Recent content by cycloneuk

We do have a water meter, but it’s in the living room, so there’s no way to detect a leak. Next door have the same issue, although they’ve just had internal insulation, which should fix it—or hide it for a few years if done badly. Not condensation I don't think, could be a combination of rising...

Because the ceiling is lath and plaster, the loft side has ridges where the plaster comes through the laths. I wouldn’t be able to get the boards to sit flush, so there would be an air gap between the board and the ceiling, which I’m guessing would drastically reduce effectiveness but maybe...

One of the worst walls is inside a covered alleyway, so there’s no direct exposure to rain along that wall. We do have an incoming water main on that wall, so a leak is a possibility, but the completely separate wall on the other side of the living room also has damp issues.

It’s in patches on the bottom 6 inches of one wall, and on another wall it comes up about 1m, gets worse when the weather is wet.

We live in a mid-terrace 1920s house with solid walls. The living room and kitchen have quarry tiles, while the dining room has a suspended floor. The main problem at the moment is in the living room. We have damp along two walls, and we also have laminate flooring, which I know isn’t ideal for...

We live in a mid-terrace house, and the upstairs ceilings at the front and back slope for the last 16 inches or so. The problem is that the ceilings are old lath and plaster, so they’re pretty thin, and these sections have no insulation. The rest of the loft is boarded, although not very well...

I have a 1930s house with some damp rising along 2 of the walls, nothing major apart from some flaky paint on 1 of the walls. It's 9" brick solid wall with a very small cavity of around 20mm. I have got some of the Dryrod kits off Amazon, there is an existing damp membrane that I can see along...

I need to get the pots back on and do the flaunching, how long will it take before it's safe if it rains? chance of scattered showers for next day or so but will be hit and miss.

I used 4:1 with a bit of plasticiser, that was recommended on another forum. Nearly every single one of them exposed bricks I could wiggle and pluck out straight out. I think the flaunching had been done in the past, but somone had just gone over the top of lime by the looks of it, it was white...

I knew the 1 pot was leaning, but now have scaffold up and have been able to take a better look. I need to redo the flauncing and reset the pots, I did the other chimneys flaunching in 2/1/1 of sharp sand, builders sand and cement. The top 3 exposed courses are going to likely need rebuilding...

I am trying to decide on what hearth to use for a new stove, the stove is suitable for a 12mm hearth so shouldn't get too hot. I have heard of a lot of people with stoves where the hearth as cracked. I was looking at something like this 2 piece slate hearth...

I know if you have a stove inside the recess then it needs to be 125mm of non-combustible material, what about the hearth outside the recess, does that also need to be 125mm if the stove sits in the recess or can that be less? I have widened my opening and the actual recess was built up to about...

So it is a brick arch lintel like I thought further up, wow this fireplace must of been huge originally. I presume I could safely make it back to the original size? but a 5kw stove would look lost in it. I think I will add a lintel further down and just extend the sides to my required width.

I have just removed a inset gas fire and the chimney sweep is coming next week. I want to install a stove and the existing opening is d17cm w44cm h70cm which seems quite small. There appears to be a gather in front with a metal lid on top, I though it had a small back boiler or something but it...

I presume these https://www.screwfix.com/p/quicksilver-pz-double-countersunk-woodscrews-10-x-4-100-pack/14275?_requestid=234587 will be fine for the trimmers/noggins? Is 2 screws enough in each end?