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We have a cellar/utility space at the side of the house, which contains some plumbing/electrics and the boiler. In this space is a 40mm waste pipe, which picks up the boiler condensate and the downstairs toilet sink wastes, and feeds them down into a 110mm soil pipe, which picks up the...

Hi Guys. I realise asking boiler questions on here tends to illicit a typical response of "call a guy", but hopefully we can have a sensible discussion with regards to whats going on here. My last encounter with WB engineers was not pleasurable, and as we'll get to later, may even be part of...

We've recently moved into a new house, and i would like to sort out the fire alarm situation. Currently there are 7 standalone battery powered detectors placed around the house (lounge, hallway *4, kitchen, utility room). I would also like to add at least two more, one in the boiler room and...

Hey folks, We've moved into a new house which has a fairly large conservatory (~6m x 3m). We were hoping to use it as a dining area, but quickly discovered (having never had one before) the huge temperature swings makes it pretty unpleasant. from a bit of reading, it seems insulating the roof...

We've just bought a house which has a sloping ceiling in the Lounge. Its arranged as sort of a "Lean-to" off the side of the main building and the internal ceiling follows the external roofline, so it slopes from 2.2m or so, upto 3-3.5m high at the peak. In that ceiling they've installed five...

We've recently moved into a new house, which had a new roof fitted at the end of December. I happened to stick my head up the attic at the weekend and discovered a fair amount of water droplets all over the underside of the OSB sarking. Its concentrated around either end of the roof directly...

We've just moved into a new place, and within hours have had issues with the heating. The system seemed to be working initially, producing heat and hot water as you might expect. At some point in the afternoon the wife wanted to fill the fishtank, which requires warm water. Ran the tap at the...

I have an electric car, which clearly uses a fair chunk of electricity for charging. As a result i wanted to switch to Economy 7 to benefit from cheap rate electric at night for charging the car. So i had Scottish (British) Gas out this morning to fit an Economy 7 meter. The guy looked at my...

Been doing some decorating/renovating in preperation for a new arrival, and as part of the job i replaced a radiator. The system was drained down, the old rad removed, and the pipes capped off while plastering and other work was done. System was refilled and ran fine during this time, though i...

My brother is having some trouble with his heating. Its an open vented system with an Ideal Classic FF250. He came home the other night to various gurgling noises coming from the pipework, and a number of radiators seemed to be partially cold. He bled the radiators and found lots of air in...

I had to extend a pipe on a radiator at the weekend to clear an extractor duct, which required draining the heating system. We've had a new kitchen fitted and the drain valve was behind one of the new units, but i had the guy cut an access hole so no issues there... set to with some pliers...

I want to replace the side door in our house. The existing door is a UPVC unit thats been really badly installed, is very old and pretty knackered. I want to replace it with a composite door, so today i pulled the fascias off to try and measure up the size for the new door. The installation of...

My brother has managed to break the glazing pane in the UPVC tilt and turn window in his spare room/study. When trying to figure out what happened i realised that when you open the window in tilt mode, it only opens a small amount, maybe 2 inches, before something in the top right corner...

For the last few months we've had ongoing issues with our drains. Just before Christmas the neighbour was having his toilet backing up, but we had no issues. After christmas our toilet started acting odd, not backing up but "sucking" and emptying itself when flushed. Shortly thereafter the...

The wife has purchased a somewhat huge fishtank, which requires between 2 and 4 80w T5 tubes. We wont know exactly until we get it setup, but we think it will probably need 3. On her existing tank, instead of buying an expensive aquarium lighting unit I bought a Philips HF electronic ballast...

I've changed some plumbing in my kitchen and need to re-do my outdoor tap. Previous owner had installed it with one of those nasty self cutting strap on boss things which was leaking, which led to a flexible hose to the tap, so i cut that out and replaced it with a proper T piece and a...

Hi, I've just submitted a planning application to build a detached double garage in my garden. Because the floor area exceeds 30m^2 i will need building control approval for this building. What i'm wondering is if anyone happens to have any examples of what i need to send to building...

I've (very slowly) been doing some renovation work in the kitchen, and in the process i've chased the wall out for some new sockets. I've got the socket boxes and cables in and will be plastering over the chases and cables shortly. However the cables ideally need clipped back to the...

In our garden we have a fairly big pond, which has a some filters, pumps, UV lights and suchlike. I want to sort out the electrical supply to the pond but i'd like some thoughts/ideas on the tidiest way to sort this. At the moment, each unit has a long rubber flex which trails across the...

I've gone and bought myself a cheap SDS drill from screwfix to assist chasing out socket boxes in brick. However i'm having a bit of trouble with it, and its doing something i'm not sure is correct. Its a 3 mode drill, so has controls for rotary stop and hammer stop. With the controls set...