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Hello I've just had a wall skimmed in a bedroom. We'd taken all the old plaster off surrounding the window as it was blown really badly so the plasterer put drywall onto the brick work and then skimmed over it. Now I want to fix a curtain pole above the window but I'm wondering if I should...

Hello I've just replaced 5 fence posts in the back garden as the original posts were very old and had rotted, bringing the fence panels down in high winds. Obviously I dug out the original concrete boulders housing the old fence posts, and they took up quite a bit of room (and bags of...

Hello I had my kitchen ceiling skimmed a couple of weeks ago. The stuff which the ceiling was treated with prior to skimming (presumably PVA? I never watched him, I just let him get on with it) has streaked in places down my walls (which are painted with vinyl emulsion) I went round the...

Hello This morning my electric shower kept cutting out during use. The shower is a Mira Advance and we've had it for about 7 years. What happened is that it would work for roughly a minute, then it would just stop - the red light at the isolator switch would go off, and the light on the power...

My other half is looking to buy an electric cooker for his house he's hoping to rent out. Most of the cookers he likes are around 9KW+ and in the specs they all say that the fuse rating is 32amps (which is what he's got). However, his electrician says that he should get an oven no greater than...

Hello I seem to be having problems with my kitchen mixer tap. I can get hot water from my bathroom mixer tap, and also from the little sink in my downstairs toilet (I don’t have a bath and my shower is electric) but I can only get hot water from the kitchen tap if I turn on the hot tap in...

Hello I am currently wallpapering the living room and only have one wall left to do. However I am having big problems (in that 'I can't') unscrew the last electrical socket enough to be able to fit the wallpaper slightly behind the socket itself. It's a single plug socket and the right hand...

Hello I am about to wallpaper my living room (I’ve already wallpapered two bedrooms, a landing and down the stairs to a not flawless but not too bad either standard). The thing that I always find the most stressful though is wallpapering the inner corners. I know that the correct way to do it...

I have just bought a Titan SDS drill and am following the instructions as to how to insert the drill bit. It says insert with a twisting motion until it latches, but I'm doing that but it's not getting very far in at all (you can still see part of the bit's grooves and it can be pulled out...

Hello I put some washing in the washing machine this evening to wash (though I didn't over fill it). Went into the other room to do some ironing and after a while heard a loud banging noise so I returned to the kitchen to investigate. I discovered the washing spinning away (loudly) but the...

Hello I am currently in the process of wallpapering my landing, passageway and stairway. Whilst I'm not brilliant I'm competent(ish) but I'm about to wallpaper the wall above the top of my stairs on the landing. Now normally when you wallpaper you’re either wallpapering to the skirting or...

Hello A few months ago I had my passageway skimmed, including a tiny part of the ceiling in front of the front door (which is slightly lower than the rest of the ceiling). I am in the middle of wallpapering the stairs now, which will include the passageway, and in preparation I have sized...

Hello I'm looking to replace an old window sill (and by 'replace' I mean fit a pvc window sill on top of the original wooden window sill as it can't be removed as the wood seems to be fitted into the surrounding walls). As my walls are out, especially on one side, I'm guessing that there...

Hello I've just had some bedroom carpets fitted with nice thick underlay. They look great, but unfortunately I now am unable to get the bedroom doors back on properly because of the added thickness. The doors are those 6 panel Pine Colonial ones from Maxwells that are hollow inside. I...

Hello When my father died we arranged for the removal of his stairlift by the company. They did so, but neglected to remove the wiring at the top of the stairs (I think I was pretty pre-occupied with my grief and funeral arrangements etc to bother with following this up at the time). Now...

Hello I live in the house previously occupied by my parents (both now deceased) and I'm currently in the process of doing the place up. My parents had an alarm fitted back in the 1990s (I think?) which is an Omnicron 7000. To my knowledge it hasn't worked for a good few years now but...

Hello I'm in the middle of decorating what used to be my parents' old home (now mine) and would like to remove a telephone socket from a bedroom that is no longer needed. I'm aware (basically from reading posts on here) that it isn't just a simple case of cutting the wires off at the wall...

Hello A couple of weeks ago my partner and I removed the radiator in the bedroom so that I could wallpaper the wall behind. I looked up the steps for rehanging the radiator and 'thought' it was going to be straightforward (ha!). We had a bit of difficulty getting the radiator onto the...

Hello I’m having a problem with water leaking from around the base of my bathroom toilet. I noticed this a while ago (a few months maybe?) but oddly it doesn’t seem to be a regular thing – it will seep for a few days, then it’ll be dry for a week or so, then it’ll start seeping from the...

Hello I'm in the process of wallpapering (well, just lining at the moment) one of my bedrooms which contains a chimney breast and I'd appreciate some advice/tips about wallpapering the external corners. I've wallpapered once before (but only dealt with half drops because of a dado rail)...