With some help from some people on here I managed to get my first set of shelves up! A pretty basic DIY thing but happy with the result after some difficulty with the brick wall!

As per the video, the plaster was blown and had a large crack so I removed it to find almost nothing at all stitching this room to the main house 🤣.
How would you join the wayward stud upright to the main wall? Just some corner braces? And what do you think I should pack it out with?
Thanks

Moved in to my new house coming up to a year ago and finally booked a service for the boiler.

The engineer told me the boiler is working fine, its an old (26years) Potterton Suprima 50l. Due to its age it’s a little on the loud side. But it’s working very well, with no concerns.

However the Flue terminal is damaged, I was unaware of the issue.
The previous owner seems to have glued the spokes back in after it broke.

Because of this the engineer marked it as “at risk” and as the boiler is now obsolete/discontinued finding a replacement part is practically impossible. And because of this recommended a full replacement boiler.

The understanding the engineer gave me of this was that these spokes simply deterred birds and bats from nesting in the flue. If this true, why can I not simply put a metal mesh guard over the terminal instead.

This could possibly be a £40 fix instead of a boiler that costs a couple of grand ?

TIA

I had recently decorated the front room, and was all lovely and clean. The rain come and at one part there was a water mark on the paper/wall, obviously new. However there was nothing near the area that could be causing it that was obvious, there was an old TV aerial cable that was cut from inside and siliconed on the external side, including a drip loop, so there wasn't a hole or gap for anything to get in, and it was dry.

Anyhow, as that was the only thing it could be, I cut the outside cable (to fully remove it) and lo and behold, it started dripping from the cable, like a straw.

It turns out that the Aerial connector on the roof must be filling with water, which was then making its way down the semi-hollow cable and causing the very small but noticeable drip.

So just be aware that even if you have an old TV aerial through the wall, that it may be hiding a nasty little surprise when it rains.

Had to dig out much of the raised bed and the front bed whilst following rhizomes, as well as a couple of feet into the lawn (backfilled immediately, hence lack of picture). All rhizomes were followed to their ends, with a solid trench around each one to make sure I got it. Hopefully won’t see any growth next year!

Dog for scale against the bags of removed material.

Sleeper replacement next up, once the endless rubble bags are disposed of!

Hey mods, how much would it typically cost to make a rule that quote-related posts on this sub are not allowed?

I asked around and [r/HousingUK](r/HousingUK) allows posts like this, but the target audience isn’t renovation focused or involved enough with owning a house.

I’m asking here because it’s a DIY community focused on actually doing the projects and sharing the knowledge, journey, and experience gained rather than paying someone else to do it.

I know the market is crazy, but my budget is a faulty Parkside battery and a half-used can of expanding foam. Do you think you could do it for that? Or at least have a single mega thread? Or a quote discussion day?

Our next-door neighbour’s visitor parked their car in front of the brown wooden gates & unfortunately left the handbrake off, resulting in the car rolling down the drive & into our metal gate.

We don’t use the gate, as it’s on a shared driveway, but it’s been there for decades & I’d like to keep it.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I could straighten it out?

All air gaps filled and sealed then filled with 100mm RW3 Rockwool. Resilient bars to install tomorrow followed by 19mm plank boards then 12.5 Knauf Soundshield+ then acoustic seal and around the perimeter to finish it off. I hope the results are worth it in the end. Material costs including plasterboard lift was around £750

Despite knowing how it would probably end, I carried on regardless and set aside an hour at the weekend to investigate why one of my shower tiles was coming loose. A good job I did, as what I thought would be a 10 minute job of sticking a tile back to the wall very quickly turned into what is currently a 3 day quest of finding out what happens when someone else f***s around, and shows no signs of letting up.

I can safely report that the entire corner was soaking wet, which meant that over a long period of time, water had been bypassing the unsealed shower cubicle, pooling at the lowest point in the corner of the bathroom and then running into the kitchen ceiling - in some cases there would be a visible pool of water on the kitchen floor. Luckily, the floorboards are only damp on the very ends and are halfway through drying out (apart from one that’ll potentially need replacing), the remaining plasterboard seems to be bone dry (I’ve taken it off to the nearest join which has cleared all of the damp stuff off the wall), and a quick inspection of the joists underneath show no visible signs of rot. As a bonus, I did uncover a beautiful brick surround that would have housed a sash window at one point, but was probably sealed off in the 50s/60s, going off historic photos.

