Recent content by amyboo

Can anyone help? We have old oak wooden floors in the lounge and hallway. They were sanded and re-varnished about 2 years ago with a polyurethane varnish. I have some of the varnish, as I had to do a bit of the floor myself a year ago, when we removed a fitted bedroom carpet and found some of...

It's a waste water pipe for the kitchens in our building - carries sink, washing machine and dishwasher waste water. The existing pipe is lead, the replacement pipe would be PVC. Anyway, I can see I won't get a straight answer on here. I don't need a lecture about how you should establish the...

Thanks for the answer. The plumber has pretty much established where the leak is, but cannot be certain until he knocks the hole in the ceiling that he'll need to make in order to access/replace the pipe anyway. It's definitely coming from between my appartment and the ground floor - we know...

One of the drainage downpipes in my appartment building is leaking. My plumber seems to feel the leak is just above the ceiling in the entrance hallway, jus before where the pipe enters the wall and goes into my (lovely fitted) kitchen. Plumber has suggested replacing a section of the pipe from...

Build a nice ledge at the end of the bath. We have a gap of about 15-20cm at the end of ours which was filled as a ledge level with the end of the bath. It's then tiled in the mosaic tiles that we used on the bath panel. The only thing is you have to be careful not to allow water to sit on it...

Why didn't you hide the water pipes behind the toilet? And have you put wood panelling in a shower?

Why were your rooms so cold to start with? It's far more economical on the heating bills to keep rooms at a higher temperature permanently... I only let my heating go down to 17oC overnight, and 18oC in the day. The heating cuts in every morning and evening to take the temperature up to 20.5oC...

I tried spray stuff on a radiator recently and it was rubbish. Had to sand it all off and start again with a tin of paint and a brush. Apart from anything else, the spray stuff gets everywhere - you have to cover all around where you're painting. I'm guessing this would be pretty hard to do on a...

Thankfully here in Belgium we have rules that protect the buyer. If a seller deliberately hides a problem (like panelling a wall that's damp, putting a bucket in a closed roof space to hide a leak, etc) they are liable for ALL costs relating to the repairs. Unfortunately this doesn't protect...

Are you using exterior paint? You can't use normal emulsion on outside walls.....

I used bleach to kill black mould around some windows in my house (left by previous owners...). I left it to dry out for a few weeks during the Summer and then simply re-painted with normal emulsion. It hasn't returned - I obviously ventilate better than the old owners! If I were you, I'd...

I had an old toilet like this in my flat, which was replaced for a closed cistern type one - yes, one of the ones with a dual flush. However, we have presurrised mains water in this country, so most things get flushed away using the small flush... Anyway, what I wanted to say is that we had...

Nope there's no visible leak in my appartment, which is my issue. My building copropiété (kind of management group thing) will pay for the pipe replacement from the joint building account, but will not pay for the damage caused to my lovely kitchen! The insurance won't pay out either, as there's...

Hmm, well you've all confirmed what I suspected. The leaking pipe is very minor and irritatingly not covered by the insurance until it actually causes a disaster! So, I think we'll crack on with the retiling when we've got some money in a couple of months, and get rid of all the old tiling as we...

Thanks for the helpful tips! I think I found the Belgian equivalent of No More Nails. I used that in the smaller holes, and then some evil resin bonding stuff in the larger problem holes, and it's worked a treat. All the rawlplugs are solid as anything! Thanks so much for all your helpful tips!