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Hi All, I'm in the process of demolishing an old prefab garage, everything was going well until I got down to the strip foundations, it seems the previous owner went a little overkill with the reinforcement and put 30mm thick rebar in it, which is causing me serious grief. The strip is about...

I'm in the process of refitting my bathroom and I need to put in the back box in for the towel radiator heating element, how high does this need to be above the floor? I'm having the electrician put in a programmable timer (Suitably IP rated of course), which I guess means it may need to be...

Evening all! Now that I've just about finished my loft conversion, I thought I better move onto the next item of business, the bathroom. This room was looking pretty dated when I moved in 2 years ago and I'd had to rip up the floor to replace the lead pipe, so it was looking pretty grim. This...

Morning! I'm approaching the end of a loft conversion, just painting and electrics left to do, to my dismay however the floor has started squeaking! It's 22mm t&g chipboard, all joints are glued and they're screwed down with 70mm screws. At first I thought it was because I'd not piloted the...

Morning all! I'm currently in the process of renovating my bathroom, and I'm having trouble wading through all the options and opinions on wall surfaces for tiling. The room is 2.4m x 2.4m, 2 external solid brick walls, 1 plasterboard and 1 plaster and lath wall, upon removing tiles I've...

Afternoon! I've recently installed a new pine staircase in my house, I need to protect them now from scuffs etc. from daily use, any recommendations what I should use? I'd like to keep as close as possible to its current colour which I quite like, and I'm not much of a fan of glossy finishes...

I'm half way through a loft conversion at present (see here), and I've realised there's potential to improve the head room on the first floor stairs by cutting one of the joists. Unforunately I'd already put the loft stairs in place before I realised this, so you might have to use your...

I'm currently planning out the staircase for a new loft conversion, and I've come across a problem. It's a simple straight staircase, but there's a stud wall that starts part way up the stairs, my problem is how do I finish off the handrail where it meets the stud wall? It will be partially...

Evening! The ceiling in my spare room started coming down a few weeks back (not from me mis-stepping I might add!), it's an old lathe and plaster jobbie, about 4 square foot of plaster has come down so far and there's clearly more to come. I'll be replacing it with plasterboard, the question...

Evening all! I thought I'd share with you my loft conversion, hopefully it will be educational for those considering doing their own, there's not many documented conversions about so I hope this one will be helpful to people. I bought my house just over a year ago, a detached 1930s house...

I'm nearing the stage in my loft conversion where I need to fit insulation, I've got a huge stack of 70mm thick Celotex, I need 2 layers of this across the entire roof space. The first layer is straight forwards to fix, just screw through into the rafters, but I'm unsure what to do with the...

Back in spring I completely stripped my garden (full of weeds, stones, glass and generally not very flat!), spread about 8 tons of topsoil and reseeded it. Half the garden now has a lovely thick lawn, but the other half is patchy, yellowing and full of weeds. The two parts of the garden were...

I'm just prepping to fit a Velux window in my loft (GPL S06 with an EDP plain tile flashing kit), and I'm trying to work out what the relevance of the 105mm dimension on this step is about... Unfortunately, because this window is such a tight fit, I can only move it by up to 50mm, so that...

Posted this in 'Floors, Stairs and Lofts' but this is probably a more suitable forum.... I'm planning on installing a couple of roof windows in my loft, since I'm cutting 2 rafters I'll need to double up the side ones, however there's a couple of purlins that prevent me from getting full...

I'm planning on installing a couple of roof windows in my loft, since I'm cutting 2 rafters I'll need to double up the side ones, however there's a couple of purlins that prevent me from getting full length rafters in. How would one go about doubling these up? The only way I can think of is to...

Evening! I'm just working out a few details for a loft conversion, and I'm having trouble finding door frame dimensions. Could anyone tell me what the total width of a door frame will be for a 27" 30 min fire door? I've come across conflicting information, but it appears a standard door frame...

I'm currently planning out a loft conversion, and I'm after some advice on how best to support the joists. My structural engineer has spec'd 152 x 152 x 30 UC beams for the floor, one of which runs through the middle of the room, these support 47 x 147 (regularised 50 x 150) joists, my problem...

I've just had some calculations through from a structural engineer for steels for a loft conversion, which says that no padstones are required assuming the existing bricks have a minimum compressive strength of 20MPa (N/mm^2). The bricks are standard solid red bricks, house built around 1930...

I'm currently in the process of redoing a dodgy loft conversion, this morning I've been removing the old plaster from the walls, I've discovered that the window in the gable wall has no lintel, I'm no builder but this seems absolutely nuts. To make it worse, there's a purlin resting right above...

I currently have about 40m of privet surrounding my house, about 2m of that has been taken over by holly, how should I go about removing it? I don't mind having a gap for a year or 2 (there's already another gap), if I can successfully grow another privet in it's place. I think it's slowly...