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Funnily enough there was a nest in there and the texture of the sandy soil was exactly right for ants, so I bet that's it. Cleaned out now. A whole bucket of crud, delivered grain by grain by ants over 50 years. Amazing.

Many thanks all, I know exactly what to do now. Sadly the gland nut looks a bit cross threaded to me. Hard to tell under the crud. Hopefully it will just turn out to be the way the casting was made. I'll clean it up before doing anything. This was supposed to be a five-minute-job between...

I'm not convinced I need a washer - the problem is the tap is dripping a bit round the handle when open. So I guess there's some kind of o-ring in there?

Our stop cock isn't 22mm. I assume it isn't metric. (Most likely dates from 1960.) It seems to have 1/2 or maybe 1/3 cast into it. The tap is dripping a bit and I'd like to replace the whole tap assembly rather than taking it apart and putting a new o-ring in. Is there a source of these...

So I had a look under the hatch for the water supply on the pavement outside my house. It was full of sand. I noticed the same in previous houses so I'm wondering if they fill it with sand for frost protection or some other good reason?

Or do I just need taps with a square shank? (The existing taps seem to have this.) Is there a supplier of mixer taps with square shanks? Google seems strangely unhelpful. (Yet the existing taps clearly have square shanks and top hat washers must exist for that reason.) Unless I can find a...

I've just realized that what I should have asked for was recommendations of mixer taps with shower that have a big enough casting to clamp down on rubber washers close to 2ins diameter oaround the tap holes.

I've got two 'big' diamond shaped holes in my old enamel bath. (What are they called? Tap tail holes?) Now I'm ready for new taps it looks like 'modern' bath tap mixer/showers simply don't have a big enough 'footprint' to cover and seal the existing diamond shaped holes. I need either a...

A mate suggested that with a modern consumer unit with RCD etc building regs no longer require pipes to be earth bonded. Is that true?

[/url] Magic, thanks.

I need to sharpen the top plates on my, awesomely powerful, Titan TTB355CHN Chainsaw. Chain gauge 0.050'. Chain pitch 3/8". I think it's one of these: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-x-Chainsaw-Chains-Fits-Titan-TTB355CHN-Chainsaws-/170726222107 Apparently: Chamfer "chisel" cutters have an...

Anyone tried storing logs outside uncovered then moving it into shelter for a week or so to dry out before burning it on a wood burner? Does it give any problems? Reason being, I've noticed that, even in winter, the wood I store outside dries in 2-3 days no matter how soaked it is when I...

Does he have to do this? I'm fairly sure he said that with no metal light fittings he could legally leave it completely alone.

Even so, I'm really not convinced that a fire caused by a live neutral fault with no earth leakage is really that likely. Nor am I sure there are zero fires caused by mistakes during new installation. I'd suspect that new wiring is not a panacea any more than a new consumer unit is. Having...

He did.

Finally found time to get someone to take a look. He spent this afternoon having a good poke around and although he hasn't sent a written report yet it was a rather surprising outcome. It checked out fine in all his tests. There is a ring circuit for the plugs. But there is rubber 2.5...

As I say if they want to do a safety test of the old circuits before they put 80pc of the wiring in the skip that's fine by me. In contrast if they seriously propose to test the circuits they throw away, but not the finished circuits they put it I might have an issue with that. As I say...

I'm anti-semetic and I thought you might be Jewish! :-) Anyway you've got 'em now.

You mean "no" then? Up to them. They'll be doing so much work that I'd have thought they prefer to work out if it's safe once they've done the stuff that obviously needs to be done. But I don't care if they want to test it beforehand. I won't be keeping 40yo rubber cable or unfused daisy...

Many thanks Adam, that's exactly the kind of information I was looking for. Any of those could be a candidate and fit with what little wiring I've seen under the floorboards. Mucho gracias, all noted.