Home DIY

Good shout. Bugger! I hadn’t thought about a fire door at the bottom of the stairs! It makes sense why the bloke round the corner put an external stairway in now. It would give extra space in the garage too. hmm. The wiring is in for the fire alarm and I’m 99% sure the plasterboard is fire retardant stuff.

Also, the black CT1 feels and behaves slightly differently to the clear stuff, I think. Anyone used both and noticed differences?

Depends upon what you are attempting to stick together.

We've got a thermostat and switch outside the bathroom for a heated towel rail which has become our one-year-old's favourite toy. He's doing my head in with it. I've seen that you can get socket covers but they won't work on this because it protrudes more than regular sockets do.

Is there a ready-made solution to this before I badly make one?

Mittens

Plastic to painted plywood. No idea what type of plastic or paint unfortunately.

Might be worth just applying a blob of each sealant on each surface. Leave overnight to cure. Then see if the blobs show any adhesion.

Other than that, the best advice is to use a 'non-tight' joint.
A perfect joint would squeeze nearly all the sealant out of the minimal gap between the two pieces.
Most sealants ask, hidden away on the technical data sheet, a minimum bead 6mm wide, to give those impressive tensile strength figures.
Is it possible to secure the two components about 3-4mm apart and then fill the gap with sealant?

Sometimes the best way to deal with problems like this is to sit the child down for a frank and honest conversation.

1 year olds excel at frank conversation

How is it at a height accessible to a one year old FFS?!

When we bought our last place the cellar was apparently full of boxes. I say apparently because there was actually a wall of boxes hiding a miniature growing room (most of the evidence had been removed when we moved in, but not all).

It wasn't a problem, but if I ever viewed a place in future and anywhere was full of boxes I'd ask for them to be moved because they could be hiding anything!

Wise words! It’s really a bonus space so never mind.
Rang building control yesterday, oh well. We definitely can’t afford to do it properly. Money or space in the garage wise. Looks like Liz will have to stay in the inside office for now.

Do you have a pic?

We got some switch covers for a couple of places to prevent accidental switching.

I know you’ve mentioned insurance but I don’t quite get why you feel you can’t use the space.
If you’re satisfied that it’s warm and safe and you’re not trying to rent it out to someone or sell the house with it as a habitable room then can’t you just use it? It’s not illegal to use it as an office any more than it’s illegal to do some DIY in a shed in the garden

sell the house with it as a habitable room
I can’t see the point in doing a refit if I can’t get a return on it later. At some point we will need to sell this place and I want to recoup as much ££££ as I can.

Yes, but in the meantime then you can make use of it if you need and can use the space, then do it up properly in future if you choose to.
It seems like you've decided you can't use it until you get it to a state where you could sell it as an office, rather than use it as an office

I think your posts might have been confusing people.

Reading them all together it sounds like:

1. You have a garage
   
2. The garage has a loft section that from a practical purpose has everything you need to he usable as a room, but it's unknown what (if anything) you need to do to make it applicable as an additional room.
   
3. You want to renovate your garage and increase the value of your house.
   
4. You want to know if 3. is diyable and if so what steps need to be taken.
   

Sounds about right, thanks for clarifying it.
TBF I wasn’t really sure where I was going with my first question. I guess I was hoping just do this this and this and it’s good to go.
As it stands I don’t want the bother/cost of fitting out the office to find out it’s still only listable as storage space and don’t have the cash to do it to code. There’s room in the house for Liz’s office anyway. So for now it can stay as the never used gym.
Thanks all.
X

This toilet needs to come off the wall to fix a leak when the toilet is flushed. First quote is £615 to remove toilet, place bits, refit and seal. Can anyone walk me through the process of removing the toilet please?

1 Attachment

Plumber has put some pipes through a brick wall between my kitchen and utility room.

I'd like to fill around the pipes. Ideally with a pre-mixed product as I'm in a hurry. It's not in a visible area.

• I guess I should either sleeve the pipes, or apply something so the filler doesn't stick to them. Overkill or good idea? What product?

• Then I fill around the pipes. What filler?

Thanks.

What are the pipes made from?

Double check, but I thought plastic pipes were aok for any concrete or plaster. It's cooper that's the issue. Copper you can use duct tape. Then depending on the hole either expanding foam and Toupret interior filler, or just Torpret.

I know you said premixed, but it's litterally just mixing some powder and water together.

Cheers, they are plastic pipes. If anyone else can confirm if they need to be sleeved or not that would be helpful.

Toupret filler sounds like the answer. Deep-ish hole (half brick depth), want to avoid expanding foam. Is there a specific Toupret for deeper fills? (Edit: this? https://www.screwfix.com/p/toupret-quick-dry-filler-2kg/763pp)

The two Toupret products (including the interior filler) I've used don't have fill depths. TBH Toupret, like Zinsser, is now one of those brands I just go to if they make something I need.

If that one doesn't do quite what you need have a look on their site for something that does.

Out of curiosity any particular reason to avoid foam? It's quite low effort. Albeit potentially messy.

Undo those two bolts holding it down, run a knife around the sealant and lift it out.

At least, that's what it would be for ours.

Isolate the water feed and give it a flush first, so that if the siphon is leaking it doesn't have much water left in it.