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I want to buy a USB heated portable electric blanket to use while watching TV. Is it possible to run this via a mains adapter with USB ports or are these ports only for charging items with USB connectors? Thanks.

I noticed today that the top two courses of bricks in my backyard wall were separating. When I looked at my neighbour's side of the wall I discovered that there was a small tree growing out of the side of the wall. I'd been aware of the tree there because it was well above the height of the wall...

When my old TV died some years ago I decided to just watch TV through my PC. Recently someone gave me a TV because they had bought a smart one. I still have the TV aerial on my roof but with only about 2 metres of cable attached, as I cut the rest off (silly me!) So I'll have to buy a length of...

The hot water tap to my bath has reduced to a trickle so I'm trying to change the tap washer. I've got the tap valve out, but the cross-head screw holding the washer is corroded and when I tried to unscrew it the screw head just crumbled so the screwdriver was just going round, with no purchase...

The ball-cock valve in my old toilet cistern is leaking, so I decided to replace the valve and the arm. The plumber's merchant guy suggested I might only need to replace the rubber diaphragm in the valve so that's what I've tried to do but it's still leaking. There are a couple of parts in the...

The ceramic cistern for my toilet has a crack in it (sorry, it's not a great photo: the crack is from the hole that the down pipe to the toilet bowl goes into and it goes to between 10 and 11 o'clock in the photo.) Previously I've mended it with No Nonsense clear silicone applied from the...

I've sanded down an internal door and in a few places it's gone down to the bare wood. Do I need to prime these patches of bare wood before painting the door or can I just put on two or three coats of the water-based Dulux QuickDry Satinwood pure brilliant white which I'm using, and which the...

I've just refelted my sister's apex shed roof. On one side of it most of the felt had been missing for a while so the wood had deteriorated. The roof needed 3 pieces, one for each side of it and a piece for the apex, which overlapped the other two. I used Black Jack felt roof adhesive. The felt...

I have an old wooden bed which is not easy to move (fairly heavy), so I want to put castors on it. The feet of the two headboard legs are rectangular and measure 45mm x 33mm. The feet of the footboard legs are circular and are 45mm diameter. I was thinking of putting castors on which have a...

Is it ok to use decorators caulk to fill small cracks in the plaster before pasting and hanging wallpaper? Thanks.

I'm redecorating a room that has woodchip paper on and I was just going to emulsion it all, but a couple of pieces of the paper needed replacing. I stripped those pieces off and prepped the wall well and repapered. I'm an amateur, so it took a bit of repositioning the paper to get it right. I...

I have a combi boiler and my bath has a mixer tap. There seems to have developed some kind of blockage to the cold tap (even though the cold flow to the sink is fine). I run the bath by first opening only the hot tap but when the water in the bath gets too hot I open the cold but this doesn't...

I'm putting up some kitchen wall units on brick walls. They're going to be carrying a lot of weight (tools etc), so as well as the two upper corner fixings I want to put wooden battens underneath them to give extra support and I need advice on how to do this. What I thought I'd do is put up the...

I decided to spruce up some shelves, which had previously been painted with white oil based paint, with Dulux Pure Brilliant White QuickDry Satinwood paint, which is water based. I firstly sanded the shelves, washed and dried them and then gave them 2 coats of the Dulux. They look fine but if...

I'm about to hang some kitchen wall cupbds onto a masonry wall. I've got the right brackets for the top RH and LH corners of the cupbd and also some wall mounting plates to hang them on. The cupbds will carry a lot of weight and I was wondering if I need to also put in place supporting battens...

A few weeks ago I had my kitchen reskimmed. I haven't got round to emulsioning yet but I've noticed three hair-line cracks have appeared in the ceiling. They're each no more than 1m or 1.5m and, as I say, only very fine line cracks. The plasterer came back and looked and said that you couldn't...

About 5 weeks ago I had my kitchen reskimmed but I haven't redecorated yet. Near the kitchen sink, behind the washing machine, a couple of patches of powdery white deposits (effluorescence?) have appeared, also a patch near the kitchen door (both patches on outside walls). I'm now wondering if I...

About a month ago I had my kitchen walls and ceiling reskimmed. It hadn't been touched (even re-emulsioned) since I moved in 34 years ago (yeah, I know) so there were various big cracks in the emulsioned walls, and where the walls meet the ceiling the plaster was crumbling (which made me wonder...

I live in a mid-terrace street house and I had a problem with water staining in the corner of my small back bedroom, near the eaves. I thought this might be caused by condensation coming through the plasterboard from above. One of the roofers who came to price for the job pulled a couple of...

I've got a problem with condensation in my loft and I was wondering whether having central heating on throughout the house, as opposed to just using a gas fire downstairs, would increase condensation in the loft or decrease it. I'm an OAP and live on my own and therefore I try to cut down on...