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Looking closer at the bath outlet I noticed something which seemed to be partiially obstructing the drain. I had to remove the plug and plugholder to see what it was and it turned out to be a badly decomposed ring washer - and under the bath and on top of the trap was a rock hard and badly...

We have a villa in spain. It is of typical Spanish construction from the 1970s having a concrete foundation on which there is a hollow block wall which in turn supports a row of U blocks in to which have been cast a ring beam. On the ring beam are concrete joists and with lightweight infill...

Will an open pipe to the outside help ? - ie a vent pipe - there is a place I can add a thicker type drain tube to the main pipe wher an old sink a was in the past fitted but the position is not used any more so I could open up that outlet and extend a pipe into free air with a suitable bird...

Can't find a better place to post this - mods please relocate if necessary. Hi - our holiday property is in Spain and as it is a little way from the town, like all villas in the area has a septic tank - a two chamber system. Normally this gives no problems but if the property is left...

Hmm - Dampness could be an issue as the original building is some 300 years old and the walls and floor in this part don't have any dampcourse. Will try the vinaagar trick as see what happens.

Hi - Thanks but no other metals around at all - the brick wall is however very old - some 60 years or so and I was wondering if there was any lime in the mortar which could be doing this? I have seen one other case similar to this again with an aluminum frame which was completely eaten though at...

Help please. 5 years ago we hade custom made aluminium door frames in our kitchen leading to a stairway. One of the door frames now is showing a small area of corrosion right against the joint to the wall. The corrosion takes the form of a soft white dry putty like substance which appears...

Living in Spain I have one largish room with a plaster ceiling - ie boarded with sheets of thick white plaster about 1 inch thick which are suspended from the concrete roof (which provides an outside terrace above) on thick wads of hemp covered with plaster - looks medieval but is only a few...

If it has not I will instruct the plumber who isnalled it to ensure there is one ASAP - however if the property is empty for a while then perhaps some form of electric heater might be advisable as a back up. I had thought of building a small cupboard around the boiler with a 150w tube heater and...

Thats very emphatic - is there a reason not to insulate between the rafters? Also if I do not then I suppose I could biuld a mini room to house the boiler from insulating boards and have an electric tube heater on a thermostat in there to prevent it getting down to zero to close to the tubes etc!

Recently a pipe to my boiler which is located in the loft area froze due to the tenant turning the heating off while he went away for a few days. Could have been a lot worse as all that happened was a pipe joint pushed apart and separated and so was pretty easy to fix. Whilst in the loft it was...

Many thanks - if you do have some we can agree a price and I could come over to collect one day - the hole size is as quoted so the glaneed to be 2mm smaller all round - as it is set under glazing beads the glass itself could even be a tad smaller.

My last tenants have kindly cracked a panel on my internal doors and partition of my 1960s semi in the UK - alas the glass is "Spotlight" and is no longer made - I need a piece to fit a hole of 8.75 inches by 35.25 inches - does anyone know where I can get such a piece so I can repair the panel...

Yes the Finlock gutters do cross the cavity and form the top of the inside wall in the upstairs rooms albeit they are plastered. The problem is I think that with settlement they are no longer totally watertight - even if they were when installed. They have certainly settled over the years and in...

Thanks for the above posts - alas now I have had the alaminium guttering put in (several years ago) it will be impractical to overlay another membrane over the top - in addition I live in a semi and the guttering continues around my neighbours house as well so anything we do we do at the same...

Having lived with the problems of having precast contrete gutters, some years ago I had them lined with an aluminium liner. At the same time I had the roof re-felted and rebattoned and all the tiles re-hung. The improvement was dramatic and from having really wet interior walls the house was...

Many thanks for the above post - it seems spray foam may be a viable adhesive and certainly it won't get any exposure to the direct sunlight. There seems to be several type of foam available from the dark yellow stuff seen on the outside of buildings as stated above or a white foam which seems...

What a memory - and many thanks for that - and no I am not ignoring that advice but have moved on from the draughts etc which are now sorted leaving the cold floor problem which over the past four weeks has become even more of an issue due to dramatic temperature drops - what I really want to...

Hi - I am hoping someone here will know what to do. I live in Spain and part of my house is on the second floor but the space underneath some of the rooms is open to the elements and there is no possibility of enclosing that space. Normally there is no problem as the climate here is very...

Which trype of LED device did you use? - I have seen many complaints that light is much poorer from some LED fittings/