Home DIY

I don’t know if this is a hack, bodge or whatever, but when I fit a concealed shower and there is access from the other side of the wall I fit it from that side. So that if I need to fix anything I’m only disturbing a bit of plasterboard and not tiling and all that entails.
I just add a few joints to the pipe work screw the unit to a board and screw the board to the back of the stud work. Repairs are easy cut out plasterboard, undo the joints, unscrew the board, replace the temperature regulator (it’s always the temperature regulator) and then put it all back together. And repaint that bit of wall. Done, sounds like a pain, but it’s all very simple and no dramas.

We have a concealed one and it's fine. It uses one of those Grohe boxes so the gubbins are all behind a faceplate and the only thing buried in the tiled boxing is soldered pipework.

Are you in a flat or house? Some concealed showers can fit all the guff in the loft and just have controls in the bathroom.

This keeps access for everything bar pipes available.

This sounds great, we're in a house. Any links? I've seen nothing like that on my searching so far.

@Chaley Unfortunately the stud is being built along an external wall to hide a load of scruff like the pipes, so I won't have access from the rear.

Posting a little project that's very minor compared to what a lot of you are doing without even thinking. I am only 8 months into my DIY journey, though!

We bought a garden furniture set that looked lovely and initially we were very pleased with. Acacia wood, and some sort of plastic based coating that we were assured would be extremely durable. Very soon it started cracking ...

So we got a warranty replacement, and this happened 3 times until the manufacturer discontinued it. The garden center we bought it from were very honest that all of the sets they sold had the same issues, and said they'd stopped stocking the manufacturer because they had lost confidence. They did the right thing and gave us a full refund and left us with the set.

I had a look at other comparable sets that I liked as much, and it would have been thousands. I got some quotes to repair, and in the end decided to have a crack at it myself.

Annoyingly, I couldn't find a chemical that would strip the coating effectively. I'm sure original nitromors would have done it, but you can't buy that anymore, so ....

After doing some testing to see how quickly I could just sand the coating off using my new random orbital sander, and how quickly I got through sanding pads, I decided to go this way.

I sanded everything to 80 grit to remove coating and flatten a few bits, then up to 240 to make it smooth. Then I glued, screwed, and filled, and then sanded again (150 grit and then 240). I decided to coat with decking oil because I already had about 4l of it from another project, and I'll see how that goes.

It's not perfect, particularly the parts I had to fill. But getting it perfect would have just taken so much longer. I'm really pleased with the result. Table and stools are done, benches are still to be completed hopefully next week.

Before and after pics below.

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I remember this! Good to see it looking better.

To treat you're probably best off with an oil type product. That way it won't flake off.

I need an orbit sander with hoover dust extraction and my cordless drill is on its way out. Also quite fancy a cordless jigsaw when funds allow.

Any reason i shouldn't buy into the Erbauer EXT range? Drill, Sander, battery and charger can be had with deals for £150.

I need to re-grout some encaustic cement tiles (Winckelmans) with Mapei Ultra Colour grout, as our builder has bodged an area of tiling.

Never tiled/grouted before; what's the best float to use? Any other bits I need, aside from spatula and something to mix the stuff up with?

A proper grouting sponge and buckets.

Do not try and use a regular sponge "because you have one" like I did.

For that price do it.

I have the cheaper corded Erbauer orbit sander. Good ergonomics, nice materials, feels solid, works.

If I was buying into a battery ecosystem today I'd be very tempted.

I really wish with hindsight they had offered the set as a "naked wood" option and I could have spent £20 - 50 and just chosen my own finish.

It would have been so much less effort than what I've ended up doing.

I'm trying to stay positive by telling myself I've now got a really nice set for a total cost of about £150, and a sander that I'll use often on other jobs.

Just ignore the tens of hours of my own labour that have gone in, eh?

long shot - but has anyone replaced a magnetron on a miele combination oven? I got a cheap second hand oven a couple of years ago which has just given up - but i can't quite work out how to remove the magnetron to replace it...internet hasn't been that helpful so far

Thanks. Any particular go-to, or is all this stuff basically the same plastic tat?

Look at "smart showers" not cheap but do the job. Mira platinum and aqualisa Q are two ranges.

Prices range from 500ish to whattheactualfuckwhocanaffordthis

What does a smart shower do?

Can use your phone to on off it but mainly the controls are wireless or single wire to the mixer so fewer pipes running through the walls, the mixer is remote not behind the wall and the shower control unit can be by the shower entrance not under the shower head

Can use your phone to on off it

Which is utterly fucking absurd for a shower. Especially as it'll stop working in three years and then that's it.

I think I’ll stick to a lever on the wall tbh…

When would this be useful? Other than annoying someone by turning it on while they’re cleaning or off while they’re showering

Fuck knows, I've not investigated all the possible features, I assume you can fault find via engineers access too? The smart features in most devices are essentially a bought in module that won't seriously affect operation.

The control by wire allowing for more varied placement of controls and remote mixer units in the loft are a plus as far as I'm concerned

My dads got a couple of tools from them, they are decent enough for the diy use but the SDS drill we had for them didnt last long with using at work,.

There is stuff that's nonsense and stuff that is total nonsense and this falls in it.

Can control your shower from a phone, what a load of shite.

anyone in SE London got some left over white grout. screw fix do bags of 5kg which is about 4kg more than I need

I don't think it's it's an especially advanced product. You just want one with the rough side to aid removal.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/marshalltown-tile-grout-sponge/169gl

I've seen people use normal sponges on videos, but as an amateur I found it impossible to remove without using too much water. When I redid it with a cheap screwfix grouting sponge it was easy.

I also bought some sort of finishing kit just in case, with different grades of pads which I think you use depending on how hard it is. Or re-reading the description they might be for a specific type. But honestly I think picking up a couple of the standard sponges is fine.

Depending how big an area it is, I'd get two in case you're messy and it becomes hard to rince out the excess. Much easier to just grab a fresh one if you're half way through and you're worried about the grout going off. Again this is an inexperienced amateur pov.

we have a friend of a friend carpenter doing some shelving for me atm.

in my office there are two very shallow cupboards (20cm or so deep) and we wanted to pull out the framing and doors, and replace with deeper shelves.

when discussing the brief he said the plan was to frame out the cupboards and build shelving into the frame, sounds great, lets do it.

... what has been built is basically a book case that slots inside of the cupboards holes (this is clearly not finished but you get the gist)

.. anyone else think this is very weird? the frames now stick out from the wall, instead of just the shelves which is what I expected.

the reasoning is they are worried about the weight (theyre going to be full of records) but im still somewhat surprised

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