Home DIY

It's hard work to get the lowest pipework dry enough for solder joints, you can try screw on or push fit connectors instead.

If the pipework from your loo goes horribly wrong getting a builder with drainage exprience should be cheaper than a plumber.

Seen it done using a water vac to suck the last bits of water out of the system at the point you want to repair. So cut at the repair spot, start sucking up the water, keep sucking it up till it's dry, dry the area and pipe with the flame thrower, make your repair. Alternatively use a repair sleeve with compression joints, bit dodgy under cement though.

This is true. It's set in a concrete floor which no doubt will be fun if it goes wrong. I guess for a toilet all you really need is a hole in the ground, right?

Put a handle either side to steady yourself when squatting.

That is what I worked out in the end, a numatic george and over an hour!

The flat has been converted to a combi boiler from a floor mounted boiler and tank or tanks. Not sure if these did the tap water too. There are also two previous gas meter locations with assorted pipe work. That I will remove all the above concrete pipework by filling with water and cutting.

The system does (hopefully did) seem to have a lot of dark metallic flakes that a power clean and replacement radiators did not fully remove. Oh well the leak is gone and the system is holding fine.

What was interesting, when the system was drained I pumped the pressure vessel up to 1 bar on my track pump guage. It did take quite a few pumps, which initially led me to conclude that the pressure vessel membrane had failed, to get a reading of any pressure. I did double check the pump guage with a digital one. The readings agreed.

I need some lights for the hallway. At the moment we have two sets of triple spots towards either end which illuminate it fine but look a bit crap. Struggling to find an alternative to spots that casts enough light into the middle of the hallway but can't find any spots that look nice. Any suggestions for light fittings to look at? Wooden floor, light paint and victorian house if that makes any difference.

wall mounts?

tension wire? A bit modern for a Victorian house but could work if you don't mind the old/contemporary mix look

Has anyone painted over wall tiles? Reason being when we moved in we had to gutt a semi with an extension as big...the downstairs loo was the best room the house. Previous owner made a good job of putting them on but they are 80s texas Tom brown and I can't face taking them off or thing over.

Yes I have, key is to use a good quality paint and prime/paint as well as you can. If you do so it will look great. Definitely worth it for £20 and a couple of hours work

What make of paint did you use?

Sorry I can't advise you on that one, I would google a bit I am sure you will find recommendations online. I used the cheap discounted pot from Homebase and my painting skills are not the best so results were acceptable but not perfect. It was for a kitchen splashback and only for a couple of months so I could not care less...but I have seen how it looks when it's done properly and it was way better than mine...

Dimmer switches & LED GU10 bulb combinations - does anyone know of any that don't lead to loads of flickering?

Also interested to solve this... I’ve nailed the dimmer/led candle bulb setup (zero flickering and a proper range of dimming) but this eludes me.

I installed Varilight V-Pro dimmers, and programmed them to operate in leading edge mode. There are also 2 trailing edge modes they can use. One of them should fix the issue.
You can also set the min/max brightness to eliminate flicker and buzz.

Tension wire is a bit too modern a look and looks a bit too art gallery I think.

Mounting a light in the middle on the wall is a possible but struggling to find anything relatively low profile which looks nice.

spots that look nice

I have a few of these, which look nice IMO. YMMV.
http://www.mr-resistor.co.uk/item.aspx?i=7125

The same site sells them in black and white for a lot less money and silver for a bit less. They are good quality and I'd recommend Mr Resistor for service.

Boring Q of the day: who makes nice, simple internal doors? Looking for something with a bit of heft, not like the dreadful 4-panel sheds jobbies we have at the moment which feel and sound hollow?

v-pro dimmers. I should say that you need to be careful about the minimum load, so 4 downlights is usually fine.

I'm starting to install integrated leds here and there. Pros and cons but they are easier to install and look a little bit better due to the integrated lamp.

Mr. Resistor, nice but pricey. They are decent in store though and very patient with customers even if the customer doesn't know much about how to achieve what they want.

Could just get a fire door blank, plenty of heft, very simple but needs edging which is not difficult but takes a little effort.

Cheers, look decent but will have to pass the girlfriend test. May suggest a trip to the showroom.

The v-pro is very good but some bulbs are just shit and won’t play nicely (even if technically ‘dimmable’ by virtue of not breaking when dimmed).

You can also get v-pro modules to retro fit into your panels if you like them/want to save some cash.

All my LED bulbs are Energiser GU10 dimmables, which seem to work quite nicely with everything.