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About 8 years ago, I wished to convert a 1930's Garage (too narrow for modern vehicles) into a study at the front and a utility room at the back. However, Severn and Trent had a surface water sewer running through the front garden close and parallel to the front of the building line and would...

"Tile Giant" sells "No More Ply" equivalent to "Aquapanel" plus adhesive, screws etc. No doubt they will sell the adhesive and screws alone if required. Said screws are supposed to be self -tapping and -countersinking.

Looking again at your photographs, it appears that you have exactly the same sort of construction around the front door that we have. The wall at the right hand side as you go over the threshold is a single brick thickness internal wall, yet being exposed to outside temperatures. In other...

The consensus seems to be condensation on a cold wall in the absence of any obvious water infiltration. If you increase local air circulation, any condensation there will evaporate, drying out the area, inhibiting mould growth, and the temperature of the wall will rise to become the same as...

You know the cause is poor air circulation - why not use a small fan to eliminate this? It does not need to be heated, powerful, noisy or large, or on all of the time. It just needs to be able to create changes of air in the affected location when the ambient temperature outside is much...

It sounds like a neighbour's water pipe noise. We suffered from a neighbour's very noisy waterpipe in one bedroom only, every time they used their shower first thing in the morning - which was at 6am weekdays. They were unaware of the noise - because the occupant of the adjoining bedroom...

Corners should have an expansion gap, so if tiles are butted in the corner, and grouted, rather than having the corner with a proper gap and a flexible silicone fillet, tiles can loosen with expansion/contraction and grout erosion. It is possible to grind a small amount from the edge using a...

I once had walls like this in a between-the-wars ex-council house - beneath a relatively tough plaster skim was a soft, pebbly sand render, and then clinker blocks, with a skin of bricks on the outside. As soon as the drill kicks out a 6-10 mm pebble, the hole doubles in size, the drill goes off...

A yellow tint is not a problem as far as the plants are concerned. The only visible wavelengths required for photosynthesis are in the red and blue parts of the spectrum. Green is obviously not absorbed by chlorophyll and is totally reflected, as are most yellow wavelengths by carotenoids...

Batteries have become quite a lot more dangerous than they used to be, when a leak could ruin your torch. All batteries - including genuine ones - can become unstable in use due to corrosion and damage, and lithium ion or lithium polymer rechargeables may explode with an impressive display of...

It seems difficult to get kosher original manufacturer or genuine aftermarket rechargeable batteries for electronics from online suppliers. Even when the price asked for is not impossibly low, it is no guarantee that the items advertised are not knock-offs. I wanted a battery for a...

Could be from the waste pipe trap - if the waste of the washer empties into a standpipe p-trap (e.g. http://www.screwfix.com/p/washing-machine-trap-40mm/18640), sludge in the trap could be foul leading to smells. Similarly compound waste traps under the kitchen sink may benefit from being...

You are using too dilute bleach, and probably washing it off after a short time. This is not biocidal, just cosmetic, and the mould will regrow in a short time. It's like putting a dash of bleach in the loo and then flushing it away after a couple of minutes, where the instructions recommend an...

Fans to move air about are about the cheapest way to get internal surfaces dry by increasing evaporation and then raising surface temperatures to that of the ambient air. Ventilation to the outside is most useful when the outside air is coldest, and contains the lowest amounts of water. A...

80 year-old ceiling joists will have changed in various ways over the years, with warping, shrinkage and creep. The plaster and lath will expand and contract with temperature and relative humidity changes affecting over-boarding directly to the old plaster. Even opening and closing doors to...

It could well be cold bridging from the electric socket box and a conduit down to the subfloor space, with the subsequent draught continually chilling the box during the spring and autumn/winter months. In the summer, despite humid and warm conditions, the cold spot remains, but without the...