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A boiler engineer has gouged some marks into the cork floor when moving a washing machine and I'm looking for the best way to repair them.　 Floor is 30cm2 raw cork tiles glued to a concrete subfloor and finished with Osmo Polyx floor wax/oil.　 1) Sand down the surrounded area and re-oil - not...

Our basin has quite an extreme case of gurgling in the u-bend, but a second or so after that has stopped there is a gurgling/'air passing through water' noise in the waste pipe under the floor somewhere. The floor is tiled so I can't identify exactly where it's coming from, and it's more of a...

A plumber suggested I could change my wired timer/thermostat by fitting a Salus RT500BC - it replaces the round mechanical timer in the boiler's faceplate (Vokera Compact). The documentation says it takes about a minute to fit, and doesn't even have any 'wiring' as such, just small metal wire...

We bought this to find that the instructions say it's not suitable for use in bathrooms. It's just a glass shade and pendant fitting, pretty much the same as we have fitted currently (probably been there for years, before we moved in)...

Short version: deccy did a pretty awful lining-and-paint job on the top half of our bathroom walls, loads of air bubbles still there at the start of the second day which were just painted over in a hope that they would disappear, and the ones that wouldn't were just filled over with Easifill...

We have a metal cold water tank in the loft that is no longer supplies anything (everything has been transferred to the mains) but is still full and linked to the mains. How much would we be looking at to get it disconnected, drained, and the pipes and tank removed?　 The tank would need to be...

We have a bedroom ceiling that is papered but the board is really thin, seems like a thick hardboard, probably done years ago when plastering cost loadsamoney. I'm sure the plasterer that did our kitchen said he couldn't plaster over this kind of board, that's why he had to overboard it first...

How would a plumber go about diagnosing water hammer? There are five pipes that go up to the attic, including one for a current cold water tank and one for a decommissioned and empty hot water tank. We sometimes get knocking sounds, which can occasionally be really loud. The source of the noise...

We currently have a Vokera Compact 24SE boiler with a Drayton SM1 mechanical timer. The timer is on the wall next to the boiler and linked with a thick plastic cable which I presume has multiple power/switching wires inside it. Looking to fit a wireless thermostat instead - would I be able to...

When the weather is colder sometimes the boiler does not fire up - Vokera 24 Compact, it tries to start up but the ignition doesn't take and the solid red light comes on. Easy enough to reset it, but just had to keep waiting until the boiler decided it was okay to start up. Our kettle is near...

A bathroom fitter has given us a pretty good quote (labour lower than I expected) but is quoting list price for furniture and fittings from the KB catalogue. Are they likely to be getting trade discount on those prices? Just trying to work out if wed be better off sourcing our own stuff in the...

I'm refurbishing a cast iron bench with some new wood slats, and someone told me I should use either stain or varnish, but not both. Any reason why? Surely the stain would be for colour while the varnish would be for protection, or does it not work like that? The wood is mahogany so once I see...

Probably like a lot of people, we discovered a leak in our flat roof last weekend. Photos of the flashing/seal between the wall and roof: The little grey strip looks to have crazed every inch or so, and in the second image there is a small section missing - is this the culprit? How do I...

Some of our floors are uneven and unlevel, but how would I go about measuring exactly where the problems are and how bad they are? I presume a straight edge and a spirit level is involved, but beyond that I'd be working blind. How would a joiner do it, especially if the fix might involve...

The gas section on this forum is locked, so hopfully someone can advise me on this. A car reversed along the side of our building, breaking and damaging the external plastic sleeve of a pipe. The pipe is yellow, about 1 inch diameter, and a neighbour told us it's a gas pipe. I don't think the...

I've had quotes from professional painters to re-paint exterior of our house (painted render) but a few non-professional people have warned me to wait until spring because of dropping temperatures. Who is right? The painters would use Sandtex masonry paint or similar, which states not to use if...

Just want to doublecheck that I've got this right. My ceiling wiring has: 1 green earth wire 1 red live wire 2 black neutral wires in the same sheath, but they were both screwed into the same hole in the plastic block The plastic block then fed five bulbs in the old light fitting. I've been...

Our upstairs walls are not built directly over the downstairs walls. One is offset around 50cms from its downstairs equivalent, and the other about 80cms. So what are they resting on? Floorboards and joists? Surely that would make joists part of the structural elements of the house, which I...

Part of the external window sill (presumably wood) has rotted off, exposing the metal bar within it. I'm not sure what function the bar plays, but is this repairable or would the sill have to be removed and replace with a new one? If repairing, how would I go about it? My first thought is to...

We have moisture coming through the corner of an external wall, and reasonably sure that the ridge of tiles halfway up the wall is part of the problem, as it's likely that water can settle on/in it: A few people have recommended treating/repairing it somehow, possibly including...