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Hi there My mate sold me his old gazebo. It's only 2 years old but I've noticed quite a bit of rust at the bottom of some of the support poles. I wondered if anyone has any ideas on the best way to treat this?

Hi all, When we got our garden done last year we had major issues with the porcelain slabs. I won't bore you with the details but, basically, they needed lifting and re-laying which has resulted in us only having a small over-hang. Also the water runs through the gaps between the tiles. This...

Hi all, I've got 600x600x20mm porcelain slabs in my garden. I need to drill 3 x 12mm holes in some of them to fix a balustrade to. I bought an Erbauer Diamond Tile Drill Bit (12mm) from Screwfix and I've just done a test cut - which went really well (see photo). I'm using a piece of wood to...

Hi all, I noticed the cistern making a different noise when filling. The cistern is behind a panel. I removed the panel and the water is just making a fine spray when filling the cistern instead of filling properly. Even more alarming there's a bloody hole in the side of the cistern that the...

Hi all, I have some stainless posts for a glass balustrade system. The floor is 20mm thick 600x600 porcelain tiles mounted on top of concrete blocks using a full bed of mortar. The bottom of the pole has three fixing holes. My original plan was to 'core' out the tile to the diameter of...

Hi all, My missus wants the living room separated from the stairs to help keep heat in (and save on ridiculous energy bills in the winter) so I want to build an internal partition wall with a door in it. It's a concrete floor so I'm happy fixing the bottom part of the partition wall to the...

Hi there, I'm using porcelain tiles in the garden. It's quite a 'wet' garden due to run off from the neighbours land so I want to ensure that my tiles are properly primed (I've read that it's crucial with porcelain tiles). I also read that you can use SBR and cement to make a slurry and just...

Hi all, I've had walls built in my garden and they've mostly now been rendered with K-rend. I've noticed that I can see water coming through the render - especially seems to be tracing the pattern of the mortar (see photos) Is this just part of the normal drying out process or is there...

Hi all, I've just had half the garden fitted with porcelain slabs. The builder doing the work hasn't used any "slurry" primer (although he did say that he used a PVA primer) and a lot of them have lifted. Not sure if this is due to the frost over the last month or two? He did pop round and put...

Hi all, I recently (4 weeks) ago had tiles laid on an anhydrite screed floor. I am now able to put the UFH on 'minimum' for one week and then slowly increase the temperature. The TMV on the manifold has 20 deg as it's lowest setting (20 - 70 is the range). However, my stat is sitting...

I've just been asked by my builder whether I want Fast Point or grout in-between the newly laid porcelain slabs (600x600x20) outside. I asked about the differences and he said that Fast Point was easier to put in and so cheaper. He said that he'd enquired in the shop and Fast Point was fine for...

Hi all, I've just had an extension built. I rescued the "slopey" bricks from the old window sill with a view to reinstating them under the window of the extension. I cleaned them all up and put them in a pile but, unfortunately, my over-zealous gardener - on the scout for in-fill, has smashed...

Hi all, I ran a 4mm SWA cable to my summerhouse. I buried it inside some conduit but the guy doing the garden has hammered a metal stake through it (I've not dug it up yet - but it's tripping my RCD). It's not a direct short but measuring resistance from Neutral to his spike is about 1.6MOhms so...

Hi all, I'm currently going through an extension build. It's 56 sqm to be used as a kitchen / utility / dining area. We had poured screed put down on the 4th August. It had something added to it to promote quick drying (could be walked on in 48 hours). It has wet UFH underneath it. The...

Hi all, I'm going to be running 1st fix in for sockets in my new extension and have come across a dilemma that I hoped someone on here could give me a definitive answer for. The extension 'extends' an existing dining room wall that has two sockets (part of the existing ring) in the wall. The...

Just wondered if someone could cast an eye over this lighting circuit and make sure I'm approaching this correctly. I want to run my smoke alarms from my lighting circuit. I also want a neutral at the switch so that I can upgrade to 'smart' switch in the future. I'm going for the "two plate"...

Hi all, I'm a DIY'er and I'm planning on doing the electrics in our new extension myself and then get them signed off. Because of this I've been familiarising myself with the BS7671 regs before starting the work (starting in just over a weeks time when the screed is dry). One thing that has...

Hi all, I have to run a cable across a kitchen ceiling. Obviously the joists are all going the wrong way. The last time I did something like this I cut holes in the ceiling plasterboard large enough to get my drill in and then bored a small hole through the centre of the joist at the edge of...

Hi all, I want to put a couple of outside lights in (flanking the patio doors) that come on when we walk out at night. I just wondered if I can just use the feed from the lighting ring or whether I need to put them on their own breaker ? (I was just thinking that, because they are outside...

Hi all, I'm not a qualified sparky but I'm a very competent DIY'er (with lots of electrical experience in industrial applications - three phase, low voltage stuff etc). We've got an extension built and I just want to run 4 sockets and some lights into it. Everything is easily accessible because...