Home DIY

35 halogen down lights! 35. Christ, electricians 10 years ago have a lot to answer for.

I don’t envy you.

Solutions seem to be, replace all of the transformers with suitably rated LED drivers, which involves disconecting wires either side of the transforer and wiring a new one, or replace the whole fittings with ones with pre-wired driver. This might halve the amount of wiring work as i'd only have to disconnect the mains connection and rewire the new one

My LED downlights just plug into the driver, it's only the drivers that actually need wiring.

9 day turnaround loft project at my home, with a couple of skilled trade mates

6 Attachments

• IMG_1418.MOV
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Finished today

2 Attachments

I know man. Lucky the place hasn’t been reduced to smoking hole in the ground really.

This is what I have now.

Thinking I just bite the bullet and get all new fittings for GU10 bulbs as per recommendations here.

2 Attachments

That’s very impressive and super neat well done!

Is there anything that could be done to remove these? I’ve no idea what they’re called.

1 Attachment

The fittings are quite reasonable if memory serves.

Like with any diy job it’s that balance of cost vs dicking about. I’d sooner pay more for less messing around.

That strut is taking a load from a purlin onto a joist (which may have a wall beneath) it’s there for a reason!?

They are purlin struts. If you remove them you need to replace the purlin support with something else and that has to rest on something, the current ones probably go down to a load bearing wall.

Very interesting. It’s a great space. Even if it were possible to make those struts vertical it would make a big difference.

I'm going to do cat amongst pigeons, do you really want that style lighting? It goes through plasterboard so it's reasonable to patch repair the holes , and replace with Idk what anything from an old fashioned single ceiling rose to the very fancy of whatever you can imagine

sometimes that lamp housing shroud is nonexistent, it's far from the worst modern lighting attempt

Thanks all, I’m happy with the results, I didn’t want to alter the purlin / strut arrangement despite my mate saying it’ll be okay?!? , and yes Jellybaby is right, I have a central load bearing wall below spanning between adjoining properties

I’ll lose struts and purlin one side when the wide dormer (garden side) staircase access is ready for finance/ planning approval.. that’ll make a huge difference, fo’sure.

Not for floor space but more head room.

Next project summer 2024

Shou Sogi Ban clad chill out cave for the garden, need to order a bunch western red cedar and practice my yakisugi technique.. cave will be fully insulated, under floor heating, large fcukfof concertina doors (budget permitting), tatami floor mats, giant bean bags, dimmable indirect lighting, built sound system, back lit bar and projector for kung fu classic / samurai movie nights..

interior likely to be very red, very spartan, very blokey, with General Luci lino prints on the walls.. probably

2 Attachments

This is a very reasonable point. I do fucking hate them.

I look forward to the thread!

Justified buying a multitool by sorting this, had been like this for 2 years since we moved in, spliced two bits of wood together, just needs some paint now

2 Attachments

Tidy! That looks great

Excellent work!

I haz now done a tap replacement! Really easy, to be honest. It would have been even easier if the sink had been one I could have removed. Definitely order some of the correct tools for the job, unless you're sure you can remove the sink. If you can, normal spanners should work okay.

I got this snazzy set from Toolstation for just over a tenner. Nice to have all the sizes as a lot of taps have all different size nuts. I also used these to tighten the loose kitchen tap, which was great.

You shouldn't need access to the stopcock? There should be little screws on the pipes below your sink that will turn off the water supply for the hot and cold pipes independently.

2 Attachments

should

The fundamental bedrock and cause of much diy.

How a kitchen tap should be:

Tap connected to a flexible tail with female connector at the end connected to an isolator valve connected to the rest of your plumbing.

Reality:
Tap connected to copper tails normally used in healthcare and food industry settings with a male end connector, connected to a female to male flexi hose terminating on a compression fitting with no isolation valve.

Naturally, to be an extra bastard, the existing flexi hose is also really long so that once you add in the length of the copper tails it makes it impossible to get flexi tap tails long enough. You then extend the pipe work to get the new tails to reach, don’t fully tighten a compression fitting and flood the kitchen👍🏼

Hot and cold water pipes replaced. Downstairs central heating partially done. 2 new radiators connected. Only thought we'd broken the boiler once. Getting there

Sorry for the really basic question, but I’m trying to determine whether the walls in our extension are solid or cavity. I believe it was built in the ‘80s and measures 12” (see pic).
I want to mount a tv on the wall and want to make sure I use the correct method. Cheers

1 Attachment

I don't know much about this but I believe you can tell by the brick pattern from the outside - they are usually laid lengthways with a regular pattern.

However, whether you have a cavity or not, mounting a TV (unless its HUGE) probably doesn't need to be overly strong. I have had TVs mounted on plasterboard on studs and plasterboard attached with dot and dab. Nothing fell off.

Some good anchor type bolts would be belt and braces, I'd probably be too lazy and just chuck a couple of rawl plugs and regular screws in and be done!