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Its not mean to be a joke, but what is the difference (technically) between a tap, a stopcock, a gate vale and a n isolation valve. And when\where do you use each one? Just ben over to the mother in laws, her late husband was keen on DIY but seems to have used what ever was in the box, each...

Hi All Just found that our garage (separate from the main house by about 20m) is fed by 4 core 2.5mm swa in a 50mm duct about 350mm under the lawn from a 40A mcb in the main house CU Sounds good so far but all 4 cores run to a 2way CU with a 30A mcb on one pair and a 6A mcb on the other two ...

Firstly many many thanks to all those who answered the seemingly stupid questions that have sorted out all sorts of odds and sods in the past... now for a tricky one Is it possible to have the light in the middle of the stairs switched as part of the downstairs hall lights AND the upstairs...

Im going to lay ply (in preference to chipbd) over the existing damaged boards to cover the poor surface and reduce the cold draughts, to keep the same levels this will have to continue over the concrete kitchen floor. Is there any vaule in putting some sheet material, DPM, thin insulation...

Im thinking of re-building our drive and adding lights to the gates, my inclination is to bury duct now and do lights gates etc later to spread the costs abit. If I use 50mm polypipe (nice 5m lengths) would I still need to use armoured (SWA) cable or -as its protected would ordinary (cheaper...

Hi All does anyone have any experience with French Drains or field drains? Our house is in the middle of a half acre sloping site with one 3" high retaining wall about 8" from the rear, that 8" to the house is more marsh than lawn! Im thinking of digging as close to the low side of the wall...

Ive got some new platerboard walls with dry lining patress boxes and standard white plastic switches (we've batten out the walls to hide pipes) the T&E comes to the switch as normal but no where is there at tag or connecting for the earth core -what should I do with it? Cut it back, tape it up...

Ive got a 3hp 14cu\min compressor works brilliantly in the summer, like now but is a sod to run in winter, takes several minutes to get up to speed and takes an awful lot of current till the motor swaps onto the running windings, enough to pop the overload. It only happpens in winter\cold so I...

Can I replace a 13A double outlet with one 16A 2P+E round "industrial" one or run 2x 16A off one radial curcuit on a 32A MCB All in a garage attached to the house all, on 2.5 T&E no more than 15m from CU. Its all in metal conduit and nicely fitted so the less cutting and moving the better

I know this may sound a daft question but.... :? Why isn't the earth core of T&E sleeved like the other two, it needs have a sleeve at every point its visible so why not build it in like flex, is it the bulk, the thermal properties or???? (not a sparky as you can guess just curious)

Sparky's been over and is happy with chasing, cable routes etc and sorted all the rest, Ive but to day been on with the lights. All the switches are in slim (18mm??) back boxes, these are bolted and clamped to metal conduit running to the ceilings. Its all earthed via the back box but no...

Hi Ive got a 1960 house with two bedrooms with builtin wardrobes with are in fact back to back alcoves in the partition wall. about 12' long. The wall is concrete block (what my dad would call breeze block -denser than thermalite but not modern engineering grade I'd guess) the wall spans the...

Hi All, having had several heating systems\rewires etc a lot of the existing timber boards are basically wrecked, I was planning on robbing the boards out of the living room to replace the others around the house and then doing the whole living room in chipboard T&G. Its a 1960 house and its...

i've got a long narrow living room with 8 downlights in (two rows of 4) on one two gang dimmer switch so the dining area can be lit and the tv area in darkness or vice versa. After her indoors has re-arranged the furniture it needs to be a bit for "flexible" I was looking at and 8 way grid...

Hi All I want to tidy up the garage wiring and add a few more bits, Im thinking that a second CU would be the easiest with separate sockets\isolators for individual equipment (compressor, pillar drill, lathe etc) Im looking at 16a radial for the compressor (3hp motor) with 16a 230v Blue...

given spare space in a CU a DIN rail mounted transformer makes a neater job I can sleeve the "bell" wire to bring its insulation up to spec but does it have to have its own MCB (6amp MCB seems a bit over the top!)or can short tails be joined to another MCB -ring main (as it is in essence just a...

This may be a stupid question but should the landing light, two way switched from the hall downstairs be fed from the downstairs lighting curcuit or the upstairs. i'd have thougth it should come from downstairs so the two gang switch for hall and landing is isolated from one breaker in the CU...