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I overheard the engineer who serviced my unvented cylinder the other day checking something about the installation with his boss. He concluded with "it's not how we do it but I guess it's OK", and moved onto other more important matters (my non compliant flue). I was curious enough that I...

My boiler flue is too close to the vent cover for an extractor fan. The engineer who did the boiler service proposed a flue management kit that'd set me back £200+, since I'm not allowed to DIY it. It occurred to me that I could in effect just do the same to the vent outlet, which I could DIY...

I have a failed weld in the handle that releases the driver seat slider mechanism on my car. The car's only worth a few £k so I'm considering a DIY repair, and wanted to run my plan past a few practical minds. The picture shows the failed weld. I'm thinking of a belt and braces approach where...

My water meter was moved during building works. They ran 22mm from the incoming main to the meter, and 22mm back under the floor out to the rest of the house, but there's this silly 15mm loop with 3 elbows in between. My water pressure and flow aren't great. Do you think it'd make a measurable...

Hi, I have a log cabin which I painted with a water based treatment recommended by the manufacturer (Carefree protectant / Tuin). The stuff doesn't live up to their hype and after 3 years is pretty patchy and worn, but more importantly the pine came out as bright tangerine which we've regretted...

My builder didn't add any insulation into the small sloping roof void above my ground floor extension. BC signed it off and builders are long gone so that's not an option, but the room gets really cold. Is there any DIY way to add it retrospectively? There's a couple of LED down lighters in that...

3 of my front door keys have failed like this. The plastic shoe that the metal sits in basically split and crumbled away. Can anyone think of a clever way to make them useable? I was thinking a couple of 2p coins and gorilla glue.

I've just removed the kitchen sink u-bend and the connection to the 43mm (OD) waste pipe drain looks to be a right dog's dinner. The end of the waste pipe isn't cut cleanly, and the white threaded connector that was on there doesn't grip at all. There appears to be black gunk where the O-ring...

I have a small internal job to do where I need to stick a thin strip of pine to a couple of zinc plated metal brackets (pine strip is too thin for a mechanical fixing). There won't be any load on the join besides the weight of the stripwood itself, so I'm pretty sure one of the adhesives I...

Is there any definitive interpretation of Part J regarding the proximity of skirting on the front of a chimney breast to a wood burning stove? I did my research, and concluded from section 2.18 and associated Diagram 21 that there was no minimum, with skirting shown "less than 200mm". My HETAS...

I've got this roller blind cassette from a botched order that I want to repurpose as a cover for the mechanism above a sliding door. I need to remove, or bend back, the circled bit that sits proud. Any ideas how I could do that? It's aluminium I think so should be pretty soft, though it doesn't...

I'm laying a tiled hearth around my wood burning stove. I want it flush with (or a few mm above) the finished floor surface. We're putting down engineered wood over underlay, which will raise the finished floor by 17mm from the concrete slab. Say I use 6mm tiles in the hearth, which with 3mm...

I've just been advised by the engineer doing my boiler service that the utility extractor vent (that LABC insisted be added for sign-off) is in breach of building regs because it's less than 300mm from the boiler flue. That all seems to match other advise I see on the forum. The part I found...

Finally gotten around to doing the living room in the new gaff. It looks like the French doors were made by widening a single door. I pulled away damp and crumbling concrete from the floor with my hand until I got to brick. There's no sign of the slate DPC which is present in the centre (and is...

I want to top-fit 3 x roller blinds in the recess of a 3-pane sliding door. Each blind will be 1.8m wide, 2.1m drop. Naturally we have a massive great steel spanning the gap above the doors with dot-and-dab plasterboard stuck to it. I've been put off drilling up into steel lintels by a...

I need to raise the door a bit. I can't find a how-to on the internet that matches this particular hinge. Any ideas!?

I have a load of concrete in my garden - a former shed base 3m x 2m and a path of sorts 1m x 5m - that I want rid of. Who do I call? As in what trade would achieve this in the most efficient way? I have a quote for £1,300 from the guy who laid my patio, but it feels steep and he clearly didn't...

I need to do a couple of short runs of lighting cables along an outside wall. I'd like black trunking, which I only found in plastic. Is normal PVC trunking ok to use outside?

I just bought a bathroom cabinet off Wayfair. Instead of the shaver socket advertised it has a European 2-pin socket inside. Whilst I could just buy a 2-pin Euro to 2-pin shaver adapter, would that be "safe" and would my electrician even be permitted to install this thing into a UK bathroom?

I have goal-post style steel frame in my extension. The uprights are buried in the internal blockwork with only the one flat surface standing slightly proud of the internal wall. The walls are being dot-and-dabbed with plasterboard. How should the steel columns be fire-proofed? Is it OK to just...