Home DIY

You'll get the cash for it anyway, just not quite as much as if it was legit.

Plumber has put some pipes through a brick wall between my kitchen and utility room.

Yeah, I reckon it will take him a couple of hours and about £10 in parts. The other 2 I contacted didn't want to know.

I forgot to do regs on I downstairs toilet I put in our last house. Fuck me you’d have thought I’d buried somebody down there. The buyer almost pulled out what else was I hiding? In the end the inspector came out and signed it off within 2 days, trust restored, sale went though ok.

Weirdly, I don't think buyers would care that much about the space above garage compared to something funky about an aspect of the place that has little excuse to have something funky about it (and has been factored in to the sq. footage and floorpan).

There are some buyers who care about this stuff to the nth, some who are capable of taking a view. Probably correlates with whether they've gone for bargain basement solicitors.

Thanks. It was easy to get off.

I have fitted a new flush cone and ordered a new pan connector. A straight forward job so far. Everything is neat back there so I don't imagine that I'll have any problems than it being a bit awkward to fit the pan connector.

The pan was fitted using silicone sealant only. I thought this always a bodge at first but the internet is telling me that it is pretty usual these days.

Questions for anyone are; is silicone sealant an ok way of securing the pan? I'd rather not drill the tiles for bolting down if I can avoid. Do I need a particular type of sealant or will any sanitary sealant (eg this from screwfix ) do?

Also, I reckon this would take a plumber about 1-2 hours, require little skill/judgment and cost about £15 in parts. The plumber that quoted me £515 plus vat also told me what it was likely to be and sent a picture of a previous job. I like to think he knew he was giving away enough info for me to do it myself.

Hey, water is leaking from the base of my toilet when the cistern is refilling only. Water is coming out of the inlet hose. New inlet hose, new seal, new fill valve? Any ideas?

Toilet has a hairline crack somewhere? Stops at a certain fill level?

Could be what I'm doing. Flush cone leaking potentially

Central Heating question. Our house has a combi boiler with 2 fat pipes that go to a T junction then a manifold one for downstairs and one upstairs. That manifold has ins and outs for each radiator, pretty sure that makes it a single pipe loop system https://www.bestheating.com/info/the-ultimate-guide-to-heating-pipework/.
My bro in law is convinced we should update it to a flow and return system because it'll be more efficient. I think we should just chase all the pipes and insulate them with lagging. We're changing the radiators to some bigger ones and will update the boiler at some point in the future too. Has anyone got any input on whether this single pipe loop system will be a problem?

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Sure it's not micro? Single Pipe Loop doesn't look like it has manifolds.

It's that yeah, the pipes I think are 10mm. Got any more info on them?

Never seen a one pipe system in anthing but 15mm tbh. Id hazard a guess that you already have a F and R but i will say that manifold will be from the 70s or 80s. Its ancient and a repipe wouldnt hurt the cause but you'll probs die a shock when you get a price for renewing it all.

Search microbore heating pipes or sommat

noticed in the cold weather this past week, after going up in the loft to get the xmas decorations, that the roof felt had condensation on one side of the roof.

any experience/opinions on these, which started popping up in youtube ads after some cursory googling?
https://www.manthorpebp.co.uk/roofing/roof-ventilation-–-solutions-modern-day-problem/felt-lap-vent

lap vents have been recommended in this thread a few times

Electric bill question. My bill came in for three months at £374. My friend has exactly the same house - his was £213. Similar family arrangements etc.
Is there something I could use to track my usage etc to try and work out why the big difference?
NB same electric provider etc

Do you have a smart meter?

If not just take a reading every day from your meter, it’s easy to work out how much gas your using when you calculate it!

Your friend could also be in a different tariff too, so you’d need to know that and what there standing charge is tio

I don't have a smart meter. It's electric and we are both on the same tariff with the same company.

I don't know much about single loop or microbore but I do know that smaller pipes are less efficient, so your bro in law is right about that, and because of that they'll be a problem if you switch to a heat pump in future. So if you're thinking about that or even want that option in future then redoing it would make sense.

Ok. Do you regularly send meter readings to your energy provider?

Just take the readings off the meter probs an E6 and supply them to the company.

I do not. But they seem to read the meter regularly. My friends was read on the same day as mine.

I am more concerned about the difference and want to see if I can work out what's causing it. My friend and I should have very similar bills.

It’s electric heating?

If so it could be something like they went away for a few weeks or don’t work at home (and you do).

What type of device is doing the heating?