Recent content by skwdenyer

Thank you for that. Assuming for a moment that I do "go for it" myself, what is the best sanding strategy - perpendicular to the boards or parallel to them? How should I best deal with the level differences between boards? Just more passes with the sander on the higher boards? Or the same...

Hi there I have a large floor (2100 square feet or so) which is made up of reclaimed (beech) gymnasium flooring. This is T&G boards with pre-existing court markings. Since the floor was clearly sanded "level" in the previous locations, all of the boards are a slightly different thickness...

I'll confirm this from personal experience; although I've never been a professional fire fighter, I did work for a major oil company on a refinery and had fire survival training (in particular zero visibility, breathing apparatus). The protocol is to constantly check for obstructions at head...

Although I've not used them (yet - planning that job for later in the year), I've found the technical people at Ardex (http://www.ardex.co.uk/) very good (and pragmatic!). They have some very smart, very quick-drying products, walkable after 30minutes - 2 hours. Their website seems good -...

Symptoms: many thanks for such a quick reply. Obviously I was getting confused by the term "compacted", taking it to mean sand which was compacted over and above the force of gravity! I'd been assuming I would need a minimum, say, 2" of sand at the least specifically to allow for compaction...

If they dig through an electricity cable, they will usually know about it themselves before you do :) With the wholesale renewal of London's water mains, we had whole sections of the area (10,000 properties) cut off of for many hours at a time. On one occasion, the chap with the back hoe was on...

I've met plenty, and helped some specify much greater than "minimum", because keeping noise down between units turns out to be a surprisingly effective way to increase tenant satisfaction, reduce churn and - ultimately - allow rents to be increased. And, yes, I've seen empirical research done...

Hi Symptoms, many thanks for the reply, and sorry for the delay. When I used the term "expert" it was actually to denote the aggregate (no pun intended...) of a number of points of view, not a pejorative term - didn't really make that clear. One of those opinions was from the EcoScreed people...

Hi This is probably a little outside the realms of many DIY projects, but here goes. I have a 2200 sq ft, ground floor space (approx 28ft x 78ft). It was, we think, originally built as a dairy or laundry. It has glazed-brick walls, and a roof supported by steel pillars up the centre. The...

...or hire another BC officer who likes the stuff :)

If you really must do this (and I don't think it will ever look right) then the only way may to make it look convincing will probably be to make a paper / cardboard template, trim it until it fits perfectly, then transfer to timber and cut out. Alternatively, if you want to do it...

If you're fitting air bricks you're going to have a cold floor / ceiling! At the very least you need to lag those pipes, otherwise they could freeze (and anyhow it is just good practice). If you want to ensure water absolutely can't reach this or any other area again, you're going to have to...

If yours is a "one flat up, one flat down" set-up then there are two likely scenarios: either you share the roof and the foundations, or you have the roof and she has the foundations (and all the repairing liabilities that go with them). In most cases your flat will be leasehold. If you own a...

Does anyone have any observations on this before I get stuck in? Thanks!

It also occurs to me that I could cast in situ some concrete (say 65 mm thick x 70mm wide or so) on top of the DPM, having first deliberately "roughened" the underfloor in those locations before applying the DPM to help with the key. The idea being that the metal fixing channel for the stud work...