Home DIY

I hope you find it useful, they are all things that I've got wrong in the past! Some more than once :(

One of the biggest problems is cutting wet paper, you should find everything else goes fairly easily but tearing instead of cutting a piece of pattern wallpaper will annoy you for a long time. I always like to have a bit of spare material, that way if you do mess up a drop you don't feel under pressure and you can still go about the rest of the job with a cool head.

Ok, so I had a bit of a play with this, I figured, to get matching wall paper we could split it into blocks of 0.53m x 0.53m giving you just under 19 blocks per strip of wallpaper.

I mocked it up on autocad, overlaying the number of blocks you would need to cover each wall section and came up with 85, this doesn't take into account using left over strips to start a new wall so should really be worst case scenario.

Divide 85 by 19 = 4.5 rolls so 5 should definitely do you.

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This is absurd and hilarious. Thank you :)

or you could use it to play chess :D, enjoy!

+1 on wall and site prep.
Seal the wall.
Make sure your platforms/ladders can get you to all the bits you need to get to before you start.
Really sharp scissors and a Stanley are essential.
An assistant who can pass up the pasted-up drops, move ladders and won't get upset when you shout at them is also good.

You have more time than you think.

There's a fair bit of extra material though. So for example on wall 1 and 2 you could split the spare edge pieces (that don't cover any part of the wall) to between both walls, which saves 5 squares. However, it depends on whether or not they match up in the corners properly.

Wall 3 has a massive amount of spare material as well.

For sure, could easily save on materials if you are clever with it.

I'm struggling a bit on terminology/what I should be searching for here.

I'm putting an en-suite in the loft conversion. It is fairly narrow so I envisage the back and sides of the shower just being the tiled walls and a door at the front. I'm thinking I'd just need a shower tray of the correct width (is it possible to get this, how does it work if you don't?) and a door in a frame (again, how do you get the correct width?) but I'm struggling to find what I'm picturing.

Is this possible? If so what should I be searching for?

Can't do CAD so had to use Paint, but I think this is the most efficient.

Do column a and b as normal. Split column c in half at the edge of wall 1. Use the second half of column c and column d to do wall 2. (Note, there's not a massive amount of wiggle room here; total width of the two walls is 205cm and 4 rolls of wallpaper is 212cm). So essentially box 1 goes onto wall 2. So you don't need column e there.

For walls 3/4, alternately split the rolls so that you have 6.something squares for column f, then 4.something for column k, then 6.something for column g, then 4.something for column l, etc. That means you can lose the bottom 5 squares on wall 4 and move box 2 to the top of wall 4. Also, use the remaining bit of column j to replace column o.

That would in total save 14 squares, bringing the total down to 71. Which means it's possible to do it with 4 rolls, even if you account for the fact that a roll is just slightly short of 19 squares.

You'd be pushing it in terms of room for mistakes I think though.

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We just did a very similar set up, what we did was to make a false stud wall on one side to bring the gap at the end to a standard width of shower tray, also gave a handy place to hide soil pipes. Dodgy diagram in excel attached.

Looking at my quote we used one of these trays combined with one of these doors, which was just fixed to walls either side

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Cheers, looks like I'll only be about 4cm out on width so will have to decide what to do with that.

I didn't realise that a lot of these doors that are shown as being part of a shower cubicle can also be supplied without the side panels which was confusing me.

Yeah, and tends to be cheaper to get trays and panels separately. I have found Just trays to be a decent budget option, with a wide range of sizes and shapes.

Interesting seeing it like that, I had imagined it was on a staircase so it wouldn't be rectangles.

First thing I thought is depending on the pattern you might want to centre it on the walls. It's often the case that walls will not be square at the edges so you might lose a bit at each edge.

