Home DIY

Does anyone have a tile cutter near SE6 I could borrow this weekend please?

I'm digging a trench in the garden to remove clay and add stones for drainage.

About 8m from the back of the house I found this big lump of concrete and stones. The thing that troubles me is the d shape in the middle. Is it's going to be some sort of sewer or a passage to the underworld?

I tried to wash it off a bit, but obvs it's not draining.

Thoughts?

My natural drive wants to remove it, but I'm not sure why.

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It's also a meter from the concrete slab for my shed. Maybe a ft or so under the lawn.

Clothes line?

Good deduction!

It would be in line with the old washing line hole for the basket spinning thing and there was a similar slab under that.

That’s my guess too.

Penultimate job before the gang gets back this evening.
I reckon tiling has the best effort-reward ratio in the world of DIYing.

As ever, not perfect, but good enough for a first proper go (bar a tiny box to hide the boiler pipes).

Will get more trim to cover the gap in the bottom and also pin to the top-underside to tie it all together.

If it’s of interest - tiles are Topps’ ‘Matrix’, bone colour, some matte, some gloss, and orange grout/trim from the same range.

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Our intergrated dishwasher has decided it's tired of living. How hard are they to replace yourself? Taking door off, removing old machine, replacing door....etc straight forward?

whilst i've not removed one to replace, i've fitted a couple - the trickiest bit for me is after you've connected everything, making sure your pipes don't get trapped/kinked when you push the machine back in.

new ones will come with a template and hardware to attach the cabinet door.

The most painful bit for me has been the door fittings.

Some have really weird movement mechanisms. The refit and level the feet bit is easy compared to that.

Yarp

One for the sparks. I want a double socket under the stairs for an internet router.

I'm guessing the options are:

1. Get a sparky in to remove the old electric shower breaker and put a new one in for just this socket. Advantage: can keep internet when all else trips out.
   
2. Cut into the ring main to add a double socket. Probably not much slack to play with though.
   
3. Cheekily do something with this lighting circuit (6A breaker) which feeds a single outside light.
   
   

I guess I do want the shower breaker out.

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This looks brilliant btw

New circuits are notifiable but what about extending a ring main if it involves redoing the connection to the consumer unit?

Could try number 2 but add 2 sockets a bit apart so you can add an extra piece of wire between them.

Or for that matter just use a wago box and do a maintenance free connection for the extension. Or just a blank box with some connectors in.

Extending that way is not going to attract any attention or change the Zs of the circuit by much if anything. It would be the same repairing that small section of wire if it was damaged.

The reason for the regs requiring certification for a new circuit is the breaker has to be matched and tested with the installed circuit and the results properly recorded so they can be tested and checked for deterioration in the future. The circuit also needs to be checked for insulation resistance when newly installed.

Your circuit should already be fine on all that criteria so adding a few inches of the same type of wire should be easy. You need to follow the existing wiring exactly if you go about it the way though.

Thanks. Will see what I can do. Might still defer to someone who's actually qualified.

My qualified opinion would be adding 2 sockets with a bit of extra cable in the loop. Easiest way to do it.

qualified

Didn't mean to say you weren't btw, was referring to my lack of qualifications

No worries, it's worth asking someone if you can. They could probably get it done very quickly.

This makes me a bit sad. We used the same tiles (though off-white rather than bone) and the same mix of matte and gloss for our bathroom tiles, but for some stupid reason I agreed to white grout and it just doesn't look as good as I wanted it to.

These look great - this is what I wanted it to look like.

putting our place on the market and need to fix these strip lights. we never used them because they are clinical/dentist's chair (no cervelo) white. there are 4x 12v led drivers for a 1.1m x 2.7m recess which seems insane. 3 of them (or their associated strips) have died so just going to start over with help of father-in-law...

would therefore like to buy 2x decent LED drivers and one long enough warm light strip to chop up and with appropriate connectors for the drivers and 2xL connectors for the corners. however, struggling to find pieces that all play together nicely on amazon (2 pin, 3 pin, 4 pin connectors???). could anyone point me in the direction of exactly what i should buy and i will do so :-)

the current drivers are wired into the mains and operate by a light switch

any help much much much appreciated

I need to repair our front door frame, chopping out (it crumbled away) a 30cm rotten section at the bottom and joining a replacement piece of wood.

I can get either of the below today, which would you choose? Would I need to treat the planned hardwood too?

Hardwood Planed Timber Prepared Red Grandis
Or
Regularised Treated Sawn Timber C24

Hardwood all the way. Priming and top coating properly should seal the wood.

Difference would be marginal so long as you sand, prime and pain the wood correctly. In theory, the treated timber will be pressure treated so fairly resistant to rot. As long as it wasn't treated on a Friday, anyway.

If it saves you any money on the construction timber, go for that, spend the money you saved on the best filler / joining stuff you can buy, because that's what's going to fail first.