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My son recently bought a house, the previous owner of which did extensive renovations of the plumbing, including enclosing the WC in a Fort Knox of plywood. Water has started intermittently leaking into the pan. I have fixed a similar problem on my own WC (replaced the siamp valve) but mine has...

Not a DIY question but this is something I want to understand before I die. I have a gravity shower fed from the hot water cylinder and the cold water tank. Every other time I turn on the shower the water is only flowing about half as fast as it ought to. Usually I can fix this by holding the...

Three years ago I treated my fences with Cuprinol Clear Wood Preserver. I used seven 5 litre cans which cost around £45 each. I didn't keep any empty cans but I am pretty certain that it was a solvent based product and was sold as a self-contained five year treatment. The fences are in...

Not quite a DIY question so hope it is permissible. I intend to build a platform of 6 * 5 2 foot (60cm) square paving slabs for a shed base, i.e. 30 slabs making a 12' by 10' base. When I say 'intend to build' that is in the sense of Christopher Wren 'building' St. Paul's cathedral. When I...

When I found water was leaking from the kitchen sink into the cupboard below it I thought it would be one of the screw fittings on the U trap or pipes leading into it. But the water is coming through a dried up seal where a circular black plastic fitting sits against the the metal sink, as in...

I have never had to do anything on the distribution board other than reset a switch when something has tripped, but I have a genuine problem this time. First, some pics of the board: The problem is the leftmost of that bank of four switched units (I'll call it no. 1). It tripped on...

I needed a spare key (already have three) for a Yale lock I fitted to the front door more than 30 years ago. The key is only copyable by Yale who require my signature before doing the job. Two problems here: 1. They charge a fortune (about £40 I think, was £5.75 once) 2. They are not doing keys...

I have a 7' * 5' shed sitting on an 8' * 6' base made from 2' * 2' flagstones (i.e. 12 flags arranged 4 * 3). It looks like these flags have been laid directly on the soil but the platform looks flat and level enough. I would like to upgrade to a 10' * 8' shed. On the face of it the job looks...

Isn't this just what you want to hear. 'There's water dripping from the top of the airing cupboard'. Fortunately the leak was easy to spot. It's from the big plastic water tank, where a pipe enters near the bottom: I've put a bucket under the leak and the rate is one drop every four of five...

I'm posting this on behalf on an FB friend who I live nowhere near, so apologies for this being a bit second hand. She lives in a rented house and she is worried that the house might be structurally unsound. She has sent these pics of an exposed lintel; note the third one, that appears to show a...

This is curiosity rather than a practical problem. This doorbell and push switch have been part of the house since I moved in thirty years ago, and probably date to the time the house was built (1952). The push switch is inside the porch, the white wire leading to a second (modern plastic) push...

The cord switch in my bathroom is showing signs it is about to depart for Valhalla. I had a look on the B and Q website and it gives a choice between a 1-way and a 2-way switch. Can anyone tell me which of these I need? Here is a pic of the old one: Thanks, Chris

My central heating system has a cylinder and a small tank in the loft so I think it counts as 'open vented'. I don't go into the loft too often but I have noticed that whenever the heating is on, hot water gushes quite fast into the small tank (which I presume is the expansion tank). See photo...

The boiler man did the annual service this afternoon. At 5:30pm the hot water switched on and the whole system was much noisier than usual. The noise didn't seem to be coming from any one place. Also, the pilot light in the boiler was off and it took several attempts to ignite it. I've noticed...

The plumber came round to service the boiler, which is in the outside WC. A few hours afterwards the timer switched the boiler on and water came deluging into the WC apparently from the boiler. It turned out the water was coming from behind a nut above the boiler, see arrow in photo. I don't...

I have a toilet with a 9 litre cistern. It has developed a crack: It leaks about four pints of water overnight which is pretty bad and I have learned from other posts it could disintegrate at any time, deluging house and home. I know either the cistern or the whole toilet have to be...

A leaky upstairs radiator valve has caused black staining on the wallpaper in the room below: All is now dried out and ready for redecoration. I was going to repaper but I've found the existing (embossed) wallpaper is marked as paintable. My question is, can I paint over that level of...

The side panel on my bath is like a sheet of black glass. A builder friend has told me it is called Vitrolite, made at one time by Pilkingtons but no longer available. At least one of the Mersey tunnels used to be lined with it, he says. The panel has a fracture in it. I could ignore the...

I was sitting in the bedroom last night when I heard a POP and all the upstairs lights went out. A burning smell told me the (100W) bulb had fried in its socket. This is what the socket looked like today, glass shade removed: There was a sticker on the lampholder saying 'Max bulb 100W' so...

This should be a trivial job but I don't know how to go about it. If it weren't for the pipes I'd just use sandpaper to remove the peeling paint and decades of grime from the skirting board then repaint. But I can't see any obvious way of getting behind the pipes, which themselves need...