The current plan is to redo the entire area with plasterboard that’s actually moisture resistant as a bare minimum, then decide the best way of reinstalling a better shower configuration. A smaller walk in unit would have been preferable, but due to the half-arsed nature of pretty much every job that’s ever been done to the house historically, the soil pipe would have to run uphill, unless I start rerouting through ceilings and drilling holes in outer walls.

I had a couple of plasterers over for quotes on skimming the artex ceiling in my living room.

Both of them said they would need to scrape the artex before skimming. This is because some of the artex bumps are quite large, which would protrude beyond the skim layer.

Ceiling hasn’t been tested for asbestos and neither of the plasterers seemed that concerned about it. One mentioned that the ceiling would be effectively sealed with bluegrit and then the plaster after scraping anyway.

Since these plasterers were very happy to scrape an untested ceiling, I assume they are doing this on the regular. So, is this practice really that dangerous?

We're in Belfast and humidity levels seem so high. It's the case outside too given how wet it is while still being fairly warm.

I can get the humidity down with the dehumidifier but it seems like a pointless battle....that said I'm still concerned mould could develop.

Is this just a case of accepting bandaid solution until things get drier outside?

While the whole house isn't quite this high it's still high 60s and the photo is from the coldest part of the house.

Advice gratefully received!

Had a full house renovation and new sockets fitted etc. Noticed that at least two of the plug sockets don’t allow plugs to go in all the way, with the other side being totally fine. I told the builder (contracted an electrician for us), and he gave a bit of a cowboy response, “it’s because of the type of sockets you used”. How can this be fixed?

Wanted to thank everyone who gave advice, the mirror is up and so far seems pretty sturdy!

So I decided to paint my bedroom and hallway this weekend. Relatively small, I live in a flat so not a typical house hallway.

I spent a day sanding the old paint, but after 20 years of various paints it wasn’t getting where I wanted it to be. I’d seen loads of ticktoks about dalapro and how it’s an easy solution to get glass smooth walls.

Is it worth it?

Application was surprisingly easy.

I worked in roughly metre-wide sections, rolled it on floor to ceiling and then flattened it immediately with a 300mm blade.

First section I went in way too thick. Sockets in tight spaces are really tricky.

Once I got the angle/pressure right, I found it pretty forgiving. You definitely don’t need plastering skills to get it onto the wall reasonably flat. It’s not too hard once you’ve got the hang of it but your first few walls will be rough.

Once you’ve got the hang of it and you know how many passes you can do before it gets sticky, or how much pressure to use, it is very easy especially on large flat walls.

The sanding

The bit I underestimated massively was the sanding.
I spent basically two full 8 hour days sanding the bedroom and hallway.

It sands easily, but if you’re trying to get a genuinely smooth finish rather than just “better than before”, there’s a lot of it. And the dust is ridiculous — incredibly fine and gets absolutely everywhere. An extractor attached to the sander made some difference but even a decent extract was getting clogged every 10 mins and the filter needed clearing.

I started with around P150/P180 rather than trying to polish it with really fine paper the 240 to finish it off. Then vacuumed everything down and went over the walls with a dry microfibre before painting.

The finish

I’ve attached pictures of starting point, just sanding the paint down (spent a day doing this) dalapro finish once painting, and a ceiling I didn’t bother doing much prep too once painting.

The verdict

I don’t think I’d get this product again, unless I was renovating a house I didn’t live in that was completely empty and I had an industrial level extract.

It’s not as simple as the tiktok decorators have you believe.

Dust everywhere, hours of sanding, mess everywhere.

It was probably quicker and a better finish than trying to sand the walls down with no dalapro, but the mess and dust counteract the speed.

However I am happy with the finish. You can genuinely go insane with this product as every time you look with a rake light you’ll see another small dint that needs fixing.

Maybe for 1 wall that you’ve removed an old fixing from. But 2 full rooms was a nightmare.

My 77 year old father's house is rapidly showing severe signs of subsidence. He started the claim last August so it's been over a year and we are still waiting to get an official answer from the insurance company.

It's currently getting noticeably worse on a daily basis!

