in the skip that could be trimmed. Is this a thing…?

I need a new front door, but it has to be quite narrow.

Has anyone got any experience with the Wickes ones - https://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Carolina-External-4-Panel-Oak-Glazed-Door---1981-x-762mm/p/205882

Or can recommend a better front door supplier?

Also, is it recommended to replace the frame at the same time, or can you just swap in a new door of the same size?

Our local Wickes is generally ok, convenience trumps quality which for what we’ve needed has been fine. Front door sounds like something you’d want to get right.

On that one linked to, Id want to see the veneer thickness in writing and on close inspection before purchasing (finish may not be a concern), I've no idea how but someone fitted three sets of doors with a ~1.5mm oak veneer to my folks place -on the exterior (after 10years to be fair) the grain just splits weathers and rolls it's self off, it's still there like that thou

Yep. it's all just stock to them I had a marble pastry board made once that was essentially a sink cutout from a different job..

Remember to negotiate the price down as the scraps were likely to have just been waste to be ground up for gravel otherwise.

Is there a minimum size the beam needs to be or just something similar to what’s up already

I need to level some uneven floor joists before putting down engineered oak T&G boards.

I’ve packed under the ends but they’re old and no longer straight so need some sort of levelling on top. I’ll do the fine tuning with some plastic packers, but need something to even out the bigger ups and downs.

Is it practical to cut thin tapered shims with a circular saw, or can you buy such things? I’m looking at about 5-10mm over a metre.

I did this recently before laying a plywood subfloor. Builders had left a handful of plastic shims similar to these around. When they ran out I just cut my own of varying heights off the end of a CLS stud with a chop saw. It wasn't any more arduous.

Thanks. Those are the plastic ones I’ve got - really handy. I’m also looking for longer ones = maybe as much as 1m20, to take out some of the bigger dips in one go.

https://www.wickes.co.uk/Products/Painting+Decorating/Mouldings/Stripwood/c/1000207

I need to take about 5mm off the top of this kitchen plinth kickboard where it is fouled by the dishwasher opening, you can see where it has chipped already.

How can i prevent it chipping more when I trim it? Score along the surface with a Stanley knife? Then what?

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Jigsaw and a blade like this designed to avoid tearing the top surface?

To anyone with the bosch pillar drill - do you need to register a warranty?

Grabbed one in the sales, but I'm not sure when I can open it up and don't want to have any issues.

Cheers

Appreciate it - that's very close to what we have here. I'm sure we'll need to extend soon enough but good to know what's there is usable for now. Thank you.

Slightly weird question but we hired a gas safe engineer to cap off a fireplace in our dining room, and yesterday they identified a leak running between our gas supply and at least one of our appliances (fire, oven, boiler).

So they've capped off the supply at source - so we have no heating or cooking - and are planning to charge us £1600 to replumb the gas supply from source (cupboard under the stairs) to the cooker/boiler (about three meters away). The supply will be re-routed externally - fortunately the supply and cooker/boiler are on the same wall of the house, which is externally facing - but they're not planning to reconnect our fire, which is in another room. They're coming back today to do this.

Long story short, I know that gas safe engineers are obliged not to reconnect unsafe equipment. However I am pretty pissed off that we have not been able to get quotes for this work, which feels expensive given that replumbing seems to cost around £200 a meter from what I can tell.

Am I justified in this or am I giving into that little bit of my brain that wants to shoot the messenger?

Was having 2 radiators fitted yesterday but when fitting one under a window it turns out there is about 1 inch of crumbly plaster which just fell straight out. Wondering what the best solution is, can I fill it with something and redrill? Or should I put the radiator on another wall and call it a day. I don't think I can cope with having the wall re plastered any time soon.

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Sounds like they are going to charge you the maximum possible to do the shittiest job possible.

I'd be pissed. Do you want to pay £1,600 to have a gas supply pipe on the exterior of your house?

I mean, for the money, it could almost be worth at this point getting rid of gas completely?

Swap the hob for induction, get a heat pump? The govt. will literally pay you to do the later.

You can fill it and redrill it, but my experience sorting a similar hole left from a curtain pole involved hacking back quite a lot of shit plaster and building it up in layers. It looks great now but was time consuming. You may be able to get something fast drying.

You need to clear out as much loose as possible, pva + water the surface you’re filling (I think 1:5 pva to water, can’t imagine it matters much) and then fill. I have just bought some bonding plaster to fill some big holes (following electrician’s visiting) and some easifill 60 for the final surface.

NB I don’t actually know what I’m doing, I’m an enthusiastic and largely successful bodger.

I think this will end up costing a lot more. I would be pissed off, and it’s super shit timing with the weather being so cold. I think I would end up sucking it up and trying to make myself feel positive about it.

How did they identify a leak?

We had a gas person say there was a leak, but it turns out there was a problem with the test point, making it look like the ECV was not being closed properly.

Cadent came and just replaced the meter.

Leaks should be reported to your supplier, shouldn't they?

Insurance claim? It's a shit deal but better to know about the gas leak than not.

^^i was wondering that. It crossed my mind it could be a stitch up but I assumed/hoped that @ReekBlefs had selected someone he was comfortable with/trusted to do the initial job. Hopefully they demonstrated the leak somehow - it must be possible if it is identifiable.

I think this will end up costing a lot more.

It will cost more, but:

• Bleekrefs ditches gas
  
• the money gets spent on doing something positive, rather than patching something that's obviously a bit shit
  
• Bleekrefs is (probably) going to have to do it anyway, and it's less likely that when that times comes, the govt. will pay them to do it
  
• Bleekrefs will probably have to replace their boiler in the not too distant if they haven't done it already
  
  

obvious con is that you'd probably not want to rush it as the system design element needs to be right...