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Happy Christmas to all. Hope it’s an enjoyable one despite the circumstances of 2020. May 2021 be a more normal year for us all. I’ve moved into a house with two Potterton boilers, each with its own controller. One boiler is for the upstairs rads and the hot water and the other is for the...

I'm trying to fix a neighbor's dishwasher, a 5 year old Baumatic unit. The fault is that the leak sensor has been triggered. This happened once before; I found very salty water in the tray at the bottom. I cleaned out the tray and dried it and ran it outside propped up on some planks connected...

I'm investigating the feasibility of modifying my garage roof to increase the headroom in order to allow the installation of a 4 post lift to store a classic car. It's a double garage about 30 years old of single skin brick construction with a trussed roof. I'm in discussions with a structural...

My central heating used to consist of a Potterton Profile 60e boiler with radiators on 2 floors and a hot water cylinder upstairs. The system is vented with a circulation pump. There was a three port valve that sent the boiler's output to either the hot water cylinder or the rads as requested...

In late September I'll be adding a retrofit UFH to the ground floor of my home (the polypipe overlay system). The installer has experience of the system in his own home and suggests leaving some rads in place as on the coldest of days the UFH might not be able to put enough heat into the room...

I'm looking to enclose an existing front porch by building a dwarf wall (single skin brick) and then installing windows and a door. A photo of the existing porch roof is below. My initial thought was to maximise the size of the porch by lining up the brickwork and windows vertically with the...

I'm having my double garage converted from two single up and over doors to one large double roller door. It was built approximately 25 years ago and is of single skin brick construction with a trussed roof covered by flat cement tiles. The fascia, soffits and gutters were replaced about 8 years...

Some background - the house is a late 80s 2 story build with fairly normal brick and cavity wall construction. uPVC windows were installed in the early 90s. After last winter's heavy and persistent rains we ended up with some water damage to 2 of the window cills on the inside of the house on...

Hello, Any ideas who makes this valve? The logo is a stylised "o" Thanks for any pointers.

We have a Stuart Turner 3 bar twin pump located in the base of the airing cupboard that has been providing faithful service to an over bath shower and the basin tap for 10 years. The only downside is that the basin tap is plumbed through the pump and it's annoying to have the pump run in the...

We have removed the gas fire and chairback etc from the chimney breast and are left with a recess that varies from 61.5 to 62 cm wide. It is lined with concrete blocks. How can I shave the necessary 0.5 cm to get an alcove that is 62 cm wide ( or a tiny bit more) - the inset woodburner we're...

My home has a upvc front door and immediately adjacent to the door is a upvc window. The door and the window both have a frame thickness of roughly 65mm. This combination has been in place for about 20 years and works OK but the faux rosewood plastic door looks cheap and doesn't do much for the...

I would like to remove a soil pipe vent that is no longer used as it's been replaced by an air admittance valve. It's a pretty standard pitched roof built from trusses covered with concrete tiles and there's lead flashing around the plastic vent pipe "tile". Is this a reasonable DIY task working...

My home (built circa 1990) has two soil stacks, one serving a bath, loo and basin on the first floor and the 2nd serving a shower, loo and basin on the first floor and a cloakroom on the ground floor. As part of redoing both bathrooms I would like to use air admittance valves instead of the...

Everbuild's dryfix looks to be a convenient alternative to dot and dab for fixing plasterboard to walls. However, I can't find any info on how strong it is - can I then tile onto the plasterboard without risking the whole sheet coming loose? Should I supplement it with mechanical fasteners?

Help. I'm trying to find a sealing ring for a close coupled WC. No brand on the WC - all I can find is a manufacturing date of Oct 2000 and "Made in UAE" stamped in the cistern. The ring itself is essentially a foam/rubber donut with an OD of roughly 4" and an ID of roughly 2.25". This ring is...

Any issues tiling onto plasterboard held up by dry foam adhesive onto a breeze block wall as opposed to using dot and dab; in other words is the dry foam adhesive strong enough? And any advice on how to deal with walls that aren't quite vertical/level if using the dry foam adhesive? This was...

A have a T+E cable running up the back wall of the airing cupboard feeding two mains outlets in the loft. It’s in turn fed from a fused spur attached to the ring main. I would like to install a shower pump (220v) and a low voltage transformer (for 24v supplementary underfloor heating in the...

A couple of years ago I had some gates fitted, each about 6' by 6'. They seemed well made with cross pieces, pegged, etc. However, one has sagged by about 1/2" or so and rubs against the other when closed. The hinges used are v similar to...

My house has what seems like well made double glazing units that were installed about 16 years ago. A few of the units have started to cloud over. Can anyone provide any insight into what it will cost to have new double glazing panels installed into the existing frames? Typical sizes are 15"...