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No, leave it as it is and accept that a few chips are to be celebrated as signs of honourable wear and hard use.

Do you know what I would do? I would make a watery solution of PVA glue and squirt it into all the places where there's movement. You can't make a silk purse, etc. etc.

Thanks, in the end this is what I decided to do. I bought some of those clamps and realised that they take up space so won't allow the two units to fit together snugly. Here is the finished job with the tops not screwed down. Mrs RR has got an upholsterer who is going to make cushions covered...

Instead of using timber for the skirting, consider PVCu. You may sneer but I did our downstairs bog with thin strips from a local plastics supplier and was really impressed; it glued on easily and conformed with the wall, it hides the bottom edge of the plaster, it's easy to mitre for the...

Just finshed the carcases of a pair of seats for the kitchen, see picture. Once my in-house decorator (ahem) has finished the painting I'm going to be wanting a way of attaching them together as in the photo to give more stability to the arrangement. The tops are to be screwed on because we...

That's excellent advice; a split AC will give a nice atmosphere in summer espeially if you don't insulate the garage so well.

Always best to run the ancillary radiator off the main producer. A pal of mine is a horticulturalist and has a mahoosive glasshouse heated by a big coal-fired boiler. When he built his house he installed underfloor heating and took flow and return pipes the 75 yards from the boiler house to the...

Your post makes no mention of insulation. With modern insulation you will lose a couple of inches of space but the salon will be far, far more comfortable and one 2 kw oil-filled rad will be sufficient to warm it and warm it quickly in the mornings. In a badly-insulated room, it doesn't matter...

Not tricky at all. Close the two valves. Open the bleed screw. Place a bowl under one of the big chromed nuts that attach the valve to the radiator tail and loosen the nut, waiting patiently while most of the water dribbles out. Jiggling the valve around might help. Once the flow stops, unscrew...

We did have a new raditor fitted in my office a few years ago, which absolutely refused to heat up. Eventually they took down the false ceiling downstairs and found that both the flow and the return were plumbed at different places to the same pipe!

Hell's teeth! What a mess! Did your plumber leave those pipes sticking out and not fit some covers to hide the broken tiles? And what's that mark on the bottom left of the rad? Did he scratch the chrome with his spanner? I'd be ashamed to have left it all in that mess and not cleaned it up...

Surely the traps are not glued to the wastes? It should be possible at least to remove the traps for cleaning and for recovery of lost earrings, teeth, nose jewels etc. It's a disgusting job but worth doing every couple of years as long as you remember not to tip the filthy water back into the...

Sorry to suggest this but... I had the same problem in a small downstairs loo with uneven plaster. I ditched the wood and bought a long piece of PVCu and glued it onto the walls. It looks very minimal and discrete, it hides the rough bottom of the plaster, it's inert, stable, doesn't need...

The problem is that the human nose is incredibly sensitive to the smells of smoke and rotting food, which is a survival thing. So even a few parts per million of smoke in the air will set off your neighbour's spidey senses.

All the above plus: never use cheap silicone, the manufacturers save cost by reducing the amount of fungicide in the formulation. Bleach, sold as mould remover, will almost make the mildew disappear.

I really don't think anybody will notice if you get a taller chimney pot fitted. You will need to talk to your sweep. Also, as we are discovering, ensuring that you burn your stove good and hot with plenty of air will ensure that the fumes rise fast in a coloumn rather than coming out cool and...

Can you get a much taller chimney pot fitted? That would allow your fumes to rise well aboe the neighbour's pot.

We cleaned all that thoroughly when I dismantled it two weeks ago with our sweep. I think it's the cleanness of the flue that's allowing the condensation to dribble down. More soot might hold onto the moisture for longer. I'm beginning to understand that we had slipped into the habit of piling...

Good suggestion. I couldn't go on the roof because it was too wet but had a look at the flaunching with binoculars from a neighbour's window and it looked OK but it might be cracked or even porous so I will definitely have a look this spring.

Thanks. No back boiler in either stove. The fumes emerge from the backs into a T then head vertically through the register plates and from there the flues are unlined. We get through about three builder's bags a year of mixed hardwoods. I have actually weighed a sycamore log freshly-cut then...