Search results

I've had crimps fail and have come across crimps made by others that have failed. As it was in my own home, I didn't like the idea of an inaccessible joint (it was to become) relying solely on crimps, just in case my crimps turned out to be unreliable because sometimes it's the person doing the...

I know where you're coming from. What I did to make myself feel better since it was in my own home several months ago, is crimp the solid conductors using uninsulated crimps, then flow solder into the barrels of the crimps. Then a few layers of heatshrink over each barrel as well as spacing them...

Might seem like a simple question, but in a shed like this, how would I determine if an internal wall is loadbearing?

Thanks for the suggestion. If I do find the outer wall is bowed, is there a relatively cheap repair procedure, or is the shed then inherently unsafe and will need knocking down? All in all it's in bad condition, but I want to try to get it improved economically. My main concern is water has been...

Ok, don't see why you felt the need to say what it looked like. Haven't seen any old brick sh*te houses, I'm not that old, but I'll take your word for it. It was built in the 1950s incidentally, which may explain a lot about its appearance and the whitewashing the bricks incurred from the...

Hi, Got an outside brick shed, not attached to house. It's about 5m by 3m square, built with single brick course and has flat roof which seems to be made of metal beams running from one 3m wall to the other, rendered on underside, concrete on top. It's divided as per the layout picture below...

I've read through the manual and it mentions that the oil is pumped to the blade. There is an adjustment screw to reduce or increase oil to the blade, but without taking it apart, I don't know how it achieves that adjustment. I could accept a tiny dribble of oil when it's on its side, but it was...

Hi, I've recently bought a cheap petrol chainsaw to get some trees cut down, etc. I haven't used a petrol one in over 15 years, only having used electric from then to now. I don't know what mechanism the petrol ones use for automatic oil application to the chain because the old petrol one...

Thanks for the link, seems very good. I see they recommend 2 and 1/2" 10 gauge screws. I'd have thought 12 gauge would be better for possibly heavily-laden wall units. I'll have to see what good quality chunky rawl plugs I can find. If it was a satellite dish, I'd know what to use and...

Hi, Got to fit kitchen units in my house soon, and haven't done it before so got a couple of questions. Walls are brick with about 3/4" mortar render on top. What would be the usual or recommended fixings to use, especially for the wall units? A certain size and length of rawl plug and...

This is in Spain where there are no gassafe or other schemes operating. The fire is just about knackered from the effects of the wrong gas by the looks of it, so will have to be changed anyway. Checked the fire and it is labelled for LPG at 37mB but is currently running on butane at 28mB...

Hi, I wanted to ask if anyone knows much about the type of gas fire which has coals above the flames. The one my parents have has huge yellow flames which reach the very top of the fire and lick into the opening to the flue. Also when the main burner ignites from the pilot, it catches with a...

Sorry, should have said it's back to the scratch coat. What's SBR and is it likely to be cheap? On quite a budget unfortunately.

Oh boy, I suppose it was going to happen and now I'm back a few paces and more muck to mix up. My rendering has blown completely - literally coming away from the wall. My scratch coat wasn't that scratched due to me forgetting until it had dried a fair bit and doing just some diamond...

Thanks for all your advice. I think you're all right, too much washing up liquid (it is powdery now) and I didn't dampen the wall enough. Being an internal wall, I couldn't use a hose like I normally would, so I used a spray bottle over a couple of hours in between plastering another wall. Next...

I haven't got any proprietary plasticiser so took a tip off this forum and used a couple of squirts of washing up liquid into the mixing water, about a tablespoon per 2 litres. It wasn't a lack of proper mixing as the sand layer was uniformly 2mm of the render where it met the wall, as though...

Hi all, Sorry to be a post w h o r e, but I'm struggling using materials that, when I first started doing a bit of building and rendering when living in Spain, I'm not used to. Over there they just have one type of sand which is basically made by grinding down rock from mountains. It's...

Well, I've done a small area of wall next to the door, and the bit of ceiling. My opinion is that there are now two things I've found myself to be useless at: spray painting and plastering! I don't get what's going wrong, the bit by the door was an area less wide than the float with a flat...

Many thanks to everyone for offering their advice. Because of cost limitations, I've had to stick to the original plan of levelling off as best I can and hoping the job looks half decent at the end (it'll be wallpapered anyway as other walls in the room aren't perfect and aready wallpapered)...

Ah, so you can do the same with plaster?! I just assumed it'd be a different method especially as plaster's so sticky and less easy to lob about than mortar. Had visions of it pulling off stuck firmly to my straight edge.