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Hello all, getting round to renovating the bathroom in our 1909 solid wall red brick house (on first floor) - any advice on what should go behind tiles on an internal brick wall in a shower area (and external brick wall not in shower area)? One tradesperson has said sand and cement render and...

Many thanks for the replies @catlad @JohnD @cdbe - I will have a measure of the exposed joists tomorrow! I can't believe I didn't notice the RSJ before - that's reassuring to see! The dormer window is directly above this RSJ, whereas we have the bookshelves on the opposite side where the roof...

Hello, I'm just wondering how to tell if the joists in your loft are strong enough, whether just for storage or to use as a regular room? I'm partly asking because we would like to eventually board the loft void above the rear part of our Edwardian house to use for storage, after insulating...

Thanks for replies! So do you all feel it's more likely to do with how the window is fitted against the lead, rather than my theory about needing a drip cap? It just seems like the rain can potentially get in from above the sealed area and go behind it via the lead, so resealing wouldn't fix...

Hello all, I'm wondering if anyone can advise how to solve the issue with the new UPVC window in our loft room? After recent stormy weather, we found it had been leaking from above the window on the left hand side, plus a bit of a stain in the middle (see pictures). The window is located in a...

Thank you everyone for the responses! This is our house for the long term, and we do want to preserve as much that is original as possible - plus have plenty that needs money spending on elsewhere. The house has been reasonably neglected since the late 80s, so the sills possibly haven't been...

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Hello, I'm in the middle of repainting our sandstone window sills on our 1910 house, and looking for some advice on what to do about the currently unpainted undersides of the ground floor sills - they are slightly eroded all the way along, plus one end is particularly damaged (see photos). I'm...

Thanks @Hugh Jaleak for the response! Will go with the pots I think. The concrete level is a bit higher than expected and we didn't really appreciate that the pipe would be encased, but if it's not doing any damage like this then that's the main thing. I'm now preparing to repaint the plinth...

Hi everyone, just looking for a second opinion on our filled-in gully! We recently found a broken drain below the gully outside the kitchen of our 1910 house (which the sink and washing machine drain into, so this had just been pouring into the ground for who knows how long!). We have just had...

Just found out this is likely to be burn marks from soldering the pipes - so false alarm hopefully! *phew*

Hi @foxhole, did you click to open the thumbnails? They were the best I could get until I get a memory card for the endoscope unfortunately!

Hello everyone, I have been looking under the kitchen floor in the 1910 house we recently moved to using an endoscope, in order to check out joists etc as there was penetrating damp in two walls when we bought (have since taken steps to address this with additional airbricks, fixed guttering...

Thank you everyone! Will investigate further but feeling less worried about it. I think most of the damage I can see so far looks old, maybe some fresher looking bits further in that need exploring, but the main thing is that we have already taken steps to sort damp and improve ventilation...

Thanks @jeds for the reply - when we viewed the house this space was full of suitcases etc, so indeed probably not much airflow; since then it does at least seem to get enough to rattle the hatch a lot when it's windy or another window is open, so hoping this is an improvement. We plan to put...

Hello, I was looking in the loft of a 1900s house we've recently moved to, and noticed some tracks in the rafters that look like some kind of wood boring insect (images attached) - is that correct and is it possible to tell if old or recent? There's insulation below the beams so difficult to...

Hello, we are having some groundworks done and have noticed that where the concrete has been partially removed around the bottom of the soil pipe (from toilet etc), it has exposed a gap at the end of the plastic pipe which is leaking - it looks maybe like the collar on the lower clay pipe has...