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Hello, can someone please help answer a dilemma that I have with switching of bathroom extractor fans via the switches shown below? During a major house extension 25 years ago, the electrician fitted these dual switch Fan & Light units, made and supplied to him through an electrical wholesaler...

Your advice please. I am making a downstairs shower room with a low profile quadrant tray, in what was previously a typical 1930's kitchen - the original concrete floor stepped down 120mm from the rest of the house. But that floor has now been built up with joists and 22mm plywood to match the...

Your help please I need to allow access to lots of pipe and cable within the 700mm high underfloor void of my suspended wooden ground floor. There are sleeper mid-room floor support walls and a full height solid brick load bearing wall in which I will need to insert lintels to support it. The...

There is a lot on this forum about painting over vinyl silk but some confusing and conflicting, so please forgive me asking again and specific to my case. >> I plan to paint over a large ceiling currently in 20 year old vinyl silk, with Dulux Trade matt. Having had problems in the past going...

Your advice please on preparing a wall for tiling with 30cm x 60cm x 8.5mm cement based tiles going floor to ceiling in a shower & washing utility room. The room is newly plastered done 6 months ago, most on solid wall, some on studwork. Adhesive would also be a powder mix cement based Our...

I think I have exhausted the thread "Laying Laminate planks - which direction?" so have started fresh in this one. Perimeter expansion gaps - I understand that laminate floor needs an expansion gap of around 10mm? What do you usually allow and can it be less, eg. 8mm? The room is 3.0m x...

Your advice please on laying a laminate floor over the whole of my upstairs. It is Baltiero Stretto, with a pronounced V groove click joint and therefore important to lay it running in the right direction so that the planking lays relevant to the whole upstairs floor. I prefer to feel that I am...

Can you please advise? I have a simple 900mm wide clear glass splashback with 4 holes that sits on the worktop upstand and topped by the fan shroud hood - see photos. The glass is fastened to the wall with 4 mirror screws but there were no spacers to keep it from touching the painted wall. This...

Hi hope you can help please. I read it somewhere else that there is a problem with Dulux Trade Diamond Matt white crazing on caulk. I have just experienced the same, just the day after painting. I read that it is to do with how tough and perhaps inflexible Diamond is, they mentioned painting...

Hi, Your advice please. A problem I have experienced with paint rollers staining, particularly if kept wet overnight in plastic bags etc. I notice a brown streak in the roller sleeve also on the wall being painted, and it is rust from the frame bleeding through. Even a new and apparently...

Can anyone help please? Good paint - I frequently read queries regarding which paint to use and the answers mostly state that trade paints are the best and retail DIY paints are rubbish! - that blunt quite often. I have also read up a lot on it, and I do understand the argument for the trade...

In a new downstairs utility/shower room I have a shower tray waste to route below plywood floor into solvent weld 32mm new pipe. Acess is limited beneath by solid underfloor with 100mm joist floor and 22mm plywood floor. I have bought the MacAlpine ST90CP10-70 shower trap, see photos, because...

The plaster in my new build extension is now a week old, all dried out on the surface. > Is it ready for the mist coat? I want to get this right, both the paint and method. The plaster is very shiny and I have heard that can be a problem applying paint to? > Shall I wash it, lightly sand/key...

I have a new but badly creaking 18mm Caberfloor P5 T&G chipboard floor in a newly built kitchen diner extension, approx area is 30m2, in my 1930’s house. The boards are PVA glued on the T&G edges, it has noggins supporting every joint end, and is screwed down on 400mm centre joists at approx...

I will be using Dulux Endurance on hallway walls for durability. Q - What roller should I use for the best finish? The walls are now in good condition - I have spent ages filling and sanding to get a good, flat finish so they should look good. Preference may come into it but I am not too keen...

Some advice please on renovating a good, heavy but neglected hardwood mahogany type front door, about 10 years old. Inside - surface is fine, just needs prep and re-painting - Dulux Trade satin white w/b I had thought? Outside - was painted in oil based Farrow and Ball matt when new, now a few...

I have a small quadrant victorian conservatory that was built in double glazed uPVC about 19 years ago. Access to it is from its own door from the outside and the original house back door from the inside. The conservatory is small, 2.1m on the full walls adjoining the house. See photo and...

Can I put 15mm isolating valves in my heating system to allow me to work on part of it while the rest can run as normal and then open it up when ready? It can then be isolated again at a later date if ever required. Or are they only meant to be used in the normal H&C water system for removal of...

Hope you can please help. Water based or Solvent Satinwood? – I need to choose the topcoat paint for a hallway, stairway and landing with 10 doors is expensive. I need it to be white and preferably satinwood but also the right paint having spent so much time on the prep, undercoating, filling...

I have a sealed system Vaillant ThermoCompact and Ariston unvented indirect cylinder. I recently changed a downstairs radiator and completely drained the system. It is refilled and running again but there is very little heat downstairs, upstairs all rads are hot or warm. There was an initial...