Home DIY

Titan TTB431VAC 1400W 40Ltr Wet & Dry Vacuum Cleaner 240V from Screwfix is £90

In the same ballpark is the Einhell TE-VC 1930 SA 30 Litre Stainless Steel Wet & Dry Vac with Power Take Off 1500W from Wickes

I went with the Titan - Works well enough - I've used it to clear under floorboards (plaster dust & other rubbly crap) and to empty out water from ground holes.

I need to install some skirting board in my bathroom, and there's one corner where I'll need to cut the ends of the skirting to 45-ish degree angles so it matches up. But I don't have any power tools, and the skirting is too tall to use a hand saw cutting guide. Is there a nifty way of making this cut or do I need to borrow/invest in some kit?

I don't really fancy buying something I'll use for basically one cut. If it comes to it I guess I could fudge it with filler...

@Dramatic_Hammer Depends what you use it for and how often. If you are working with mdf, or any fine dust for that matter, I'd go for something better than the cheap wet n dry vacs. I had a titan, now I've gone tart and have a festool Midi and would never go back. Night and day in terms of quality. The titan has a mega exhaust blower that blasts air out and stirs up any dust that is nearby. I also felt it was leaky /bypassed the filter so wasn't blowing out all filtered air either. Filter got blocked quickly and annoying to clean.

It was also incredibly offensive to the ears. Mine was an older model mind.

If you're using it for just clean up though then I reckon it's a good buy.

External corner? If its just the one, patience with a preferably fine tooth handsaw, followed by sanding with a block?

I reckon 80% of use is going to be outdoors/garage vacuuming and 20% dealing with treated wood sawdust/plaster dust/other nasty crap. Maybe that use is too wide but I'd like to be able to suck up rubble and leaves without blowing dust out the back or fucking up filters!

Thanks, that's what I thought... Internal corner, if that makes a difference.

Butt one side up to the wall, scribe the other side and cut with a coping saw/adjust with files - it's fiddly but easier to adjust than 45 degree angles on both sides (especially as your corner probably isn't exactly 90 degrees). Filler will solve the final fit!

Aah that makes sense. Thanks!

Yeah this.

Titan should be good then.

Where are you folk getting your plywood from these days? I got it from B&Q for my last project but need better quality for living room shelves.

Lots of different types and grades of plywood out there. If you want furniture grade plywood Birch would be a good starting point. Builders depot sell it.

This might sound stupid/obvious, but picking up the majority of material with a dustpan and brush (but not just sweeping all the dust into the air again), hoovering with a hoover, and using an extractor to extract directly from tools when you're using them works best IME.

If you're sanding or cutting and generating really fine sawdust, you want that to be sucked up instantly from the tool by an extractor with a good filter so it's not just recirculating fine particles into the air. You also want to preserve the filters by not battering them by using the extractor as a hoover too much. This is a personal thing, and many people happily use their extractors for all the cleanup. I also think it's daft to use an extractor to suck up loads of dust, filling bags that are expensive, when it's easier to get the big piles with a dustpan.

I'd also say wear a dust mask when sweeping up if it's really dusty - but I'm quite anal about avoiding dust inhalation.

Thanks. No Builder Depots near us in SE18 and don’t think we’re ordering enough to warrant £45 delivery fee. Any other options?

Croydon too far? SL hardwoods will have it and they have reopened. Vetraland by Blackwall tunnel too.

That makes annoyingly good sense.

I try to make most mess outside, so a hoover and dust mask are probably the best bet.

Let's just take a minute to drink in all the layered flavours of this wonderous bodge.

There's a bungy holding the sink waste together
The trap is balanced on a bottle of driveway salt
The soggy bit of rag is perfectly positioned to wick the leaking hot water isolator valve into the beautiful yellow bowl

We bought the house like this 18 months ago and surprisingly it's been trouble free (beyond a tiny trickle into the yellow bowl). I was going to wait until we have our 40k kitchen installed but the leak is now such that the bowl is filling up every 8 hrs or so.

The hot water plumbing goes like this - it enters the cabinet as FloFit which is bodged into a Hep2O isolator, back to FloFit and into the compression fitting of the tap tail.
I have some Hep2O pipe and push fit bits and bobs left over from my bathroom. What's the best way of joining new Hep2O to shitty old FloFit?

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What is the screw going to be doing? It's not holding it down, because the weight of the post will do that; it's unlikely to stop wobble because the leverage of a post plus panel in the wind will overcome that. I'd go with wooden shims or possibly take a hammer and (using a block of wood), try to bend the sides of the holder in to make it a more snug fit.

If you can't find a way to replace the pipes properly soon, well-wrapped gaffa tape is surprisingly effective in the short term. #don'ttrythisathome

Ta, wooden shims is what @dbr suggested too.

It's not a fence they're for but the outer part of a decking veranda thing on our allotment shed, pictured. Will have clear corrugated roof & is using mostly reclaimed materials.

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Call a plumber.

Won't add that much to the £40K kitchen refit after all?

Pft small offcut of pipe and a new isolator and we’re good to go.

Anyone want these unused grout float and piping bag?

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This looks dodgy (cooker extractor). Other than doing a very bad job of extracting air, is there anything breaking regs here? I'm going to have to do something about the height of the plug, in order to get a proper reducer and solid pipe in there. What's the proper way to resolve this? I think it's on its own circuit from the consumer unit, last time I checked.

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It needs a labelled isolating switch in view outside of the cooker hood to comply. You can't take apart potentially live equipment without turning off first.

Loft has been boarded, loft ladder added

Used Loft Legs and Wickes boards. It's been hot, itchy and sweaty moving insulation back, fixing legs and moving back, then fixing the boards.

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