Home DIY

If it's being a bit dicky might be worth getting it serviced by a gas engineer anyway. Better than having it pack up mid-winter.

Aren't combis supposed to be serviced annually anyway?

If you're a landlord you need to get a gas safety certificate each year and that will have an element of servicing involved. If you own the property there's no obligation, from experience once a year is unnecessary, every 2-3 years usually does the trick.

I'm pondering a new kitchen at which point it may well be relocated/replaced so I'd prefer to hold off spending on it for the moment.

That cupboard should just lift off the wall, might need to loosen a couple of screws in the upper corners but the majority of the effort will be in emptying the thing I suspect.

Sorry my chap doesn't go south of the river, for one job.

Euph

OK Home DIYers... what would be the best way to level the area below that has pebbles in-bedded into the concrete? Excuse the chubby little thing in the pic, tis the only picture I have at hand. There is a slight downward slope from right to left as you look at the pic and the left hand long edge (opp the house) is bordered by soil and a hedge. All the other edges are slightly raised existing concrete/tile.

If I use screed/concrete anyone know of a calculation of how much one 50kg bag will cover at varying depths?

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there's a reason for that sloping..

you want to completely cover the pebbles?

Once I discovered there was a lump of unattached work surface covering the boiler pipes I found the valve for topping up and the boiler appears to be working again. Cheers all for the help.

Yep, would like to keep a tiny slope for obvious reasons... Want to completely cover the pebbles too...

Is there a forum recommended carpenter/joiner...?

Looking to get some bespoke wardrobes either side of the chimney breast in our room, and a couple of cabinets downstairs.

Noooooo! No concreting over your garden even more!

the problem with concreting over the pebbles is that there will be a moisture trap, and dependent on new layer depth, this will blow due to freeze/thaw quicker or slower.

so either remove pebbles and scabble out so there's a good 150mm new slab depth to pour, or consider leaving as is and put a deck on top

I'd put a deck over the top, much less effort (I think, given I've seen nothing more than that photo etc).

Freeze/thaw not an issue (Singapore) but the moisture pocket thing I had not considered! Good point and thank you! Agree with you and @dammit ref deck is just that I want to build an outside kitchen/bbq area.
Thinking combo of deck and mini foundation area.

Wait...what? How d'you even know!

heck, just nail some disused pallets together!

Oh I'm just anti-garden concreting. Previous owners of my place have poured layers upon layers into my garden. I want to grow plants in beds, not in raised beds, not in containers.

Became a man today and dug a French drain to stop the damp coming through our dining room wall. I'm fully aware it's just a hole with pebbles in it, but I fucking hate DIY so I'm pretty proud of myself right now.

If it doesn't sort the problem I'm burning my house to the ground and getting a new one.

Hear you. Plenty more garden and a vegetable patch, fruit trees etc. I'm very fortunate. This area is already layered up,crying out for a bbq.

Just to show what I've been doing for the last couple of days, this is my rotten ceiling, to the left of a chimney breast.

Chimney stack removed and tiled over to stop leak.

Laths removed as they were totally rotten. Surprisingly the joists have survived. New laths cut and screwed into place using drywall screws. Painted with fungicide. I am now applying bonding plaster to the area to build it back up.

Those large penny washers you can see are doing two things: they are stopping the existing bonding plaster from de-laminating from the laths, and I've also injected Gripfill into the screw holes which bonds the existing plaster back onto the laths.

Someone is probably going to say either, "I'd pull the whole ceiling down" or "why not just use plasterboard?". Well, it was my decision. I did the same on a much larger scale for my entire living room ceiling which was beginning to fall down. It's now solid and looks great.

Where are you going to get the lime and horse hair?

I'm sure he'll have the last lath.

I did actually buy lime mortar for the outside brickwork. It's a bit of a pain in the arse to use (but you shouldn't really use cement mortar).

I wish I could have done it this way. Unfortunately, due to the way we moved into our (not particularly habitable) house, we did up the room above the one with the ceiling that was falling down, and didnt want to lift the entire floor up again as it was our only ok room.