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I recently pulled up a bunch of old lino that was laid directly over bare concrete. The lino was completely mouldy underneath, presumably due to the lack of breathability and high moisture levels. Is there any type of flooring/underlay that can breathe or am I looking at a liquid DPM + self...

I got new uPVC tilt and turns installed and after the bit of rain we had this morning, there's still some water in the sash and frame. Can someone tell me if this is normal or going to be an issue? Water seems to be collecting inside the sash and when I open the window, the momentum sloshing...

I live in a Glasgow tenement and have one of those long-ish and narrow bathrooms (~1.3m x 3.5m). Currently I have an extractor fan mounted to the window. It's pretty loud and the room is still quite steamy after a shower but the fan clears it in a little while after the shower is turned off. The...

I'm currently in dispute with a builder regarding an installation of a kitchen extract duct. They've basically cut the rigid PVC pipe too short, used around 6ft of flex ducting, and is completely uninsulated/no condensate drain fitted. The flex ducting is compressed, unsupported, loops/sags on...

I live in Scotland in a tenement flat on the 3rd floor, in a non-conservation area. My flat currently has tilt and turn double glazed uPVC windows but are over 20 years old by now. I saw two window installers working in the area and I called them to arrange quotes. 3rd floor, 9 windows...

My mother stays in a old end terrace building, circa 1800 I think (although I've heard 1600 too). She's on the ground floor and has two neighbours above. The top floor is renovating and his builder has found water ingress coming from between the stonework of the end gable wall. When it's...

I had my kitchen extract ducting replaced as it was done badly and I think it's been bodged again. Some pics attached. What are the regs for kitchen extract ducting? I have no idea why they decided to cut a 2ft of the PVC pipe to replace it with 5ft of flexi. Surely that flexi is too long...

My small 2 bed flat is severely lacking in storage space. The guest/office room is currently used as a store / laundry drying room and I'm wanting to get that sorted. My flat is an old tenement building so it has high ceilings (approx 3.3m) and I'm considering getting a high level shelf put in...

I've been working on getting a wood burner installed in my old Victorian tenement fireplace and it's mostly complete. Unfortunately the tiles I've bought arrived completely smashed twice so I've had to get the stove installed before finishing the tiling. The walls of my fire recess are not the...

I'm planning on tiling the left and right sides of my fireplace and I'm needing tips on how to finish the edge neatly. The fire recess is not right angled, it's an acute trapezoid (thanks google!). Someone recommended that I build out one of the side walls so the two side walls have matching...

I'm wanting to clean up the look of my fireplace before a woodburner gets installed. It's currently some old brick that I've scrubbed as much soot off as I can. A lot of the mortar is missing and the wall very uneven, with dips and missing chunks of brick here and there. So I plan to cover it up...

Long story short, I took a rad off the wall and flushed out a ton of sludge. Rehung and it's improved considerably but not completely. The back panel is now hot all along the bottom but the front panel is still cold along most of the bottom. Doesn't start getting hot until a third of the way up...

My central heating is on microbore, which is blocked in places and most the rads are full of sludge, so the system needs gutted. I know in the living room, the microbore pipework was just jammed between a gap in the floorboards, wouldn't surprise me if the rest of the flat was in a similar...

My mother's house has a half subterranean floor, which was flooded in 2011ish. Scottish water or the council blocked a storm drain outside and about half a foot of water came in. They were playing the blame game and eventually my mother fixed it through her own insurance as it took out her...

My flat has some pretty old tilt and turn Roto windows and they are all very draughty. I had CR Smith come in and adjust a lot of the hinges so they would open and close more smoothly but it didn't help the draught problem. I've been looking at the keeps and noticed they are screwed directly...

Surprisingly, the search didn't bring up much for pullup bar. I'm more familiar with plumbing and metalwork than wood so I'm doubting myself here. Looking for some advice please. I got some iron pipe to diy a pullup bar as the doors in my tenement flat are too wide for the leverage style door...

I'm needing more storage in my house for the bulky items that are getting in the way at the moment. Suitcases, camping equipment, tools, and the like. I stay in an old tenement flat with high ceilings so I'm thinking about building a shelf in my office / storeroom. Added a sketch for what I...

I just got a new boiler fitted a few weeks ago and I'm pretty certain the guy cut every corner possible. The system was not flushed, no cleaner or inhibitor was used and the core for the flue was eyeballed without a pilot hole drilled. The condensate drain goes into a PVC pipe that was...

I need some extra storage in my house and as I have high ceilings, I'm wondering if it would be possible to build a freestanding mezzanine out of wood? Freestanding because it's an old tenement building and I want to keep drilling into walls at a minimum (joist hangers are not really an...

I have a kitchen extract fan in the ceiling that's ducted to exit via the roof and when I was in the loft, I noticed rainwater running down the outside of the duct. It hasn't touched the ceiling yet but the wooden board holding the extractor fan is completely rotten. I called the factor and...