Recent content by jamie Smith

I have a vauxhall vectra 1.8 sxi on a 53 plate. I noticed the other night that whan the car is unlocked the number plate light will stay on indefinitely (I presume) and will only go off when I lock the car. It also comes on if I open the tailgate only. Surely this isn't supposed to happen...

Thermo and others - thanks for the advice as usual, I have learned my lesson the hard way over the last few weeks, as I had to drag out all the rubbish pointing from 40 sq. m of patio and have now done it the proper way. If i do say so myself, I had done a nice job on the patio, so i didn't...

For the record, Sifu I had similar issues with my own patio about a month ago. I listened to the thermo and the advice is sound - wet bed for you! I laid mine on a bed of compacted stone dust over my hardcore, overlain by the sharp sand/building sand/cement mixture you described and it stuck...

I successfully laid some flagstones a couple of weeks back, barring a few I’ve had to lift and re-set, but my pointing didn’t go anywhere near as smoothly. I looked around at the various bits of advice on the forum and decided to go for a 3:1 building sand to cement, brushed dry into the joints...

Ha ha. Yes, it's been pretty grim and the path needs to dry a bit for you to see the surface. Incidentally, how would you recommend adding pictures. Should I put them up on a site like photobucket and provide links, or is there a way to embed them in the post?

Just another quick question while we’re on the subject….I got talking to nextdoor neighbour this morning about his external wiring. He’s got a spur from inside his kitchen – where he’s then got an 13 amp RCD FCU - and he’s got about 12m of SWA clipped along the top of his fence, which then...

I can't believe the guy with the washing machine, that's priceless. The irony of my situation is that the shed is only 10 feet away from the house, but the way the circuit is wired is up the garden, across and then all the way up past the original starting point and into the shed...like a big...

Thanks. I suspected that might be the case and it has worried me from a safety point of view too. A trainee spark friend of mine suggested some other options: 1. I have a redundant 30 amp shower supply with its own RCD on the CU, which he reckons can be spurred down to use as an alternative...

Hmmm, therein lies the problem I think. The initial run is 10m, then about 7 metres to the next socket, then a whole 20m to the shed. I have never run the tumble and used the other sockets at the same time, what do you think would happen if I did and is there something I can do to enhance the...

OK. As I understand, the kitchen sockets (from which the external sockets are powered) have their own labelled RCD (is this the thing with the trip switch on it?) on the consumer unit, because I can isolate them and they turn off the outside sockets as well. Furthermore, the 'fused spur' I...

Afternoon all I have 3 double external sockets (one of which is in my shed) at my house and wanted to make sure they are set up correctly, being as I don’t know who did them. I have a separate ring on my consumer unit for the kitchen sockets, of which there are four. Only one of those is...

Yes, i'll wait until the rain stops and do one later on.

Morning all I have paths around my house which are surfaced with rough concrete and they look very dirty and tired, as well as being a bit jagged and painful if you fall. I really don’t want to be hacking them away and replacing them, so I was wondering if anyone had any ideas of what I can...

Thanks Thermo, that's what I was after. It now makes perfect sense to me that a bedding material that dries hard and bonds to the underside of the flag - as opposed to slightly stiff sand - is going to give a better long-term result. I'm not the type to get hung up on what my eyes tell me -...

Hi all I've read and digested a lot of the infomation out there on the web - most notably pavingexpert.com and also a lot of the posts on this forum regarding bedding mixtures. Thermo - who appears to know his stuff - recommends wet mortar as opposed to 10:1 a dry sharp sand/cement bed...