Recent content by Donkmeister

Normal concrete laid this way never cures properly. Strength is very low and you find the concrete in the middle is still powder. Bite the bullet and rent/borrow a cement mixer! There is a concrete patch product made for this approach, though. I used it a year back, bought from either Wickes or...

Either way there's a lot of work to single-handedly lay 30-odd metres of kerb (much of it curved). This approach shifts the bulk of the work to the bit dealing with lighter materials that don't have a limited working time. When you have a dodgy old back like mine that's an attractive trade-off!

No, I'll use blocks or setts bedded into mortar for that edge. The poured kerb would just be around the sides.

I'm planning to put in a gravel grid driveway. I will need to retain the edges with a kerb, so am thinking about how to do that. Precast kerb stones and paving blocks are the usual materials in the UK, however I have seen in other countries it is common to assemble formwork and pour a concrete...

I did this when laying a path. I was using up some leftover materials when I decided to lay the path, and I was a little short on MOT1. So, I sprinkled a sack of cement over the top, raked it, damped it and hand-tamped. It did set quite hard for walking on, but it was a faff to do. As it was a...

Update: the really soggy bit was only by the front door. Once I ripped up the rest of the laminate it was clearly suffering from lack of ventilation but wasn't actually wet or lacking structure. I've pulled it all out though so I can replace with insulation and concrete. So my job is now to...

My house was built in the years just after WW1. The ground floor is mostly a concrete slab, but in a couple of places I have found that they poured the concrete a little lower and inset wood directly into the concrete. Comparing notes with someone who has the same design of house, this is an...

Years back I bought a Ryobi Expand-It petrol strimmer, and ended up buying a few accessories over the years. As the engine is a little past its best but the accessories are still in good order, and as I have a few Ryobi battery tools I looked into buying a new electric powerhead. Unfortunately...

I've built a workshop in my garden; construction is 4x2 walls sheathed in 11mm OSB3, then wrapped with breathable roof membrane, with battens and cladding yet to come. For 2 of the 4 walls, aesthetics isn't a concern - the building is in a corner of my garden and the neighbours can't see it. I...

I appreciate costs of everything have gone up in the last couple of years, but has cladding skyrocketed? I have a workshop to clad in my garden, and currently the cheapest of the cheap softwood timber shiplap is coming up at about £30-£40 per square metre... I'm sure when I looked last autumn...

Echoing the above, the reason being that the boiler is in one of two states at any time: "make heat" or "don't make heat". The thermostat being set to 25 degrees doesn't mean that the boiler goes into a high power mode to try and keep up, it simply means that the boiler will be in "make heat"...

Sometimes the simplest suggestion is the best I'll give that a go,

I'm running some conduit and have hit a problem I've never seen before... I'm using a Schneider box with the rubber grommets that can be replaced with a gland or bush, and I've found that the holes are slightly too large for the PVC bushes I've used in the past. On a 20mm hole or knockout these...

Writing this as the temperature has dropped to -2 here... So much for my "5 degrees for extended periods"! I think I'll go for the Beko, glad to hear some good experiences of them.

That's the "builders opening", and those bricks are very unlikely to contain asbestos. From the way the bricks were knocked about at the side I suspect a back boiler used to live there... If there was any asbestos, it left with the rest of the boiler. Is there a flue liner further up? As he...