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I agree copper olives are better than brass ones. Irritatingly though, nearly all compression fittings come with brass olives, forcing you to buy the copper ones separately - and they're not always easy to find

The picture shows an inspection/access hatch within a few inches of the hole, so it would be a bit bizarre to deliberately make the hole to clear a blockage. The hole looks to me caused by rust, so the area around it might be fragile also. I would carefully clean off all the paint around the...

Modern push button cisterns are NOT syphonic - there is no syphon. Instead the push button opens a valve at the base of the cistern to allow the cistern to drain out and flush the toilet. The means of governing the cistern refill - ball valve or inline float system - is completely separate from...

Why would nesting birds get "cooked"? The space under solar panels will be cooler because no sun can get there - be definition. Birds will definitely get under the panels if you don't install some sort of mesh around them. Apart from nesting they'll make a terrible mess with their droppings

Plumbers quite often suggest replacing the boiler but, even though yours is 25 years old, if some radiators and you HW are getting hot then it is not the boiler at fault. Probably need to start with removing the radiators that don't get hot and flushing them through with a hose. Then think...

And/or actually FLUSH the loo before photographing it!

These bleed valves seal against the raditor by compressing a rubber O-ring. This detiorates with time and this may be the cause of the leak. Nipping it up may stop the leak for a while but, if the O-ring is getting hard, then it might start leaking again. Eventually you'll probably need to...

It sounds like the system has been drained and re-filled several times whilst you have owned it. Did you always replace the corrosion inhibitor each time? If not, that could be the source of the black sludge you're encountering and the fact that several radiators have had to be replaced. As for...

The quickest action would be to leave open the access "door" that you have opened to take the picture, when outside temperatures get low. That'll keep it at "garage room" temperature, but also make the garage room a bit colder I guess. I don't think insulation on its own over the water entry...

Have any of the tradesmen actually gone around and balanced the radiators? That is: adjust the lockshield valves on each radiator to ensure that water doesn't flow preferentially to only a sub group of radiators? That could be the reason why some of your radiators don't get very warm rather than...

Henrad seem to offer "designer" radiators rather than the standard single & double panel convector radiators offered by Stelrad and what appears to be the connected company Prorad. However, their website does say "part of the Stelrad group" so the radiators offered should be similar quality to...

If the olive has been over-compressed than I guess your "more difficult solution" just involves removing the old olive and putting on a new one. You can get olive splitting tools that remove them quickly and cleanly. You can also use a hacksaw but you have to be careful not to saw into the pipe.

The bottom nut which you attempted to seal with PTFE tape and jointing compound looks to be a compression joint. As such, the nut and its thread do NOT form a seal - the seal is formed by an olive around the pipe which is compressed when the nut is screwed up. So the only way to improve the seal...

If all the radiator valves are fully open, that's your problem. The hot water is flowing through the other radiators and by-passing the problem one. As has been said, turn off completely all the lockshield valves on all the other radiators (but fully open the TRVs) and see if the problem...

When you flush YOUR toilet do you see anything going through your manhole? If you don't, I suspect that the toilet drains from all the terraced houses combine and this single pipe is teed into the pipe that runs through your manhole someplace a bit downstream of it. That would explain why you...

That's a bit of a nerve suggesting someone is using "too much" toilet paper. People use as much toilet paper as they need to get themselves clean. It's not up to anyone else to tell them how much to use. Modern toilet cisterns are so small they cannot use siphon flushing and instead have a valve...

If the radiator is not actually obstructing where the stove is going, I would leave it in place. You can then see if you actually save any money by turning it off when the stove is burning. A better plan would be to fit the radiator with a thermostatic valve so it turns itself off when the stove...

Going back to the original question about how you could move the wall thermostat from the Hall. If your existing themostat has a neutral supply (which nearly all older wall mounted thermostats have) then you can do this by getting a 2-unit thermostat which has a receiver unit replacing the...

Calling this a "rat flap" implies that it can open to allow a rat to pass through it (like a cat flap). Correct me if I'm wrong, but I suspect you don't want that? In which case, you'll need a permanently attached cover for the elongated hole as Nife F and Mottie suggest.

A cost of nearly £500 just to obtain a pump, massflow sensor and cable, and not include the labour to fit these items, seems very high to me. Are you sure your Home Emergency Cover insurance company didn't encourage the "engineer" they sent out to exaggerate the cost so they could reject the claim?