Home DIY

If its a flat face to flat face fitting you really want a washer in it to do the task of stopping it leaking compared to taping the threads as it a better method.

Good to know. If it starts to leak again I'll do that, too.

It currently has a washer but still leaks, I’m assuming due to cheap plastic bits.

My experience of a brass splitter from Aldi was not good. Perla-leak. I think plastic may be better, or poss really really expensive bouji brass

I prefer fibre washers to rubber as you can at least compress them against the face.

Whilst im under the house trying to fit a new radiator, I've been thinking about getting a garden tap out the front of the house.

I generally don't mess with copper pipes, so if its insulated do you think I could use JG speed fit coiled plastic pipe to run a water feed out to the front of the house with a normal brass non-return tap valve?

I need to replace our kitchen tap, because and I can't figure out why it's leaky (other than it being cheap & cheerful, and there's probably a degraded seal / o ring somewhere).

When I remove it, I'd also like to shore up the sodden rotting hole that it goes through, which will mean leaving it to dry out for a while, leaving us without a tap in the kitchen.

What are my temporary tap solutions?

We can do without hot water, so could just attach a hose of some sort to the cold tail, but what products are there that I could use, without having to resort to some godawful hose & jubilee clip bodge.

Probably just need to replace the ceramic cartridge in the tap... a lot less work if you don't want to get right into it

The cartridges are both new - I tend to replace them every couple of years. The leak comes from the top of the tap.

^ Although I have now just discovered a £5 o ring / seal kit that I might try first, before buying a new tap.

Boring extractor fan question - this has stopped working. No idea how old it is but it looks quite ancient and I can’t find an identical model online. It connects to an isolator switch in the bathroom.

Is it as simple as turning the mains off and then finding a replacement extractor that is the same size/voltage as this and replacing it before turning the mains back on?

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Yeah. If it’s over the tiles, ext. size doesn’t really matter either - just the diameter of the hole to the outside - they’re mostly 4” although 5 and 6 do exist. That looks like 4” but not much to scale!

Looking for some advice: my garage door is very much in need of replacement. I have been thinking about making my own barn door style side opening from either side.

Given the proper treatment and paint - any reason not to go down this route? As opposed to a cheap roller door?

Here comes the rain again

gets popcorn

Edit: misread the op and thought it was about general RFI.

lolz, I'm here for this

genuinely think you'll be fine, lovely lron work hinges and finishing, pukka - chestnut timber and your flying

The local window cleaner has put his foot through some tiles on our kitchen roof, where they meet a ridge. He’s promised he’ll get it fixed through a roofer nephew but I can’t see it happening before the next bout of rain so I want to try and get temporarily watertight whilst we thrash out how or who is going to fix. Particularly frustrating as last time he was round I was on the roof fixing something else and asked if he could leave the back windows and not ever climb on the roof as I couldn’t face having to fix anything else.

I was going to buy some plastic sheet drape over the ridge and secure, then cover the broken area and secure down the sides with tapering the bottom edge open - does this approach sound sensible?

Does anyone know what ballpark cost I might be looking at if we get someone in?

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Please don’t judge the state of the window too! Saving up to get refurbished as it’s listed.

Your best bet is to get something like a rubble sack or heavy plastic sheet and push it as far as you can up under the tile directly under the ridge tile. Then try to introduce some tension into it, maybe by weighting the bottom edge, so that water running down it doesn't weigh it down and create a pool.
If you cover the ridge water will likely still be able to get into the breakage.

A roofer repairing that will need to take off probably 3 of the ridge (which will break), and will need at least 3 of those rare-looking tiles.

Thanks for taking a look, I’ll give that temp fix a go.

The repair sounds like more work than I had hoped and it’ll drive me crazy if the new tiles and ridge don’t match as It’s all visible from the ground as well as house. I have two spare tiles ready from a neighbour and an architectural salvage place nearby has similar too. I’m not so sure about the ridge.

What I would like is an easy way that makes minimal mess and dust as there are cats in the house. Also new carpet, and in the warm weather and open windows means dust everywhere.

I don't like the mouse sander as such, as the cheap sander sheets don't have holes that match and I'm an utter fuck wit and can't seem to drill the holes in the right place.

Don't really fancy buying another tool that I'm not going to use more than once.

I did not chose the paint, the ex chose the paint from b&m. Wanted the zinnser one coat or a decent proper trade gloss. Preferably water based due to voc.

@Airhead have used a wallpaper scraper on two doors and two frames that seems to take ages. Also a real toll on my arms. Yes I'm that unfit.

Maybe different with a hand sander, but don't have one.

@aggi thank you, had a further look and found that its do the trend sheets with the hook and loop attachment

Looked at those numbers, the first Makita number doesn't come back with anything. While the second comes back with a velcro diamond shape sander.

While the Bosch one you list is a square one with velcro attachment while the 30 is a clip attachment. So maybe that would be cheaper solution especially as the 110v version is 30 quid

One reason why you shouldn't let the window cleaner climb on the roof.