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Hi folks, I want to put some a pair of underground heating pipes over my garden (about 25 meters) to an outbuilding to power a radiator in there. I think it's too far for the combi boiler to pump by itself so I was going to help it by putting a seperate pump on that pair of pipes. When I've...

Hi folks, A few months ago I removed all bathroom floorboards and replaced with 22mm tongue & groove plywood, fastened down with about a zillion screws and glue in the joints, then primed with watered-down SBR and applied Screwfix No-Nonsense SLC. It's the kind that comes with a tub of white...

Hi folks, I've got a large lawn (approx 300 square meters) which need to be replaced. I was hoping to use a turf cutter to remove the existing turf, then rotavate the soil prior to laying new turf. My concern is that there are two large trees in the centre of the lawn - a blue cedar and a...

Hi folks, I've got a Beko DW603 dishwasher which has stopped draining. Everything else works fine but the drain pump never runs. I've stripped it apart and the pump seems fine, rotates freely but stops at the magnets, has 180ohms resistance over it's windings, and everything is not blocked at...

Hi folks, I'm experiencing an intermittent fault in the 13a socket ring in my garage. From time to time, when you're using any appliance, it will trip the B30 breaker in the garage's consumer unit. Occasionally, say 1 time in 3, it will also trip the upstream B40 breaker in the house's...

Hi folks, Trying to gauge the approximate cost of having natural stone walling built - the kind made up of random lumps of essentially rubble with one flat(ish) face - typical around churches etc. I've got around 200 square meters to lay as part of a project - essentially a border wall 1.5m...

Hi folks, I'm pondering having a driveway laid next week - natural stone tiles on a concrete bed - about 38 square meters - but I'm worried about the frost. Can anyone confirm if it's likely to cause a problem for the bedding mix? We're getting quite heavy frosts in early mornings here at the...

Hi folks, I have a 2.5mm^2 ring circuit in my garage, wired off it's own consumer unit. The consumer unit has two MCBs - one for the 2.5mm ring, and one for the lighting circuit. I wired it all up myself, the unit is fed from a 10mm^2 cable coming from in the house. I'm fitting a bigger air...

Hi folks, I had 20 plastic weatherproof bags of cement delivered a few weeks ago, was expecting to use them but the weather turned. Will it do them any harm leaving outside in the freezing temps / frost / etc? Been there for a few weeks now... I put them under a tarp to help keep the rain off...

Hi folks, Planning on getting a patio laid some time soon - on a bed of 50mm mortar made with sharp sand and mixing SBR in for strength & stickiness. Anybody know if I need to (or should bother) adding a chloride-free frost proofer? Or will the SBR be enough by itself? I wonder if the SBR is...

Hi folks, I've got this strip of missing tarmac in front of a driveway. It got ripped up because there used to be a prefab concrete fence there which went under the tarmac. Tried getting a few local tarmaccers to come but none are interested so I'm going to have to sort it myself I reckon...

Hi folks, I'm preparing to lay a natural stone patio approx 30sqm, foot traffic only, part of it involves a 4m wide circle feature which is going to take 12 weeks as it has to be manufactured. I'm considering laying the 'rest' of the patio anyway, stopping a couple feet short of the circle...

Hi folks, I want to put in a small wall, similar to a planter (but not actually a planter), on a lawn, and render it. The render would be Weber coloured through stuff to match a nearby part of the house. Reckon I'll be okay to put a stop bead below the level of the grass tips (but above the...

Hi folks, I'm getting some external rendering done, and the guy who's doing it has been round and nailed stop beads all round in preparation. Thing is, he's used stop beads even on corners, cream plastic ones with about a 10mm lip on them. This presumably means I'm going to have a 10mm plastic...

Hi folks, I'm about to lay some borders consisting of a single row of granite setts, around the edge of some garden paths and a driveway. Most of the paths will then have gravel on the inside and grass on the other side. Normally I would just make this up as I went along, but I've got...

Hi folks, I've got a new cavity wall meeting an existing one to form a new porch, and a vertical slot has been cut into the original wall to prevent damp passing into the inside of the porch. The new cavity wall stops at about 700mm high and switches to a PVC window frame. Should the...

Hi folks, I'm fitting a new timber door to replace a crappy old uPVC one. I'm thinking about locks and I'd really like to just use Eurocylinders so I can key them alike with some other doors on the property. I'm thinking of fitting one Eurocylinder sashlock, and one Eurocylinder...

Hi folks, I'm considering laying about 30 square meters of self binding gravel for a driveway, plus doing about 30 meters worth of garden paths that come off this. I've read the PavingExpert site but the guidance from the actual suppliers of this stuff makes out you need serious equipment...

Hi folks, Just about to start putting up a cavity wall breezeblock garage and I've got a run of 6 sockets on each wall. Don't want any conduit on the walls if possible and don't want to chase in so many cables. I'm hoping to build conduit (or just raw cable?) in to the cavity as the...

Hi folks, Dug through these two cables with a digger in a garden, just wondering if anybody has any ideas what they might be for? You'd think garden lighting, but, the cables were underneath some concrete outhouses which have been there since the 50s, so that seems unlikely. They're...