Recent content by northstar

Thanks, I might give that a go.

I guess locking is optional, though I'd rather avoid ones with a 'privacy' bolt, much as the kids would probably love them...

We have 4 old doors upstairs that I want to refurbish. From the marks on the doors, they obviously had rim locks originally, but at some point these have been removed and replaced with noisy ball catches. I'd like to go back to rim locks, but haven't been able to find any suitable due to a)...

Thanks for the reply mointainwalker. The sub-floor is damp beside this wall, but seems fine everywhere else. The bridged DPC was the cause of the damp in the wall plate, but the wall itself is damp, so we're lowering the outside ground level (which is higher than internal floor level at...

Resurrecting this thread due to slight change in plans. Lifting more of the floor, we found the wall plate DPC layer had been bridged by rubble at one wall where there is a known issue with damp. As a result the joists are rotten at that end and we're replacing them all with pressure treated...

Thanks mointainwalker. Not looking forward to lifting all these boards, but I'm sure it'll be worth the effort, come winter-time. At least they're square-edged, not T&G. :)

Some time over the next couple of weeks I'm going to tackle underfloor insulation in the living room of an 1850s house. Its a suspended wooden floor with varnished boards (possibly Pitch Pine, not sure) that I'll be lifting and intend to reuse. There isn't much of a crawl space, so insulation...

I've got an uneven wall surface one one side of a fireplace opening that I need to build up to tile on. In some places the difference must be 2-3 inches. Its been suggested to me (by the stove installer) that I build this up using a mixture of sand, cement and bonding (to make it really...

We had a builder reopen a chimney breast for us that had been closed for many years. The plaster on that wall was in a fairly poor condition, so he added a layer of plasterboard on top and skimmed it to give us nice smooth walls. The problem is that he also used plasterboard inside the fireplace...