The question A homeowner is part-way through a rear extension and wants to fit a 3.1m aluminium bifold door set into a new cavity wall. The architect hasn’t given them a clear answer on where in the wall the frame should sit, how to bridge the cavity at the threshold, or how to get solid […]
A homeowner has a houseful of double-glazed uPVC windows fitted by a national installer maybe ten to fifteen years ago. Several of the handles have gone loose – one or two feel like they could come away in your hand. The trouble is there are no visible screws and no obvious cover plates to lever
Loose uPVC Window Handles With No Visible Screws: How To Tighten Them Read More »
A homeowner in a UK property noticed small damp spots, roughly 5mm to 10mm across, spreading over one internal living room wall and creeping onto others. The room had been replastered the previous year, and the house was mid-extension with no working boiler or heating at the time. Condensation was visible on the windows, mould
Damp and Mould Spots Appearing Across Living Room Walls – What’s Going On? Read More »
A homeowner with a front room controlled by a two-way switching setup – four wall lights and two ceiling lights – wants to swap one of the standard switches for a double dimmer. The dimmer has three terminals marked L1, C, and L2, and there are extra cables in the back box because the lighting
How Do I Wire a Double Dimmer Switch on a Two-Way Lighting Circuit? Read More »
You’ve taken down an old pendant light and found three cables dangling from the ceiling rose, each with its own brown, blue, and green-and-yellow wire. It looks like a mess. You were expecting two wires, maybe three at a push, and now there are nine conductors staring back at you. One of the blue wires
Why Does My Ceiling Light Have Three Sets of Wires and How Do I Connect Them? Read More »
A homeowner with a push-button Ideal Standard toilet noticed that after a routine flush, water kept running steadily into the bowl. It wasn’t a full-flow gush – more a constant trickle, loud enough to hear from outside the bathroom. The toilet had worked fine for years with no issues, and this started out of nowhere.
Why Won’t My Cistern Stop Running After a Flush? Read More »
A homeowner with a ceiling-mounted bathroom extractor fan – wired to come on with the shower pull cord – found that the vent was letting freezing cold air pour into the bathroom around the clock. Looking up into the fan from inside, she could see flexible ducting running through the loft to an external wall
My Bathroom Extractor Fan Lets the Cold Air In – What Can I Do? Read More »
A homeowner looking to buy a detached house – only eight years old – spotted vertical cracks on the external brickwork near a corner. The south-facing wall had two cracks, each around three feet long, one low down and another about four feet up. The east-facing wall had a crack near the same corner and
Vertical Cracks on an External Brick Wall – Should You Worry? Read More »
The problem The leak is with my four year old centre pivot roof window which is only leaking in very windy rain conditions. The water appears internally (at the bottom) left hand side. When I inspected the internal frame further I could find no signs of water anywhere else except for the same area where
Why Is My Roof Window Leaking During Heavy Rain? Read More »
A homeowner has a rendered extension that has been repainted last year. A stabilizer/sealer coat has been applied over the previous masonry paint, and the finish has subsequently bubbled, flaked, and lost its adhesion. They have tried using sandpaper, scrapers, and a general-purpose paint stripper with very little success; they would like a quicker means
Masonry Paint Blistering on Render – Strip Back or Paint Over? Read More »