Yeah, got home last night and threw a new TCO into the shower. Still a bit pissed but managed both remembering to turn power off AND didn't fall off the edge of the bath. Hot shower!

fuckyeah.gif

Still, now I have 250 quid spare shower just laying around.. doh

Agreed, I think however this would show the worst case scenario and without seeing the space to be papered it's hard to be more accurate. I'm not really an experienced paperer but think that 5 rolls will be more than enough, if lucky, may get that down to 4 rolls but wouldn't risk it.

-I would paint it ;P

When 3 phase immersions go bang...

Bled the radiators. Radiators work.
Hooray.

Tile I stuck down 2 weeks ago....is now unstuck again. The one next to it isn't.
Why?

We're in the process of having an extension built, which is getting underfloor heating within it. As part of the work, we've got the chance to separate the heating into 3 zones, upstairs Rads, downstairs Rads, and the underfloor area. We also have a hot water cylinder.

I've drawn a simplified diagram of what I think the layout will end up like here - https://pastebin.com/DNMzvuic

I'm fairly happy that I've got the boiler picked as an Intergas Compact HRE 40 SB.

Valves will be Honeywell V4043s.

And a Nest Thermostat to control each zone.

I've been looking at pumps to try and work out what would be needed there. I currently have a Grundfos UPS2 15-50/60 but don't know if this would be suitable for the new setup. Could someone advise on this? if not, which of the Grundfos pumps should I be looking at?

Not enough adhesive / uneven bed / not enough curing time. Try again with more adhesive and stick an upturned bucket or basin over it so you don't walk on it for a few days.

What is the subfloor, timber or concrete?
Failure could be caused by;
Not sealing the existing adhesive (new adhesive dried out before curing).
Not removing sufficient of the existing adhesive to create space for new.
Walking on /moving the tile before the adhesive had cured.
Non flexible adhesive used on flexible substrate.
Shit adhesive.
Ineptitude
Karma.

Walking on /moving the tile before the adhesive had cured

This one

Shower update 3765:

TCO replacement worked but only for 3 days. Missus cleaning bathroom and one of the microswitches went up in smoke. I'm done with replacing parts on this old shower. Have emailed sparky to see if he can install the new Mira unit.

Not a plumber.
I thought we should all be fitting the power saving Alpha2 type pumps?
https://uk.grundfos.com/products/find-product/alpha2l.html
The Grundfos guys on their stand at EcoBuild t'other year explained
the reduction in power consumption as trvs shut down soon pays off the difference in purchase price.
Really need to pay the overprice for Honeywell valves?
BES offer UK manufactured 2- & 3-way valves
https://www.bes.co.uk/motorised-zone-valve-2-port-22mm-17389

There is a simple system diagram on page 9 here https://www.underfloorheatingsystems.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/UHSSINGLEROOMPACKINSTRUCTIONS.pdf
I have never tried wet underfloor heating, I did try a small electric system that failed a few weeks after the tiles had been laid on top - so I put in another radiator.
I assume that the system boiler has its own internal pump so you just need another pump for the underfloor and mixing valve set up, it may come as a combined unit. A pump with good low flow efficiency, as above, seems a good idea.
A 40 kW boiler seems way over the top for this system, it will heat up very fast and then have to turn itself off and on every few minutes, except in extremely cold weather. The underfloor system has a max demand of 2.1kW or 1.5kW under a wood floor. There will be long periods when the underfloor system is the only demand so the low end performance of the boiler is more important than max power available. If the building is well insulated and double glazed in an urban area then 24kW would do, on an exposed site or with dodgy insulation you might want a bit more power.

Anyone want a roll of loft insulation (something like 100mm x 370mm x 8m I think) or a lengthy roll of coax cable (25m+ I'd guess)?

How about some tiles 15x15cm. About 80 Homebase value white ones or about 40 that look like this.

Or, and I'll post pictures of this later, a pine built-in cupboard that is currently at the top of my stairs but will be demolished at the weekend. Decent boards and door, ideal for building a cupboard next to a chimney breast in period property.

All to collect from N8 Harringay.

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