Home DIY

Yeah. Definitely worth the expense.
Especially as my boiler has now been shut off.
Getting quoted for parts vs replace the whole thing.

Only that he'll end up needing a 25kg bag of multifinish. Filler is easier to work with dries faster TX110 doesn't shrink much and can be sponged off and is likely closer to the finished colour.

But on a building site with 20 chases to fill , yes multi finish would be a good choice.

I would try and accept a bit of air flow in the house. Unless there's a cosmetic reason or the gaps are really big. You can buy rolls of 'caulk saver' and go over the top with decorators mastic since you'll need to paint it all afterwards. If you really need the air to be somewhere else.

https://www.decoratingdirect.co.uk/viewprod/f/FOSSA_CAULK_SAVER_6_METER_ROLL/

That's 1 possibility yes. It really only helps to stop the plasterers damaging the wires. I tend to use the tubes and feed the wires through because you can get away with smaller channels then.

Top tip for channeling plaster walls. Only works on plastered victorian brick walls as far as I know.

Get an old multi tool blade (have a hoover in the other hand) cut through the plaster to about 50mm, you'll probably be cutting in to the brick too. Once you've cut two lines around 50mm apart then knock the centre out with a sharp chisel. Remember to cut the lines so your best brick chisel fits between them!

Ding ding ding. That looks absolutely ideal. The flat is insanely dafty, and not very well insulated. I’ll never eradicate all the drafts, so there will always be plenty air circulation I reckon.

And there’s loads of gaps, pretty much all the walls have skirting with a gap between the bottom and the floor. The drafts are evident enough that you can tell when someone leaves the inside building door open, or any other small change to airflow. Put your hand near any gap and you can feel the cold air rushing in!

Dropping knowledge as always! Will probably get some draughtex for the bits on the floor tho. Will be a lot cheaper doing the skirting with the gear you posted tho!

pretty much all the walls have skirting with a gap between the bottom and the floor

Did someone lift a laminate flooring at some point?

Lifted carpets to reveal knackered floorboards. Wasn’t me, and is the source of my distaste.

One doesn't normally wedge carpet under the skirting though I'm sure it's done.

Fuck knows. The skirting is mainly original Victorian it seems, as are the floorboards. There is beading in some places but not all. Nae idea.

Ours is a bit like that. Where there isn't ashort run of mismatched beading, there's usually a lot of clear silicon.

The flat is insanely dafty, and not very well insulated

If you are too good at blocking the drafts you may end up with condensation problems if your walls are cold.

Warm slippers are probably the cheapest option 😉

Fortunately the abundance of gaps in the flat will guarantee that there will always be some airflow because it would be impossible to seal all the gaps and also keep my sanity in tact.

A good hoover!!!

Slippers, two jumpers and a woolly hat. Even when WFH I don’t allow the heating on during the day. My ability to sense a draft is weapons grade. I can almost hear the quids falling through the gaps in the flat when we put the heating on!

This is what we found at our place when our carpets came out

It might be a bit more of a fiddle than the tape method but it's a reasonable approach. Masking tape can add to the cost of any jobs like this though.

I picked some up from county chemicals recently, different type might be more or less useful. Certainly the site itself is a goldmine for information about sealants.

https://www.sealantsonline.co.uk/ProductGrp/0044003d0001

The parent company is called county chemicals, would be a good front for a county lines operation.

Tbh, I just feel like expanding foam is asking for trouble and the prep time to avoid making a mess, paired with any cutting back just seems like it’ll be a total run around.

Those strips seem like a good combo of cost/efficacy/mess of job.

I wasn't recommending expanding foam. It's just a different type of caulk saver, it's flat not round. Since you need to cover it with some sort of caulk you'll probably want to use masking tape for that as well. I certainly do these days. I use a few other time savers from sealants online too.

Yeah I get you. Hadn’t realised you meant taping for the caulking! That’ll come much later, if at all. The draft is the main issue, so I want to sort that to just keep the place warm.
I’ll probably take the time to use some beading to actually cover the gap eventually.

In that case the flat one from sealants online might suit you because you can push it in the gap and then run a really sharp blade along it and you might get a decent finish anyway. It's prone to tearing if the blades not super sharp.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a trap to stop the leaves blocking this? There seem to be lots of different styles and I'm not sure which is best.

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I do forget that not everyone has an m class hoover. I suppose you could use a bit of sprayed water.

How many sockets can you have on a spur. So far as I can see it's just one double socket, is that correct? Cheers

Minor but very satisfying DIY win today.

Turns out the cover for 18mm conduit is a brilliant tool for rodding ethernet down a short flight of stairs. Any wider and it'd wouldn't have fit through the hole at the top, literally any shorter and I wouldn't have been able to get hold of it at the bottom. Even has a groove for securing the cable.

Hope it'll cope being right next to all the electricity for a couple of meters. It's supposedly shielded so fingers crossed.

Floorboards fixed as well, many thanks to @aggi for the loan of the multi-tool. Brilliant device, might have to get meself one for xmas.

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