Home DIY

Painted is painted, but MDF is usually more stable and straighter. And cheaper.

Nice, thanks all.

Check out amara timber in motherwell or MKM in the east end.

I went with Danish oil from Toolstation. Dries pretty much similar to polyurethane if you build up the layers.

Crap drill, but you get 2x5ah batteries, a case and charger for £150. Hard to beat. Considering the batteries alone are usually about £130 for 2.

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What do we reckon my chances are of drilling these stones for these brackets? They're the capping stones for my garden wall which should be getting placed this weekend. Plan was to drill for the brackets once they're on and mount a small trellis/ fence on top of the wall but I may well have underestimated the task.

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Maybe one of these fits the bill

https://www.screwfix.com/p/erbauer-diamond-core-drill-bit-28mm/94375

Buy a decent set of bits and work up to 1mm oversize. Buy a brush for removing debris (yes, these are a thing). There are a number of resins that you can use to bond the metal tube into the rock.

I did a similar thing but the post had a 10mm threaded rod in it. I also put an electrical back box grommet between the wall and the post. Not sure how easy that rock is to drill from a picture though.

Lidl Park side drill drivers are actually fantastic for the price.

Bought one three years ago for £13 (30% off) with a 12V 2ah battery, used it to renovate my entire house and to build a log cabin, and a separate tool shed from scratch, hang radiators, fit a whole kitchen, fix all sorts to walls etc, and it is still going strong. It has taken a beating. Used for things like screwing 150mm concrete screws etc. Attaching things to masonry also. I use a separate Evolution SDS hammer drill for serious masonry holes though.

Bought another of the Lidl Parksides last week with two 2AH 20V batteries (4AH were sold out) for about £37 total. Highly recommended. Great quality cordless drill drivers.

You need a hammer drill. SDS. Invest in something like the Evolution SDS hammer drills - about £60 on Amazon.

I have an SDS and apparently it has a clutch, so might try that core drill to start with, cheaper that buying a load of big SDS bits and hopefully the lack of hammer action means less chance of cracking. If it fails it's not too much money wasted.

Worth a try. In my experience core drilling is a slow process but I've not tried holes that small. Quite often helps to have some water cooling the bit. They might be quite difficult to get started, you need a pilot hole to stop them skating.

Yeah will try with an 8mm pilot. I wondered about water, neither the listing or the reviews mention it but probably can't hurt. I think I'll need to drill them on the floor which means getting the brackets plumb and in the right spot will be tricky but they do have a little adjustment.

Ah I thought you were drilling smaller holes, not cores. Yeah don't hammer with core bits/diamond as it wrecks the bit (I am sure you know this already as an SDS user)

That's why I used 10mm threaded rod with a grommet between post and rod. You can mount them and then bend the rod to upright (or whatever angle you need).

Is replacing a single socket using a double adapter with a double socket a better option or does it not make any difference?

It means you could put another double adapter in the second socket. It's convenience and smaller form factor.

How about in turns of amps? Is a double socket limited to 13A between the two or 13A each?

A circuit wired single 2.5 twin and earth clipped in open air will have a fuse lower than 16amps is a rough rule of thumb. That is the cable will not catch fire with a 16amp draw. The cable is always the part that needs protection. The sockets are rated for 13amp draw, on a ring circuit that should include both sockets operating at 13amps otherwise it couldn't be 13amp rated.

2 3000w appliances running full pelt is pretty unusual these days.

Cheers. Switching the single socket for a double seems sensible then. It's for a washer/dryer (2.2kw) and microwave (1.3kw).

Quite possibly on a ring main protected by a 32amp breaker if it's in a kitchen. A ring main consists of 2 twin & earth cables (usually 2.5) which gives the cables a higher capacity due to ohms law etc...

The total max load in your case is 3.5kw/240v=14.5A

That probably falls within safe limits based on diversity and over engineering. The cable and breaker are likely rated for at least 16A, sockets 13A draw in each 'gang'.

So I fucked our parquet. Was trying to get it clean and over scrubbed/mopped. Now it’s buckled and blown. I don’t think there is a quick fix but I’m wondering about waiting till is shrinks back and then glueing the blown fingers back really carefully with a liquid dpm

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Tanking a cellar, how hard is this for a DIYer? Looking at buying a house with a very damp cellar (because it's just a hole in the ground with bricks on the sides). Thinking I'd basically make a big pond and lay a slab inside that, then build block pillars to hold up the (currently rotting because ends are in the damp brickwork) timbers which make up the floor above and stud walls with insulation and plasterboard inside. Not sure I've explained that so well!

Will the surveyor for the mortgage company not get a bit twitchy with the house about to fall into the cellar with rotting timbers holding the floor?

I don’t see why not- bond it back in then sand the whole floor level, stain it and bosh.