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My mother has a 60's vintage Potterton Kingfisher gas boiler. She had it serviced this week and has been told that it finally needs replacing due to corrosion, it hasn't done badly as I reckon it is around 45 years old! However I think her rad system is a single pipe one (I think these were...

Thanks, I'll try and do it that way then. Failing that, I see that BT will install it at home for £50. I don't think that's a bad deal, as I reckon I would have to charge him £40 for fuel alone if I do it.

A friend has asked me to set up his new BT router-the catch is that it's at his holiday home which is 2 hours from where I live. I don't really fancy 4 hours driving just to do probably one hours set up. Would it be possible to set up the router configuration on his main home ADSL line using...

It's actually worse than that. The BT cable terminates just above the front door in one of the old style oval boxes. There are two extension cables exiting that box, one to the ground floor lounge and one to the first floor front bedroom. Then from the front bedroom a further extension is run...

I just had a look at the phone socket in my lounge and it is wired as follows: 2: Blue with white hoops. 5: Orange with white hoops. Should it not be: 2: blue with white hoops. 3: orange with white hoops. 5: white with blue hoops. The white with orange hoops and white with blue hoops are...

Hi Breezer, didn't realise you did computers as well as electrics? Now why didn't I think of that? When connected to an external monitor the display is fine. So it has to be a hardware failure?

I have been given a friend's old laptop to fix. It's a Compaq Presario 900 running Windows XP. It was full of spyware and viruses. I have cleaned out everything I can find and installed proper antivirus and anti-spyware. There is a fault remaining with the display, it has a vertical band from...

My house has a single storey rear extension, built in 9" brick (no cavity walls) with a pitched single slope roof covered with fibre cement slates. It was re-roofed around 2000 and I don't think any form of roof insulation was applied at the time. At the same time the interior ceilings were...

Oh well, there goes my first million...

Looking at the number of posts on here that relate to problems identifying switch cables in lighting circuits got me thinking. Why not a future change to the regs that specifies different colours for switch cables only-maybe brown, brown/blue stripe, plus existing earth? This would also remove...

No, they just isolated the house, in and out in about 30 minutes. Said they've been doing these service heads for the last 5 years and that's about all they do. So they're obviously used to waving live cables around (is that why they work in two's?). Apparently mine was last changed in 1970...

I just had the new service head fitted today by EDF, pic attached. I asked them if they could fit me an isolator while they were doing it, and received the reply, 'no mate, we're just jointers, not electricians'. Just curious as to what level of electrical knowledge you need to have (or not...

Thanks. Right, I'll go and look for my floorboard-lifting jemmy...once the wife's gone out...

Mark-no, the downstairs switch is in a single storey rear extension, no upstairs socket above that! Yes I have a cable detector, will try that, didn't think it would work though floorboards. ban-sorry, I meant to say 32A. Yes, switch cable is all 1.5mm. Yes, sure both sockets are on the ring...

Can anyone assist me with this please?

Thanks. I thought this would be a simple job but it's turning into a bit of a whodunit-or maybe a 'whowiredit'? I took the front off the double socket that I assumed the light had been spurred from (because that socket is about a foot above and a foot to the right of where the light cable...

Can I just check one detail on this please? I'm now installing the FCU next to the double socket, must I use 2.5mm T+E to spur the socket up to the FCU, then OK to use the existing 1.5mm T+E transferred over to the FCU from the socket?

What about Lectrician's point about swapping the existing switch for a switched FCU? Well, he didn't exactly say that, but that was what I inferred from it. PS: I just rechecked the cable, the light is definitely wired in 1.5mm.

I'd need to double check in daylight, but it's either 1 or 1.5mm. Certainly not 2.5mm T&E.