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Am I allowed to post on Trade Talk? Feeling miffed because last September the plastic control knob on our gas Aga valve broke and a local "specialist" told us there was no other option than to change the entire valve, which IIRC cost over £200. Yesterday the Aga turned itself off and now it...

Everybody has an estate agent story but I will never be able to forgive the local estate agent in Holcombe Brook, near Bury, who advised me to market my cottage for a ridicuously low price. Two hours later I rang him and told him to add £10,000 and the next day I told him to add another £5,000...

When he does shuffle off there will be a tribal war.

I can't believe nobody has put a bullet through his head, although having been to Harare a few times I can see how difficult it would be on his home turf.

There have been a lot of high-profile entertainment personality deaths in the last 6 to 12 months. I reckon we are seeing the beginning of the end of the first television generation of entertainers; people who became household names thanks to TV.

We are actually, very. However when somebody stands while changing her incontinence pads, drops poo on the bathroom floor, treads in it then shuffles across the landing and around her room smearing it all over the carpets you will understand that hiring a carpet shampoo machine every couple of...

Well that's what the service engineer told you and you paid for! They don't diagnose things any more, they just throw new parts at the problem at your expense in the hope of fixing it. Same as car dealerships.

Oh... I though this was a thread about another of my mother-in-law's bathroom disasters. Luckily we had the foresight to cover the carpets in her room with Roll 'n Stroll when she moved in for six months while she receives chemo.

Best to do the central area properly with Celotex and hope the boards aren't nailed down with ring shank nails - see the other post on here about creaky T&G boards. And yes, on the unused areas I would just unroll more glass wool. You can get it cheaper if you look around and avoid the big sheds.

You have my sympathy. If the builder used ring-shank nails you've got a real battle on your hands because the board will break before the nail pulls out. If it's really driving you nuts, the ony solution is to take them all up, mark out and photograph the pipes and cables then screw them down...

Our attic is well ventilated with slotted plastic strips in the soffits, which are clear of insulation material. Both upstairs bathrooms have bathroom type halogen ceiling lights but I bet some moisture is finding its way up around them especially as we don't have extractors but just open a...

Absoluitely typical of chipboard, which has tongue & groove edges to lock the boards together. They are the Devil's own invention and a damned nuisance. After time they shrink, wear and begin to move against each other and up and down on the joists. Screwing them down works well but you've got...

Okay I understand. Then yes, the best suggestion is some thin strips of steel or ali underneath. Once the "hatch" is screwed down onto those, cut some lengths of thin batten, apply loads of PVA and hammer them into the saw cuts to wedge the "hatch" in place. You can buy batten in different...

If that's a nice Victorian house, I would stick with white-painted in order to keep the look right.

Our house has those horrible T&G chipboard floors so I had to buy a circular hand saw for getting access. I hate the damned thing, it's brutal, noisy, dangerous and frightening. Once the hole is made it's easy enough to re-fit the board by screwing some batten with PVA glue under the edges to...

Just dry-line the entire room with Cellotex between battens and finish with ploystyrene-backed plasterboard. We had the same problem and dry-lining has transformed the room into the cosiest in the house, even the 750 watts from the cooling fan of my son's gaming computer keeps it warm.

I thought forum members might be interested in reading how I replaced the woven rattan seat on an old Habitat chair, the chromed tubular "Bauhaus" style with separate seat and back bolted to the frame. I bought a rattan replacement kit off the web, which gave me enough to do two seats. The...

I had the same problem with an old bird's nest, she told me to burn it as it was hopping with fleas but I just chucked it on the compost, where I was in the habit of urinating when outdoors. A few weeks alter I began to notice small red lumps around my groin and then I realised that the fleas...

Same stupid testosterone-fuelled idiocy that makes young men go and join ISIS in the glorious Jihad.

Vacuum tube solar collectors work pretty well in the open air or inside a conservatory, even on a cloudy day, as I discovered when I burned by fingers while handling a collector tube that my supplier was showing me inside his conservatory on a cloudy day!