The insurance company have instructed a company to take my monthly external movement measurements (the company has now gone bust after 9 readings, so we're awaiting a new company to turn up). However most of the damage is internal and they are refusing to send a structural engineer to investigate from a safety and security aspect.

My father now cannot open/close multiple doors and windows and there are large areas where you can see daylight, and some you can even get your hand out of. You can clearly see that the floor has dropped 6/7 cm.

I've seen quite a few posts on here of other houses with subsidence, but I'm trying to determine if this is an acceptable state to leave anybody living in, let alone a pensioner.

In my opinion this is now a critical state, and they need to get out to review it asap and provide alternative accommodation if required.

**Edit**

I've posted a video in the comments for those interested. I also forgot to mention, despite the insurers refusing to declare subsidence still, they upped his premium to around £1200 when it was up for renewal mid claim. The so far haven't answered why it's rocketed if they haven't confirmed subsidence. Obviously he was trapped and had to stay with them and pay it as no other insurers would touch it right now

Hi!

I’m considering offering on a three story Victorian semi detached house that needs a full renovation. There are obvious signs of subsidence on the first and second floor bedrooms, landings and stairs (the side of building attached to the neighbour) - have attached some photos. There’s also a cellar and I’d hope to do a double story side extension on the opposite side of the house to where the cracks are forming, just in case that makes any difference.

I’d really appreciate an honest view on how bad this looks and what would be a gut feel on fix/costs. I have no experience with this sort of thing and whilst I’d be left with spare cash to throw at it I don’t want to end up in a risky position with mortgages, insurance and reselling (not sure what dictates how badly these three things are impacted, have heard good and bad stories through hearsay).

Thanks so much!

I’ve been laying laminate flooring throughout my house, but wondering how I approach this edge as there will be underlay and the chipboard visible from the side.

Is there some kind of nosing for this?

Any help much appreciated!

Some of you may remember that a few weeks ago, I was in the process of removing a gas fire and installing a log burner. It turns out there was no lintel in our chimney breast and so I thought I’d take a few pics on how we sorted this and after some assistance from a HETAS stove installer, got our log burner in!

Thanks for all of the advice on the last post!

l've done all the usual YouTube/Google searches, and tried pliers, screwdriver, penetrating fluid, brute force, but nothing is working. I don't have access to a vice, unfortunately.

The blade has only been in for a couple of weeks. I suspect it's inserted a little too deep, and one of the teeth is somehow snagged?

Honestly at a complete loss, and wondered if any of you clever folks have any solutions?

Thanks is advance.

Recently upgraded my internet and this socket is obsolete now, so I’d like to remove it as it’s quite the eyesore. I’m currently decorating the hall so it’s the perfect time! Can I just snip through the wire coming through the window and seal over it or something? I just want it gone 😭

Noticed the door suddenly catching and upon investigation can see that the corner of the floor seems to now be sitting higher than before and closing the gap between it and the door.

These are laminate tiles with two layers of fibre underlay on top of concrete (converted from a garage by a previous owner).

I’ve managed to lift the floor in this corner and the underlay seems bone dry and tiles don’t appear warped, so can’t work out what’s caused the change.

The door itself seems to be fine, gaps all even at the top and sides and no movement in it so don’t think that has shifted.

Advice needed on LVT flooring installation

As you can see in the photos, we had some worn-out floorboards replaced near the right wall and window (where the kitchen is going to be fitted). Which were a higher height the originals

These new replacement boards sit slightly higher than the rest of the subfloor.

We paid the company for both the fitting and floor prep, but it looks like they’ve just laid the plywood directly over that height difference without checking if it was level as you can see in the image where plywood is seen

Now, as highlighted in green, the LVT is bouncing and flexing all around that area because there is a void underneath where it bridges over the raised boards.

The rest of the house is fine where the floor was level, but this specific spot is very noticeable when walked on.

We are withholding the remaining £1,000 fitting balance until this is resolved, especially since we have a kitchen being fitted against that exact wall and window.

Do people think this needs to be rectified before the kitchen goes in?

What is the proper fix the fitters should be doing to correct this raised area and stop the bounce?

Advice on how to deal with contractor

They priced to prep subfloor and fit and I have a invoice to prove this

Any advice please