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Can anybody shed any light on this? We have been using multi-fuel stoves for 20 years without problems. We have used our stove (Dovre 250) in our house since 2004 without any problems. The flue is un-lined clay sections a little bigger than the stove pipe in an outside wall chimney. It started...

I also regret fitting vertical rads in our hall and kitchen. Firstly, I don't believe the thermal output is as much as it would be if the rad was mounted sideways where a broad band of air could pass through the fins and collect heat. Secondly, the intense area of heat just above the rad and...

The pictures are so bad that it's almost impossible to work out what's going on. The OP would do better to borrow a proper camera with manual focussing or focus hold and exposure override so as to get a decent shot that's in focus and not over-exposed. Then the experienced eyes on here can...

I thought the standard recommended water temperature was 60c? Dunno what that would be on a dial numbered 1-6 though. I would just turn it up to max and let the room stat do the controlling.

Just stumbled upon this thread and had an enjoyable read while munching my lunchtime sandwich. My wife and I have always dreamed of moving to Scotland and now that our son has gone off to uni the prospect is looming. We have a nice house in Lancashire but we are heartily sick of the traffic and...

We had this with the Y valve on our system so I changed it and on dismantling the valve could find nothing wrong except that the arm, which moves the rubber ball to close the two ports, had a little slop in its action, which would explain the thump we occasionally heard. I wrote to Honeywell who...

All DG units will eventually fail and get condensation inside. The reason is that the spacers have to be made slightly porous to allow the air pressure inside to equalise as the atmospheric pressure changes. Every time there's high pressure a few molecules of moisture will flow into the gap and...

With the massive amount of UV at that altitude any plastic will discolour over time. What's wrong with toughened glass? Typical Alpine chalet restaurant balconies are sheltered with big sheets of glass to create a draft-free sunspot. Have a look around any ski resort.

I've played this game when fitting new doors in my house and it can be a nightmare trying to reuse the same rebates. You're better off filling the old hinge rebates with a strip of wood, glued and pinned, then starting again with brand new hinges and new rebates. Fit three hinges to each door as...

Surveyors, eh? One of them failed to spot that almost every gable in an estate of bungalows had been rebuilt and that in my friend's prospective purchase both gables were heading sideways thanks to no cross-bracing. She bought the house then realised and went after the surveyor. They refused to...

With South-West Water I believe you are allowed one leak in any three year period, so you shouldn't have to pay for lost water at least.

A dropped loop would be where the flow and return pipes come down from the first floor, for example. This could be trapping sludge. That you have a new TRV and the rad isn't warming up should point to the new TRV being wrong. Unscrew the collar and remove it altogether - what happens now?

My son went though a phase of being obsessed by alarm systems and begged, stole or borrowed all kinds of bits and pieces. In the end you couldn't enter his bedroom without all Hell breaking loose. Now he's at Uni and we've got a big hobby box full of bits to give away for a tenner, enough to...

Why do people always film and photograph in portrait? Why can't they work out that TV and computer screens are in landscape?

Lagging won't stop your pipes expanding when they get hot. It will stop them fretting against woodwork and ticking though. None of the CH pipes in my house are lagged except where they run under the kitchen floor; I guess the idea is that any heat loss goes into the structure of the house, which...

I find they leak if you press on the screwdriver while turning the valve.

Make sure the wood is very dry indeed and burn smallish pieces very hot or the resins will clog your flue. Never leave it idling when you go to bed.

True story: we had a stove and flue liner fitted by a firm from Ramsbottom, Lancs. We went out while they were working and came home later to find the elderly gofer lurking in a corner of our garage where he had no reason to be. About a month later Mrs RR went there to fetch something out of a...

Yes, an axe has a fine wedge and can easily get, er, wedged into a piece of wood especially if the grain is less than straight. A maul or mawl delivers a hefty point impact and the wide wedge won't get jammed. It's the most satisfying and destructive garden tool to use and you won't need a...

I haven't the will re re-read everything you've written above but - you say the tank is dripping? Is that through the overflow? That would mean the float valve on the tank filling main is goosed, allowing the tank to overfill. This could cause resonance through the mains pressure pipework, I...